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larakai's review against another edition
4.0
This is one of those books that makes you incredibly happy to not be living in Victorian times. Spoiler alert: everyone dies. Not really everyone, but it feels that way. Everyone is constantly on the verge of death, and you never know when a stray wind or sad feeling will be enough to put someone over the edge.
So, that being said and not surprisingly, this is not a particularly uplifting book. It's one part story and one part treatise on the struggles of the working class.
In my mind, Elizabeth Gaskell is like a gritty, industrial, Victorian Jane Austen. Her books are much darker and more depressing than any Austen novels, but they both are filled with social commentary and always have a love story with a happy ending.
Depressing as her books are, though, there is apparently just enough lightness and hope to keep you going. I always enjoy them.
So, that being said and not surprisingly, this is not a particularly uplifting book. It's one part story and one part treatise on the struggles of the working class.
In my mind, Elizabeth Gaskell is like a gritty, industrial, Victorian Jane Austen. Her books are much darker and more depressing than any Austen novels, but they both are filled with social commentary and always have a love story with a happy ending.
Depressing as her books are, though, there is apparently just enough lightness and hope to keep you going. I always enjoy them.
_bydbach_'s review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
sarahlreadseverything's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 rounded up to 3. The middle section of this was excellent (from murder to the end of trial), but the start and end both dragged. Not my favourite Gaskell.
murasaki_r's review against another edition
1.0
This has to be the most boring book I have ever read. I didn't think it was possible to become drowsy after only reading 2 pages, but this book proved me wrong. I've fallen asleep to it multiple times. Even when there are major events happening (fires, murder, death) it's still boring. I can't believe I managed to finish this one, but here, my first 1 star rating, deserved.
usopppxx's review against another edition
3.0
Book for uni. Better than I expected. Definitely recommend the audiobook (abridged haha).
orb12um's review against another edition
4.0
Gaskell paints the working class Manchester scene in an illuminating light. The anger and vitriol felt towards the working classes and the lack of care shown by the middle class is one of the best displays of the class culture of middle Victorian England.
One is led to hate Carson Jr but feel sorrow and sympathy for his father in an intriguingly nuanced way. Similarly, Mr Barton is developed into a complex character which fascinated the reader.
Mary herself is as heroic as can be and forces you to read on in our journey.
One is led to hate Carson Jr but feel sorrow and sympathy for his father in an intriguingly nuanced way. Similarly, Mr Barton is developed into a complex character which fascinated the reader.
Mary herself is as heroic as can be and forces you to read on in our journey.
ghutchy's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
sampayn3's review against another edition
4.0
Victorian England was pervaded by concerns of social activism caused by tensions between "dwellers in different zones or inhabitants of different planets." Thomas Carlyle compared nineteenth-century Britain to the despairing grandeur of the Middle Ages, "to live we know not why… to die slowly all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, infinite injustice" and blamed the government who were "oblivious to their duty." As socio-political unrest escalated, 1848 became a critical year: Marx’s The Communist Manifesto was published, Chartism grew to an alarming peak, and British laws were reformed to revolutionise the destitution of the predominately working-class population. Mary Barton, a condition-of-England novel where intervention is awry, attempts to close the gap between the classes, tightening the perception between reality and representation. However, while Elizabeth Gaskell illustrates the “fields of battle between sexes, classes, and nations,” she straddles the line between invoking revolution or retaining inertia. In this pursuit of literary realism, does she commit to her purpose, or find herself falling back on what is politically acceptable?
Mary Barton’s fluctuating purpose impedes assimilation of the two opposing factions within Victorian Britain. Elizabeth Gaskell's sympathetic identification is half-hearted, corrupted even, especially to a modern audience, who can readily discern the infringements of Victorian sensibility. The novel reiterates the 'two nations' that former Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, proposed and debates the seemingly revolting and unacceptable, against the attractive and acceptable. Failure to provide political machinery to the working class, to redefine the violence which they had been wrongly tainted with, is substituted by an insufficient ventriloquy of their voiceless state. Rather than confronting social destitution, Gaskell, frankly, recoils from the monsters of the society revolving around her. Yet it is the emigration to Canada which acts as the crowning defeat; preventing the characters from adhering to their reality, or from acting on the actual difficulties that nineteen-century society so desperately needed to confront, removing the pitied person to a uncompromised New World. Surely this cannot be a novel of literary reality, as it fails to confront the social predicament at hand? Deceived by self-indulgence, Victorian England neglected Frederick Engels’ indisputable understanding that we are all "members of the great and universal family of mankind… our common cause, the cause of humanity."
Mary Barton’s fluctuating purpose impedes assimilation of the two opposing factions within Victorian Britain. Elizabeth Gaskell's sympathetic identification is half-hearted, corrupted even, especially to a modern audience, who can readily discern the infringements of Victorian sensibility. The novel reiterates the 'two nations' that former Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, proposed and debates the seemingly revolting and unacceptable, against the attractive and acceptable. Failure to provide political machinery to the working class, to redefine the violence which they had been wrongly tainted with, is substituted by an insufficient ventriloquy of their voiceless state. Rather than confronting social destitution, Gaskell, frankly, recoils from the monsters of the society revolving around her. Yet it is the emigration to Canada which acts as the crowning defeat; preventing the characters from adhering to their reality, or from acting on the actual difficulties that nineteen-century society so desperately needed to confront, removing the pitied person to a uncompromised New World. Surely this cannot be a novel of literary reality, as it fails to confront the social predicament at hand? Deceived by self-indulgence, Victorian England neglected Frederick Engels’ indisputable understanding that we are all "members of the great and universal family of mankind… our common cause, the cause of humanity."