Eighteen hours and eighteen minutes of this felt like so much longer, somehow. And has led to a review-or-whatever-you-want-to-call-this that seems almost as long … And ranty. That might make up for some of the length. And that's one of the reasons for my rating to be three stars instead of two – along with the fact that Juliet Stevenson's performance elevated it all, say whatever else I will say, the book did stir up emotions. Though perhaps not the emotions Miss Gaskell might have intended. One of the quirks of my memory is that, while I know I saw the miniseries based on this book years ago, and I seem to remember liking it, I remember almost nothing about it. I know both book and film garnered effusive praise in the online community I belonged to at the time, which is why I ended up watching it, and why I spent that Audible credit on Juliet Stevenson's reading of the book. A current friend praises Ms. Stevenson to the skies – and she couldn't be more right, the performance is superb. Past and present friends praised the book to the skies… and … I … don't know. I did some thinking about virgin goddesses, listening to this book. Depending on how you read her, Diana always was a bit of a bitchy prig; look at what happened to Medusa. Diana was a warrior, and there's no questioning her scornful courage, but while her insistence on retaining her virginity was a perfectly laudable intent, her actions in defense of it were sometimes a bit over the top, by modern eyes at least. Look at what happened to Actaeon. Which brings me to Margaret. Her pride and her prejudices make any given Jane Austen character look absolutely logical and open-minded. She lowers herself to visit the poor and mortally ill Bessy Higgins – when she remembers – purely because she is guilted and shamed into it, and then after a while her interest is caught despite herself. Her self-centeredness and reluctance to lower herself by entering the poor Higgins home is countered only by a bold – slightly marvelous – reminder from Bessy that, eh, she never thought Margaret would show up anyhow; resignedly, Margaret determines that she will not allow this lower class girl to be able to crow over her. Afterward, she forgets to go as often as possible, or finds excuses not to. In another arena: when her first marriage proposal comes – poor mistaken fool that the man was – he was just lucky she didn't have Diana's powers or he would have suddenly been standing bewildered on four cloven hooves wondering why all those dogs were starting to drool. Her reactions to both men who dare - dare - to tell her their feelings are the same: outrage, scorn, offense. How could they ever dream of considering thinking of telling her they loved her? The cheek! The nerve! The effrontery! For most of the book I was hoping and praying that Margaret would find herself a withered spinster at fifty, petting her cats and trying to convince herself that's the way she wanted it. After only a few chapters, I was beginning to worry. I don't like these people – not just Margaret, almost all of them. My impression of Henry Lennox was very good – him I liked, and it seemed obvious to me that he loved Margaret. Her reaction? See above: contempt complete with a curled lip. I was revolted. She's a Victorian innocent, and unsettled by her first candidate for the role of lover – I get that. But rather than behave graciously, as I thought she was meant to do as a Victorian innocent, she squashes him like a bug. A really nasty bug. But she hopes they can still be friends. I wanted to slap her. Then comes the upheaval at home. After a few semi-blissful days back in her country home, her father – who has been acting oddly – drops a bomb on her (and only on her): he is at odds with his church, and although he loves his work, loves his parish, loves his people, he cannot continue to serve them. The reasons for this are not explained – I suppose it is assumed that the reader will understand. I don't, and I never did have the chance to research the apparent schism. Without more information about what could cause such soul-searching, Hale comes off as a selfish, weak, pig-headed fool who injures the parish he supposedly loves by abruptly leaving it to someone else, and who injures his family by the manner in which he does so. His wife is a discontented self-centered annoyance, and he – apparently terrified at setting off a hellstorm – shirks the duty of telling her of his decision for weeks. I waited. I had a feeling I knew what was coming. Hale has dragged his wife to a country parsonage where she is miserable, but he is happy and does good work. I'm not going to denigrate his reasons for not being able to continue – I don't know enough about the situation, so while it looks like a very poor decision to me – he won't be doing himself, his family, his cause, or his parishioners any good by up and leaving – it might be morally sound. Whatever the situation, he does everything in the most frustratingly, infuriatingly sheepishly underhanded manner. If he had said "I'm the man of the house, this is my decision, I have no choice within the scope of my conscience, I'm sorry if it inconveniences you but if you love me I hope you will