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francisforever123's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
beccakatie's review against another edition
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The combination of heartfelt relationships and class struggle makes North and South a compelling read. The characters are all so compelling with their inner motivations so clearly steering them, and the interactions with each other is written so well.
The representations of the working class allow the reader to see the poverty and misery amongst many of the people. Although the interaction between classes, and the (limited) improvement of workers conditions can seem overly romanticised, the romantic relationship that inspires it is written nicely as an undercurrent surrounded by other events.
The representations of the working class allow the reader to see the poverty and misery amongst many of the people. Although the interaction between classes, and the (limited) improvement of workers conditions can seem overly romanticised, the romantic relationship that inspires it is written nicely as an undercurrent surrounded by other events.
thesistersread1's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
arbhorea's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
kklanee's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
catalogthis's review against another edition
5.0
Holiday reading on loan from Beth. (And no, this has nothing to do with the Civil War miniseries starring Patrick Swayze, as she so gently corrected me.)
My 2-Minute Review:
Holy mackerel, this is good. I expected it to be Austen-ish (and I do love Pride and Prejudice), but if P&P is cotton candy, this is... some other delicious, yet way more nutrient-dense food. Gaskell takes us out of the drawing room and into the streets. Set in the industrial north of England, she gives us strikes, riots, poverty, wealth (new and old), economic debates, religious debates, and some surprisingly modern-feeling observations about psychology. And still, a fully characterized hero and heroine in Mr. Thornton and Margaret Hale. Mr. Thornton, especially. He may have displaced Mr. Darcy at the top of my List of Dreamy Fictional Men. Highly, highly recommended.
My 2-Minute Review:
Holy mackerel, this is good. I expected it to be Austen-ish (and I do love Pride and Prejudice), but if P&P is cotton candy, this is... some other delicious, yet way more nutrient-dense food. Gaskell takes us out of the drawing room and into the streets. Set in the industrial north of England, she gives us strikes, riots, poverty, wealth (new and old), economic debates, religious debates, and some surprisingly modern-feeling observations about psychology. And still, a fully characterized hero and heroine in Mr. Thornton and Margaret Hale. Mr. Thornton, especially. He may have displaced Mr. Darcy at the top of my List of Dreamy Fictional Men. Highly, highly recommended.
pkfire199x's review against another edition
2.0
North and South is what I like to call a book with untapped potential. The novel doesn't possess much in the way of romance, personal struggle, and societal issues that isn't done better by Gaskell's contemporaries such as Dickens, Collins, or the Brontë sisters. Henry Mayhew's deeply influential London Labour and the London Poor alone offers a much more vivid and shocking account of Victorian London's slums and working conditions, and so I have to ask myself: what exactly did Gaskell bring to the table that wasn't already explored sufficiently by those who inspired her?
Typical to writers of the time, Gaskell's novel was a serial, multi-volume affair, and was published on a weekly basis by Household Worlds. It's key to note that Charles Dickens was Elizabeth Gaskell's editor at the time, which was just a few months after Dickens' own socioeconomic novel Hard Times was published in the summer of 1854. Doubtlessly, Dickens must've inspired Gaskell to write a similar class struggle story (he even chose the title of "North and South" for her, rather than Gaskell's preferred "Margaret Hale"), while Jane Austen, I hear, inspired Gaskell in other ways. I've even heard that Charlotte Brontë's Shirley inspired Gaskell's North and South more than Pride and Prejudice did. Inspiration is all well and good, but it's easy to lose oneself in admiration and begin copying too much from what came before, which is what happened to Gaskell as she tried to forge her own path. Dickens must've had a say in her choices, but throughout the novel, you get a sense that Gaskell's focus is prone to shift all over the place, often in ways detrimental to the novel. This is indicative of a writer who doesn't really know what direction they want things to go in, so they try include a little bit of everything in hopes that it will suffice.
Because of its episodic nature, reading the entire novel in one sitting makes for a rather suffocating experience. There may not be much to a chapter sometimes, and so some of the installments come across as desultory rather than as necessary parts to advancing the story. I, myself, am partial to a stroll down the ol' garden path within a novel, but only if the asides are entertaining in and of themselves; or, hold within them some development to the overall thematic direction or characters of the book. In North and South, you could make do without a good portion of its meanderings and have a more decently written novel as a result.
