Faith > Recent Status Updates

My Massive Victorian Novel of the year for 2026

Some very strange presentation of data: 'approximately 48 million Europeans left the continent between 1846 and 1924 alone. This was equal to about 12 percent of the population in 1900' - but that wasn't all in one year, it was across 78 years. Comparing that data to umbers migrating annually is very strange.

Every page at the moment is basically 'Victorian England was disgusting, everything was covered in shit and piss and blood and no one ever washed, everyone was stupid and smelled, thank God this one guy existed or else we'd all be living like pigs'

So many of the minor characters in this novel have surnames that my ancestors had (Tillotson!), which is unsurprising as they were from roughly the same region of the pennines - just a hill away. The fact I know so many of the locations is perfect. I can picture every scene that's described perfectly.

Who is this for????

I'm convinced RF Kuang is the greatest literary fraud of this decade. How has she managed to convince so many people that she is writing cutting edge and thoughtful literature?

It reads slowly but that is only making me savour it all the more.

This is going to take approximately forever