George Gissing is an author everyone would like to like; but unless he's the subject of your dissertation, you won't.

There are always some difficulties with reading a book from a completely different era, and this book is no exception. Though the language wasn't difficult to understand, I did have some trouble relating to the ideas of class and social status that Godwin Peak was so concerned about. However, I had

I was reading a couple of reviews on here, and it seems to me thaT the majority of the authors of said reviews have missed the point of the novel. This book is NOT about the impossibility of climbing outside one's own social sphere. This is an attack on idealism; it is Peak's idealism that forces hi

This book is an anti-quest. Fundamentally it encourages us to accept ourselves as human beings, and not to spoil our lives trying to achieve something that is ‘beyond’ our humanity. Doing so only provokes a lifetime of frustrated struggle, it says, which leaves behind it lots of regrets and wasted y

I found this more digestible than New Grub Street. The hero of this novel is Godwin Peak, a young man of great intelligence who feels himself to have been born into the wrong class, hence to have been "born in exile". The plot turns upon his misguided attempts to win the love of a woman, Sidwell, fr

Born in Exile by George Gissing is a book about classism, politics, religion, morality, and gender roles. It explores science and education. It explores ideas of feminism and radicalism. All of that should lead to a book I love, but I never found myself connected to the story and I disliked the main

The Story Of Godwin Peak

Just before publication in 1892, George Gissing changed the title of his novel to the evocative "Born in Exile" from the name of its primary character, the difficult, complex anti-hero, Godwin Peak. Although written after Gissing had made a name for himself with "New Grub Str

This is my third Gissing novel, after New Grub Street and The Odd Women, all three written in close succession between 1891 and 1893. New Grub Street is far the most famous of these novels, but, curiously, it’s the one I liked least of the three.

Born in Exile is impressive as a novel of ideas which

I thoroughly enjoyed this long book exploring one man's attempts to manoeuvre himself into a socity he was not born into. I loved the twists and turns as he struggled to mask his true feelings in order to ingratiate himself with others. I really get involved in these internal dilemmas and could feel