One of the biggest things I see being lauded by reviewers here (many of whom are gals whose views are heavily influenced by the BBC adaptation) is the romance, which I found cruddy and aimless. In terms of growth, the height of the main relationship was never reached over the course of the story (it looked like Gaskell was going to need another 20 chapters just to get there, but perhaps her publishing house shot down the idea?), and so its resolution comes down abruptly like a guillotine at the end of the novel. As to what the ending is, I will not spoil it, but I will say this: Margaret and John spend an awful lot of time thinking about each other rather than interacting with one another. During these times in which their thoughts are upon the other, the scene tends to die, and with it, my interest. I suppose that this is the age-old "absence makes the heart grow fonder" idea at play, but when the two do meet throughout the novel, their interactions are far from enjoyable, even at the end. Class difference in the 19th century is already an interesting topic that can be plumbed deeply without the inclusion of a helter-skelter romance.
I haven't read Pride and Prejudice yet, though I've heard that Gaskell lifted the relationship subplot directly from Austen's novel. This would be forgivable if there had been some sort of new twist or improvement to how the romance proceeds, but there is no indication of that; there is nothing new nor exciting about it, it is just a bland, muddled attempt at creating a profound relationship. One could argue that its merit is to be derived from how it's an allegory for the novel's conflict itself, but to that, I counter: it is less of a clever inclusion and more of an obvious "see what I did there?" sort of thing. By the time that rolls around, the point that Gaskell is trying to make about the North and South dichotomy has already been established, so the extra symbolism becomes redundant. If events within the novel had developed within a shorter period of time, the romance might've been passable, perhaps even good.
As a social commentary and portrayal of both the working class and upper class, North and South is successful enough, managing to put forward some thought-provoking ideas about living conditions and solutions, but again, I find that authors who were already exploring this type of literature in Victorian times had a better handle on how to really get to the heart of matters. Gaskell more or less skirts around the heart of the issue, never really giving us that hard-hitting moment where her main message is best told (aside from a certain factory scene that works well up until the point where a certain Margaret gets involved).
The saving grace of the novel is the writing itself. What appears at first like circumlocution soon becomes essential phrasing; the elongated sentences are almost always effective in developing the novel's tone, its setting, and its characterization. There is a kind of indelible denseness to Gaskell's use of English; it is full of a creative vigor that is hard to come by, though I will admit that in the various peripheral chapters, Gaskell's love for involved sentences becomes a bane rather than a boon. Victorian writers who were serially published faced this sort of filler-chapter dilemma, but many of them found ways to work through it, to make each chapter count toward the big picture. Gaskell, on the other hand, takes too many liberties that don't succeed. A drama like North and South necessitates forward motion, yet Gaskell's polestar tends to stray from the main path. For instance, Gaskell had many opportunities to give us a deeper look into the psychology of the poor, and yet she flounders when it comes to following up on all of the people she introduces, bringing us back to the main two characters, Margaret and John, at inopportune times.
While North and South is not a bad look into the class differences, Victorian suppression, family infrastructure, and working conditions of Victorian London, the book gets bogged down with derivative chapters mired in prolixity; a prolonged romance that is wrapped up in a hurry; and a tiring take on both the "fish-out-water" and "riches-to-rags" tropes. These things were probably more compelling a couple centuries ago, but the impact is not the same anymore. The only other experience I have with Gaskell is with her debut novel, Mary Barton, which I found average and forgettable (and that is all I remember of it). North and South is less forgettable, but it also less successful, overshadowed by better books from the Victorian era. If only Gaskell had taken the time to develop the deficient parts of the novel, this would have been a success.
Typical to writers of the time, Gaskell's novel was a serial, multi-volume affair, and was published on a weekly basis by Household Worlds. It's key to note that Charles Dickens was Elizabeth Gaskell's editor at the time, which was just a few months after Dickens' own socioeconomic novel Hard Times was published in the summer of 1854. Doubtlessly, Dickens must've inspired Gaskell to write a similar class struggle story (he even chose the title of "North and South" for her, rather than Gaskell's preferred "Margaret Hale"), while Jane Austen, I hear, inspired Gaskell in other ways. I've even heard that Charlotte Brontë's Shirley inspired Gaskell's North and South more than Pride and Prejudice did. Inspiration is all well and good, but it's easy to lose oneself in admiration and begin copying too much from what came before, which is what happened to Gaskell as she tried to forge her own path. Dickens must've had a say in her choices, but throughout the novel, you get a sense that Gaskell's focus is prone to shift all over the place, often in ways detrimental to the novel. This is indicative of a writer who doesn't really know what direction they want things to go in, so they try include a little bit of everything in hopes that it will suffice.
