The Not-So-Hypothetical Victorian Literature Course #VicLit discussion

A place to discuss all your thoughts on the city within George Gissing's The Nether World.

This is a place of spoilers. Beware.

I found this book bleak and depressing. Some of the writing was rather flat and sagged, but other parts came alive. The best part for me was when there was a bank holiday and everyone went off to Crystal Palace to get blind drunk, ending with two of the women getting into a fight. Clara's fate was hellish. She was not a particularly nice woman, but you would not wish that on anyone. I could not work out whether Sidney Kirkwood's reasoning in his choice of wife was realistic.

I used to daydream that if I were someone high up in the BBC, this would be an interesting book to televize. It would be different, although possibly not popular because it's so bleak and there are no posh people. Then I worried that the acid attack might give people ideas.

It would be an interesting one to make a BBC TV adaptation of though - I wish one existed!