support my decision" – that would have been manly. This … this is like a five year old who tells a fib about how that vase got broken, and then develops a fever from the guilt and scares the household half to death before finally tearfully confessing. He goes about writing letters and arranging his resignation and securing a replacement, all the while moping about the house taking up dramatic poses of despair without telling anyone why. By the time he finally pulls Margaret aside and spills it, it feels like one of those scenes of a drama queen drooping about with the back of her hand pressed to her forehead, sighing tremulous sighs, trying to force someone to ask her whatever's wrong – and no one does, so she's finally driven to just come out with it.During the conversation with Margaret, he evades the subject of her mother until she finally corners him into revealing that … well… no, he hasn't told her. He's been making all these plans for weeks now and hasn't told her. Was he waiting for her to rise to his bait and ask him? She's at least as self-centered as he is, so there was never a chance of that; my impression of her is that if someone were to come to her bleeding from a head wound she would get upset about the stains on the carpet, and then faint and expect to be tended to first. Regardless, he hasn't told her – and I waited. And finally, there it was: "If I tell you all, perhaps you could break it to her tomorrow?" And Margaret's response? Should have been "Oh, no. Not a chance, mister. You should have told her – never mind me – ages ago, and you're gonna suck it up and go tell her right this second. This is your mess – you deal with it." But no.The weakness of the man, and the passive strength of the girl – because she has no choice. She *can't* say no, or he'll – sadly – think less of her as a daughter – and, worse, she'll suffer pangs of guilt for ages thinking of herself as a bad daughter. It's ludicrous. "They were at the lowest now; they could not be worse." – Margaret, pondering on their situation after their move.What a disgusting line. How dare she think so? I suppose there's irony in the sentence, because things certainly will get worse for them, but to be surrounded by the poor, who are as likely to starve to death as not, and – far from realizing how well off they themselves are in comparison – to count the presence of those poor as part of why their own situation has degraded… Thoroughly ugly and distasteful. I just did not like any of these people. JohnThornton is the closest – he seems open, honest, straightforward – but he has his prejudices and harshnesses. He is one of the only ones I can find any respect for - and even he goes completely unreasonable and hard-headed about his employees, insisting that an employer must be a dictator, and ignorance is the best state for a worker - i.e., a stupid worker is a docile worker. I simply do not find him likeable overall. Mr. Hale is impossible. He has no backbone whatsoever – he makes Kleenex look strong and upstanding. As the tale wore on, I began to feel some sympathy for Mrs. Hale, but she was still too vain and ridiculous to really warm up to, and every time I started to she waxed selfish and stupid again and I wanted to smother her with her own lace-lined pillows. 'Why, I should not be ill—be dying—if he had not taken me away from Helstone, to this unhealthy, smoky, sunless place.' What a hideous, lingeringly painful thing to say. Then there's the whole state of affairs regarding Frederick, Margaret's brother. He was part of a (perfectly righteous, of course) mutiny, and is now living far away under another name because of a very real danger that the authorities will catch up to him and hang him. But his mother wants to see him. Now. 'I charge you, Margaret, as you yourself hope for comfort in your last illness, bring him to me that I may bless him. Only for five minutes, Margaret. There could be no danger in five minutes. Oh, Margaret, let me see him before I die!' An hour later: 'Oh, Margaret, I'm so afraid of his coming! If he should be recognised! If he should be taken! If he should be executed, after all these years that he has kept away and lived in safety! I keep falling asleep and dreaming that he is caught and being tried.' Stupid cow. Half killing your husband with guilt isn't bad enough, but now trying to get your son killed, then heaping guilt upon your daughter's head for doing exactly what you told her to do. Stupid, selfish, disgusting cow. Other characters: Bessy Higgins I liked somewhat, but she is a bit of a scary fanatic who threatens at one point to kill Margaret and has an unhealthy fixation on the Book of Revelation; her sister Mary is a cardboard cutout only serving to be clumsy and timid and make Bessy look better; their father might be a good man – he tries, with the strike – and I liked him in some scenes as well, but he can't stay away from the bottle, and he's hard. Martha is an auld harridan, Fanny is one to love to hate, Mrs. Thornton was possibly the most likeable and sympathetic, in an odd love-to-read-about-you-wouldn't-want-to-know-you sort of way, and … I liked Henry Lennox, dammit. How do I feel about Margaret? Let me put it this