Because of its episodic nature, reading the entire novel in one sitting makes for a rather suffocating experience. There may not be much to a chapter sometimes, and so some of the installments come across as desultory rather than as necessary parts to advancing the story. I, myself, am partial to a stroll down the ol' garden path within a novel, but only if the asides are entertaining in and of themselves; or, hold within them some development to the overall thematic direction or characters of the book. In North and South, you could make do without a good portion of its meanderings and have a more decently written novel as a result.
One of the biggest things I see being lauded by reviewers here (many of whom are gals whose views are heavily influenced by the BBC adaptation) is the romance, which I found cruddy and aimless. In terms of growth, the height of the main relationship was never reached over the course of the story (it looked like Gaskell was going to need another 20 chapters just to get there, but perhaps her publishing house shot down the idea?), and so its resolution comes down abruptly like a guillotine at the end of the novel. As to what the ending is, I will not spoil it, but I will say this: Margaret and John spend an awful lot of time thinking about each other rather than interacting with one another. During these times in which their thoughts are upon the other, the scene tends to die, and with it, my interest. I suppose that this is the age-old "absence makes the heart grow fonder" idea at play, but when the two do meet throughout the novel, their interactions are far from enjoyable, even at the end. Class difference in the 19th century is already an interesting topic that can be plumbed deeply without the inclusion of a helter-skelter romance.
I haven't read Pride and Prejudice yet, though I've heard that Gaskell lifted the relationship subplot directly from Austen's novel. This would be forgivable if there had been some sort of new twist or improvement to how the romance proceeds, but there is no indication of that; there is nothing new nor exciting about it, it is just a bland, muddled attempt at creating a profound relationship. One could argue that its merit is to be derived from how it's an allegory for the novel's conflict itself, but to that, I counter: it is less of a clever inclusion and more of an obvious "see what I did there?" sort of thing. By the time that rolls around, the point that Gaskell is trying to make about the North and South dichotomy has already been established, so the extra symbolism becomes redundant. If events within the novel had developed within a shorter period of time, the romance might've been passable, perhaps even good.
As a social commentary and portrayal of both the working class and upper class, North and South is successful enough, managing to put forward some thought-provoking ideas about living conditions and solutions, but again, I find that authors who were already exploring this type of literature in Victorian times had a better handle on how to really get to the heart of matters. Gaskell more or less skirts around the heart of the issue, never really giving us that hard-hitting moment where her main message is best told (aside from a certain factory scene that works well up until the point where a certain Margaret gets involved).
The saving grace of the novel is the writing itself. What appears at first like circumlocution soon becomes essential phrasing; the elongated sentences are almost always effective in developing the novel's tone, its setting, and its characterization. There is a kind of indelible denseness to Gaskell's use of English; it is full of a creative vigor that is hard to come by, though I will admit that in the various peripheral chapters, Gaskell's love for involved sentences becomes a bane rather than a boon. Victorian writers who were serially published faced this sort of filler-chapter dilemma, but many of them found ways to work through it, to make each chapter count toward the big picture. Gaskell, on the other hand, takes too many liberties that don't succeed. A drama like North and South necessitates forward motion, yet Gaskell's polestar tends to stray from the main path. For instance, Gaskell had many opportunities to give us a deeper look into the psychology of the poor, and yet she flounders when it comes to following up on all of the people she introduces, bringing us back to the main two characters, Margaret and John, at inopportune times.
While North and South is not a bad look into the class differences, Victorian suppression, family infrastructure, and working conditions of Victorian London, the book gets bogged down with derivative chapters mired in prolixity; a prolonged romance that is wrapped up in a hurry; and a tiring take on both the "fish-out-water" and "riches-to-rags" tropes. These things were probably more compelling a couple centuries ago, but the impact is not the same anymore. The only other experience I have with Gaskell is with her debut novel, Mary Barton, which I found average and forgettable (and that is all I remember of it). North and South is less forgettable, but it also less successful, overshadowed by better books from the Victorian era. If only Gaskell had taken the time to develop the deficient parts of the novel, this would have been a success.
libbykerns's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
this is one of the preeminent novels of the 19th century. brilliant stuff fr. everyone say ty mrs gaskell !!
alice666's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Reread. I love this book. It’s one of my favourites of all time and makes me slightly mourn the death of the marriage plot, only because this may be the sole thing restoring my faith in true love currently.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
Moderate: Suicide, Terminal illness, and Violence