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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
reflective
slow-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:
Yes
Remarkable in a lot of ways, I was deeply moved by Mr Thorntons confession and Margaret’s firm commitment to her beliefs, only to have them all humbled in their own way. Elizabeth Gaskell in lyrical prowess has bought such a wonderful meeting of minds and hearts to life!
Fucking completely heart-wrenching actually. Almost entirely perfect. The relationships, the commentary, the romance, the setting, the writing. All of it superb and beyond emotional.
A woman from the agricultural south of 1850s England is forced by circumstances to move to the industrial north.
I didn't care for this; it was very slow-paced with lots of Arguments, and the entire thing hangs together by a series of unfortunate events and feels a bit forced. It was very preachy.
However, under the awkward parts was a sweet novel about working together, making friends, and overcoming prejudices--and falling in love. I just wanted it to be wittier and more Austen-ish!
Recommended if you like Christian fiction; I feel like Janette Oke fans would not be terribly served here, even if this book isn't *quite* as fun.
I didn't care for this; it was very slow-paced with lots of Arguments, and the entire thing hangs together by a series of unfortunate events and feels a bit forced. It was very preachy.
However, under the awkward parts was a sweet novel about working together, making friends, and overcoming prejudices--and falling in love. I just wanted it to be wittier and more Austen-ish!
Recommended if you like Christian fiction; I feel like Janette Oke fans would not be terribly served here, even if this book isn't *quite* as fun.
Very excellent and prescient novel. It feels like it fills a sweet spot between Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters. I love Austen, but Gaskell should absolutely be talked about with similar reverence.
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
DNF around 20%. This one just didn't grab me and it was too long to try to power through.
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Read this for a seminar. Here's the thing; this book is interesting, but I had to speed through it to prepare for a presentation. Maybe I'll update this once I've had more time to process. The main crux of the book's second act plot is based on a misunderstanding, which is a bit irritating. All in all, worth reading.
Clogs, tripe and barm cakes: in which our spirited Margaret Hale, translated from genteel life as a Hampshire vicar’s daughter to the dark satanic mills of a thinly disguised Manchesterford, where with doughty determination she overcomes her southern prejudices against whippets and flat caps, and starts talking “factory talk” to the consternation of her sainted aunt, eventually snags Mr Thornton the factory boss, by means of sticking up for him during a riot of his workers.
Eh but it’s grand (and catching). A thorough-going anatomy of the titular divide, rich with the dirt and danger of life in a hard knock industrial town full of greed and enmity, but also salt-of-the-earth working types such as the religiously-obsessed (and doomed) Bessy and her father Mr Higgins, who voices Gaskell’s manifesto: “I know nought of your ways down south. I have heard they’re a pack of spiritless, downtrodden men…much dazed wi’ clemming to know when they’re put upon. Now it’s not so here. We know we’re put upon, and we’en too much blood in us to stand it.”
By contrast the southerners, the effete Rev Hale who loses his vocation and his living, his wife a prototype manipulative old woman who gets what she wants by feigning weakness, and shallow and frivolous cousin Edith, seem enfeebled, vacillating characters with only really stentorian Aunt Hale holding her own, and it’s fitting she is referenced by Margaret in the closing scene as the one whose opinion is to be taken seriously.
But for all the geopolitics, it’s really for Margaret, the prototype modern woman that you come to North and South, someone who appears to have been born knowing her own mind and who lifts what might have been a fairly ordinary tale of bosses vs workers into the deserved classics, as well as excellent source material for the likes of Victoria Wood.
Eh but it’s grand (and catching). A thorough-going anatomy of the titular divide, rich with the dirt and danger of life in a hard knock industrial town full of greed and enmity, but also salt-of-the-earth working types such as the religiously-obsessed (and doomed) Bessy and her father Mr Higgins, who voices Gaskell’s manifesto: “I know nought of your ways down south. I have heard they’re a pack of spiritless, downtrodden men…much dazed wi’ clemming to know when they’re put upon. Now it’s not so here. We know we’re put upon, and we’en too much blood in us to stand it.”
By contrast the southerners, the effete Rev Hale who loses his vocation and his living, his wife a prototype manipulative old woman who gets what she wants by feigning weakness, and shallow and frivolous cousin Edith, seem enfeebled, vacillating characters with only really stentorian Aunt Hale holding her own, and it’s fitting she is referenced by Margaret in the closing scene as the one whose opinion is to be taken seriously.
But for all the geopolitics, it’s really for Margaret, the prototype modern woman that you come to North and South, someone who appears to have been born knowing her own mind and who lifts what might have been a fairly ordinary tale of bosses vs workers into the deserved classics, as well as excellent source material for the likes of Victoria Wood.
This was a lovely, albeit formulaic, Austen/Bronte-esque novel...right up to the disappointingly chopped off ending.
Majority of Austen fans enjoyed the BBC adaptation of North and South, and that’s primarily the main reason why I picked this book up. I was excited to dive into the book and was even hoping to like it better than Pride and Prejudice, considering North and South is often compared to the former.
However, I had a hard time reading North and South. I had to accompany my reading with listening to an audiobook sped up to 3.5x the speed because it was starting to feel like a chore. I also struggled absorbing Gaskell’s attempt to make a case for both the laborers and the masters, when in fact, we know that the industrial revolution was a period in Victorian era where capitalist employers were so exploitative. That’s why I personally think her work fails to attain the quality of timelessness and universality because SURPRISE, that individual level of understanding between employers and employees are near impossible, a hundred years later. This is the ultimate fatal flaw of Gaskell’s proposition—that workers and employers can achieve harmony in labor relations if both parties just exert enough effort to understand each other at a personal and individual level.
Also, the number of deaths was the MOST RIDICULOUS THING EVER. Gaskell should have just killed off Margaret instead of unnecessarily stretching the story for too long. It doesn’t matter because I don’t care for Margaret. Never cared or became invested in any one character in the book at all.
I rarely DNF a book; the feeling of wishing I own a personal copy of North and South so I can tear and burn it is the closest thing I can do to a DNF.
(Sorry for any grammatical lapses i wrote this rant drunk)
However, I had a hard time reading North and South. I had to accompany my reading with listening to an audiobook sped up to 3.5x the speed because it was starting to feel like a chore. I also struggled absorbing Gaskell’s attempt to make a case for both the laborers and the masters, when in fact, we know that the industrial revolution was a period in Victorian era where capitalist employers were so exploitative. That’s why I personally think her work fails to attain the quality of timelessness and universality because SURPRISE, that individual level of understanding between employers and employees are near impossible, a hundred years later. This is the ultimate fatal flaw of Gaskell’s proposition—that workers and employers can achieve harmony in labor relations if both parties just exert enough effort to understand each other at a personal and individual level.
Also, the number of deaths was the MOST RIDICULOUS THING EVER. Gaskell should have just killed off Margaret instead of unnecessarily stretching the story for too long. It doesn’t matter because I don’t care for Margaret. Never cared or became invested in any one character in the book at all.
I rarely DNF a book; the feeling of wishing I own a personal copy of North and South so I can tear and burn it is the closest thing I can do to a DNF.
(Sorry for any grammatical lapses i wrote this rant drunk)