Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

As I said before, to my nostrils the book stinks of Victorianism. It is as sham-gothic as the Scott Monument, Glasgow University, St. Pancras Station and the Houses of Parliament. I hate such structures. Their useless over-ornamentation was paid for out of needlessly high profits: profits squeezed from the stunted lives of children, women and men working more than twelve hours a day, six days a week in NEEDLESSLY filthy factories; for by the nineteenth century we had the knowledge to make things cleanly. We did not use it. The huge profits of the owning classes were too sacred to be questioned. To me this book stinks as the interior of a poor woman’s crinoline must have stunk after a cheap weekend railway excursion to the Crystal Palace. I realize I am taking it too seriously, but I am thankful to have survived into the twentieth century.