way. My maternal grandmother's name was Margaret. It disgusts me that this creature shares her name. I kept wanting to like Margaret, and then her lip would curl again for some reason or other, or she'd forget about Bessie again, and I was back to wanting to slap her. She is a prig and a ludicrous snob, and not terribly bright, and can be outright vicious."She, who had hitherto felt that even the most refined remark on her personal appearance was an impertinence, had to endure undisguised admiration from these outspoken men." "These outspoken men" weren't wolf-whistling, or propositioning her, or commenting on her breasts, or anything I would expect to be called "impertinent". No. They were, rather gallantly I thought, giving her genuine compliments. Someone, quickly, call the police. "Margaret thought she had seen the face of one of them before, and returned him a proud look of offended dignity for his somewhat impertinent stare of undisguised admiration." But see, if no one ever looked at her or found her attractive I expect she would be offended about that, too. It's odd, because I'd swear that at some point at least one character (undoubtedly female) dismisses Margaret's looks as not beautiful but distinctive – yet she is constantly, and I do mean constantly, praised as just stunning. It did not take long for me to weary of all the compliments lavished on Margaret – not by her father or mother or her unlucky swains, but by the narrative voice. "Sweet" and "sunny" and "stately" and "elegant" … There was one lengthy description of her more than midway through – which I can't find now – which raised both my eyebrows. It's another place where I questioned whether Gaskell was injecting irony, but doesn't seem to be… "She was so gentle and ladylike in her mode of reception that her visitor was somewhat daunted". Wha - ? Since when is haughtiness and disdain and a quick temper part of the definition of "gentle" OR "ladylike"? It baffled me that this sort of thing: "her lips, moving so slightly as she spoke, not breaking the cold serene look of her face with any variation from the one lovely haughty curve" – was presented as if to say "isn't she wonderful??? Because – no. Cold may go hand in hand with serene, but it's not a great pairing; if "haughty" is "lovely" then it's not the kind of lovely that's admirable. It's just absurd. Her "sweet patience" and "sweet forbearance" and yet still "her regal composure"… She's cold. She's sweet. She's sunny. She's haughty. She's patient and contemptuous and regal and – wait. She's wonderful no matter what and everyone comes to love her – even Mrs. Thornton comes to respect her … the narrator adores her … Margaret is a Mary Sue.That goes a long ways toward explaining my loathing of her. I feel a little stupid that I can't tell if Elizabeth Gaskell means it or is being ironic or sarcastic when she speaks of Mr. Hale being a kindly and big-hearted gentleman, and when she describes Margaret as "sweet" despite all evidence to the contrary; one of the very last adjectives I would ever assign to Margaret is "sweet". I can't tell if the depiction of Margaret as largely inconsequential among her aunt's circle yet so astoundingly snobbish in Milton is meant to be social commentary. I hope so. I do hope so. But there doesn't seem to be any of that. I don't know if it's having a 2012 perspective on a book published in 1855, but … bleh. Elizabeth Gaskell's skill as a writer is, for me, in this, wildly erratic. On one (virtual) page she will present me with a bit of business I can't help but enjoy – and then a few minutes later I'll be rolling my eyes again. Speaking of eyes, this is a partial list of how Margaret's eyes are described (thank you, Project Gutenberg): - her large soft eyes - the pure serenity of those eyes- her large grave eyes - her beautiful eyes - yo'r clear steadfast eyes- yo'r deep comforting eyes- the large soft eyes that looked forth steadily at one object- those beautiful eyes- her deep, serious eyes- Her grave sweet eyesI'm sure there's more. It was just hilarious after a while. I know: Victorian. Still. Other problems I had with the writing, in terms of pacing and plot: There is immense buildup to Frederick's coming, and then to his first meeting with his mother – and then it's skipped over, and he's gone in a minute. There is buildup to Bessy's death – and we hear about it after the fact. Then it's pretty much over, and Margaret certainly doesn't go to the funeral. In reading people's reviews of books from other eras, I tend to become annoyed with complaints about what are now seen as completely wrong-headed mindsets. Prejudices, discrimination, particularly chauvinism, use of words which are now verboten – it's baffled me in the past, because if a book is about another time period – much less written in another time period – the characters in it cannot be expected to embrace Equal Rights and Women's Lib and so on. Suddenly, though, with this book I'm feeling exactly what I've criticized others for expressing. The casual racism – I put a quote in the updates somewhere – and rampant elitism were ugly and pervasive. Basically, anyone who was not exactly like or higher in rank than Margaret was