What do You think about Cranford (2006)?
At first, Cranford may seem superficially quaint in it's manner, as it relates the story of a small country town made up of mostly middle-aged women. But to read it only for it's quaintness is to do yourself a disservice, for there is more strength to this novel than just that. The first thing I noticed while reading was the surprisingly modern humor to be picked up on. From forcing laxatives on a fine lace eating cat, to dolling over a cow loved as a daughter (my examples may all be animal related, but there's much more), Cranford's society is absolutely hilarious. But the integrity isn't lacking either. Each woman's individualism is admired and loved, and their quirks accepted. And so I loved each character, but Miss Matty was certainly the star. As a whole, Cranford is a loving community, and I only wish there was more to read.I can understand how some feel uneasy about it's disjointedness, but if you read each chapter like a short story with the same characters it makes sense (though it is chronological). Cranford is a novel I will cherish and certainly read again.
—Katherine
Mrs Gaskell is making a comeback. And not just with my online Trollope group, which has been reading Cranford recently and comparing – or rather, contrasting – it with Trollope’s novels. Libraries are acquiring her novels, many are on the shelves of bookstores, and all are easily available through amazon.com. The BBC has produced excellent, and very popular, made-for-TV series of Cranford, North and South, and Wives and Daughters. My alerts with Google and the NY Times pop up with Gaskell as often as with Trollope. Two hundred years after her birth she is more popular than she has ever been.She made her name with Cranford, published in Dickens’ Household Words from 1851 to 1853 and the book remains her most beloved. Based on the town of Knutsford where Gaskell lived with an aunt when she was a child, Cranford is near a big city, Drumble, a stand-in for Manchester, where Gaskell lived for most of her adult life with her husband, a Unitarian minister.The latest BBC series – there are actually two series – are a combination of Cranford, My Lady Ludlow, and Mr Harrison’s Confessions. The TV version of the story very different from that in the book, which is a cozy episodic collection of stories with a thin plot and much humor. For lovers of Victorian fiction Elizabeth Gaskell is a must-read author. And if you fall for her as I have done, Jenny Uglow has written a fine biography.The house in which she lived with her husband still stands. http://www.elizabethgaskellhouse.org/ Unfortunately, after years of fund-raising and restoration thieves recently stole the roof for the lead and costs for a new roof and repair of water damage are significant.2011 No 86
—Mary Ronan Drew
Ah, so delightful! I loved this. It's really a series of vignettes, and, if there is a plot at all, it doesn't show up until halfway through. But it's so funny! And sad! And it's all about women! I laughed aloud a few times, and almost cried a few other times. Sigh. I'm such a sucker for this stuff. But I loved it. Despite its disjunctive narrative, I read the whole book in less than three days. But I'm strange that way.For Happy (I would alert readers to spoilers, but there actually isn't much to spoil):Yeah, the makers of the Masterpiece adaptation took some serious liberties with the plot (or lack thereof). The series is fun and I'm really enjoying it, but it contains several plot lines that are not in the book. In fact, arguably the most important plot lines in the series are completely made up (as opposed to completely made up by Gaskell, I guess). For example, the young doctor and his girl, and all the associated story-lines, simply do not exist in the book. The carpenter with the broken bones - it's all made up. (That disappointed me, because, ever since Middlemarch, I've had a soft spot for young, ambitious doctors in 19th Century English villages. Alas, it was not to be found.) The cute kid who wants to rise above his station? Not only isn't he in the book, but I think the entire idea of him is alien to this novella, which (unlike Gaskell's other work) is centered entirely around the middle and aristocratic classes (and shifts therein), and barely touches on the working class at all.More mildly, all of the timing is wrong (understandable, since following the vignettes too closely would result in a almost cliff-hanger free show, not good TV). And they skip a couple of deaths. There are a surprising number of deaths in this short novella, and I can see that if the series were more faithful to the book, it might be just too depressing. The book is never depressing, although it has sad moments, because of the quality of the narration, but this is difficult to reproduce on film.Overall, there are probably more inconsistencies than similarities between the two. But it's hard to blame the screen-writer - the book doesn't offer much in the way of actual action to work with, and is noticeably missing any love affairs between attractive young people, which, let's face it, is the bread and butter of Masterpiece. The droll, sarcastic, disjunctive narration of commonplace events, makes for a particularly difficult adaptation.But I love it - a new favorite narrator for me.
—Inder