worth only contempt until proven otherwise. The Irish, the poor, the country folk of Helstone and the city folk of Helstone, people in other walks of life who don't try to better themselves and those who do – everyone. It was just awful that Margaret had to be subjected to living among these inferior beings. However I feel about the book, I have absolutely nothing bad to say about the narration. It was wonderful. Juliet Stevenson uses breath and silence and pause like no other narrator I've come across yet. It's exquisite. And her characterizations were perfect. I can still hear the lines I've quoted above – especially Mrs. Hale moaning Margaret's name – in Juliet Stevenson's voice; I can't imagine how much more I would have disliked these characters if I hadn't been enjoying the reading so much. Oh – one thing I particularly enjoyed was that Mrs. Thornton's voice was made deeper than John's. I thought it was perfect. Accents were wonderful, tones were perfectly suited to the characters, I loved everything about the read. Ms. Stevenson officially became one of the narrators I will follow anywhere: I'll listen to anything as long as it's in her voice. Even Elizabeth Gaskell.
This review is also posted on Babblings of a Bookworm: http://babblingsofabookworm.blogspot....I have been trying not to re-read books because I have so many new book I haven’t read yet, but the Goodreads North and South group that I’m a member of were having a group read and I couldn’t resist joining in. Since everybody approaches a book from their unique perspective we all interpret a story through our own filter and will see things differently. I got a lot out of doing the group read as people raised points that might not have occurred to me, and solidified my views of other aspects. As with any book I’d consider a classic it’s very hard to write a review, I don’t feel worthy! So instead I’ll just say I’m sharing my thoughts!North and South tells the story of 18 year old Margaret Hale. She has been brought up in her aunt’s house in London for the last 9 years as a companion to her cousin Edith, but now Edith is due to marry and Margaret will return to her parent’s home. Though sincerely fond of Edith and Aunt Shaw, Margaret can’t wait to be able to be a daughter to her parents again back in the hamlet of Helstone in the New Forest. However, Margaret’s joy at returning home is short-lived. Her father, Mr Hale, is a clergyman, but he has been having a spiritual crisis, disagreeing with many of the doctrines of the church. He doesn’t feel that he can, in good conscience, continue to act as a clergyman and has decided to move the family to Milton, an industrial town in the North of England, where Mr Hale proposes to work as a tutor, teaching the finer points of classics and literature to adult students.Milton couldn’t be much more different to the New Forest. It is dirty, industrial and the people are different too, being far less class-conscious, more forward, and the pace of life is also quite different. One of Mr Hale’s pupils is John Thornton, a successful mill-owner. To Margaret, he personifies the North, being hard, uncaring of people, seeing his workers only as cogs in the machine of his business rather than as people in their own right and only caring for money. Margaret is sadly prejudiced against Mr Thornton, still retaining some of her London snobbery towards tradesmen and their pretences of being something other than they are.In fact, Mr Thornton is a self-made man. Following his father’s suicide the then-teenaged Thornton left schooling and obtained a job as a draper’s assistant to be able to support his mother and sister. He not only repaid his father’s debts but managed to get a job as an assistant manager in a cotton mill, eventually becoming a successful mill-owner, through his hard work. He is driven, and proud of his achievements, though he feels that anybody willing to work could have achieved what he did. Over time and through some very sad events, both Margaret and Thornton change. She comes to understand how the Northerner’s minds work and the reasoning behind their views. Thornton comes to appreciate his workers on a more personal basis and once he is able to understand their perspective he can work to improve his workers’ lot in life without overstepping the boundaries of his proud countrymen.I’ve always thought of North and South as being like Pride & Prejudice with a social conscience and I still think that’s a fair summation. Mr Thornton is proud, and rightly so, but the reason he holds himself apart from his fellow-man isn’t particularly his pride but his somewhat incomplete view of them. Margaret is also very proud, but she’s also extremely prejudiced. She has an additional problem in the form of the support she has to provide to her family during a time when they are under a lot of pressure.Mrs Gaskell was writing at a time well-known for the increase in social conscience, where people took an interest in reducing problems and injustices in wider society. There were many attempts made by authors to raise awareness of the way life was for the working man in order to gain more understanding and empathy for his situation. In North and South Thornton himself is initially unsympathetic to the troubles of his worker – since he has raised himself up from scant earnings he sees no reason why any other man who can read and write couldn’t do the same but once he gets to know them on a human level he gets to understand them and their issues better. For all his self-made success, even Thornton isn’t infallible so he learns that hard work alone isn’t always enough.One thing I always enjoy with older books is a peep at aspects of life in times gone by. In some stories this glimpse could be nuances of society, etiquette etc. Here, the focus is on the life of the workers, an exploration of industrial relations and the moral role of the master is brought to life with human interest. All of this with the undercurrent of a romance that is full of twists, angst, misunderstanding and plenty of passion, kept sternly repressed by crinoline and frock coat for the most part!If you’ve watched the excellent BBC adaptation I would still recommend reading the book. Not only do you get more of the inner thoughts of Margaret and Mr Thornton but I think you get more of the societal message that Gaskell was intending to convey along with the growth of the main characters. This is one of my all time favourites and I highly recommend it.
What do You think about North And South (1994)?
Where Austen leaves off, Gaskell picks up. There is a great similarity in the style of these two 19th century writers. Both wield language with elegance and strength. Call it muscle-bound eloquence! Gaskell was born during the time in which Austen set most of her books...well round about then anyway. It's hard to tell exactly when most Austen novels are set, but generally they're meant to be prior to or during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). Gaskell was born in 1810. However, Gaskell's writing is solidly Victorian. Like Dickens, her eyes were open to the horrendous condition of the lower classes. She doesn't have Dickens' sense of fun, and that's probably for the best. Charlie could get a might bit silly at times. Gaskell has a sense of fun, but it's less slap-sticky and not so over-the-top in general. Ironically, that could go to speak on why she's not more widely read today. This, her most popular novel, tends towards the depressing. Margaret Hale, our steady heroine in North and South, is the daughter of a wavering priest who uproots the family and moves them, sick wife and all, to a sooty northern factory town. Once there, Margaret's heart goes out to the workers, as she is appalled by what she sees. She also misunderstands the motives and intentions of one of the factory owners, John Thornton, the main employer in town and soon a family friend and would-be suitor to Margaret. How can Margaret resolve herself to like Mr. Thornton in the face of all the injustice she perceives? Read to find out. I don't think you'll be disappointed.Rating: This is a very strong 4 stars indeed. Perhaps even 4.5
—Jason Koivu
Five Glorious Stars, and despite what I am about to say, this book is rated G for general audiences. This is the novel that has forever changed the way I think about the Victorians, and particularly about Victorian women. We all have this picture in our heads of blushing innocents, swathed in great layers of petticoats, repressed, oppressed, and when forced to it, lying passively while thinking of England and all that.Nope, I don’t think it was like that at all. North and South is so richly complex, so surprisingly modern, that it can be read on many levels and readers tend to take out of the book what they bring to it. My edition has a long essay by Patricia Ingham that, while helpful, essentially deconstructs Margaret Hale's story as a proto-feminist battle of the sexes that is eventually ‘won’ by Margaret and ‘lost’ by a humbled John Thornton. I think that one’s just dead wrong. Sorry, Oxford.One might also read it as a political tale pitting cold capitalism against labor unions and landed gentry; or as a commentary on societal change; or on the limits of religion and tradition as a guide; or on the dangers of pride and prejudice. Yes, I’ll grant you it’s all that and more.But at its well-disguised core this is a love story; the story of a towering, raging, passionate, sexually-charged love that--against class, against prejudices, against all reason--flares irresistibly between two strong, powerful people; a love that is denied, demanded, fought against, almost lost, and at long last--fulfilled. You don’t believe me? I know. It took me three successive readings over the course of two weeks to really see it and I still would have missed the final clues had it not been for the help of my buddies on the North and South group read, and in particular loriBear, Trudy and Samanta.For skeptics who have already read the book, I particularly recommend the threads for Chapters 37-39 and 51-52, but mind the spoilers! For those of you who have not read it yet, or who have only seen the mini-series, don’t miss this book: it’s even hotter than the movie, but do yourself a favor and read it along with Becca and the world’s best North and South buddies here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...
—Hana
Why have I not come across Elizabeth Gaskell's work before?! I have been missing out. I came across North and South through a recommendation from my good friend to watch the mini-series. So, eventually I did watch the mini-series and I absolutely loved it! I was intrigued by the characters and the story and I really wanted to read the novel. So in a few short days I began reading the original novel. And I really, really loved it. The novel did seem quite daunting, being one of the longer classics I have read so far, but the story was full of detail and it kept flowing and I didn't get bored. As another good friend of mine so eloquently stated, Gaskell captures the happy medium between description and dialogue (Jane Austen being more inclined towards dialogue and Charles Dickens being full of description). Her descriptions of the places in which ‘North and South’ is set are wonderful. As are her characters and the depths to her characters. The story was full of many little side plots as well as the main plot of the growing relationship between the hero and the heroine, Margaret Hale and John Thornton. However controversial this may be, I believe the way to sum up North and South in one sentence would be... Pride and Prejudice meets the industrial revolution. That is how I would sum it up. There are quite a few similarities (which to me suggest Gaskell may have been influenced by Austen’s work (during the equivalent of the first proposal scene in Pride and Prejudice, I could just see Margaret breaking out into ‘From the first moment I met you...)) but then there are so many differences as well to make this a story in its own right. Summing it up like that makes it sound a little simple, which it most definitely is not. Although at the heart there is the love story, similar in development to Darcy and Lizzy, between Thornton and Margaret, there are so many other things going on which make this an interesting and exciting novel. There is always something going on and you will not be bored; there are so many layers to this wonderful story. My favourite character was, surprise surprise, John Thornton. And no this is not purely because he is the hero, and a very strong and handsome hero and that. Thornton is a character with so many levels and layers to his person that he is a wonderful character to read and get to know. One of the most interesting aspects for me to the whole novel was, well what the whole novel is on really, the differences in life between the North and the South, especially the difference in opinion between Margaret from the South and Thornton from the North in the ways regarding the relationship between master and worker. I always found myself agreeing with Thornton in what he was saying, even though I am from the South and Margaret’s country, as what he said seemed to make complete sense to me. There were also opposite opinions expressed from Thornton, a master, and Higgins, a worker. I found myself agreeing with Higgins when he was speaking but then agreeing with Thornton when he would express his views. I mainly found myself agreeing with Thornton more as his arguments, to me, seem founded on very sound logic. This is why I think I liked the character of John Thornton so much (it no doubt helped imagining Richard Armitage as Thornton whilst reading the novel, as Armitage made a very nice John Thornton :P) If you are a lover of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters, historical novels or romance novels I suggest you read this book. If you want an idea of the story beforehand you can’t go wrong with the BBC mini-series which is pretty accurate, but then do not shy away from reading the novel which is worth reading. If you go for the novel first, I recommend watching the mini-series afterwards, as it is so worth watching! For my full review;http://laughingwithlizzie.blogspot.co...
—Soph
