Gaskell's Mary Barton

[An Entry in the Winter Classics Challenge]

Title: Mary Barton

Author: Elizabeth Gaskell

Copyright: 1848 (public domain, Project Gutenberg offers the full text); I used the Everyman's Library cloth 1994 edition, with introduction by Jenny Uglow).

Genre: Fiction

Length: 390 pages

Summary: Gaskell's novel follows the fortunes of two families, the Bartons and the Wilsons, living in Manchester during the 1830's with the greatest focus on John Barton and his daughter, Mary Barton. England was in a period of economic upheaval and the story references the failed Chartist movement (of which John Barton is a member) and documents the daily struggles of the ordinary working class as they struggle to make do amid scarcity of employment. John Barton doesn't want his daughter serving in the factories and Mary ultimately finds work as an apprentice to Miss Simmonds, a dressmaker. This brings her to the attention of a well-to-do mill owner's son, Henry Carson, while poor working man Jem Wilson also seeks her in courtship. Carson is murdered midway through the book with Jem being accused of the crime. A third family in the tale, Job Legh and his granddaughter, Margaret, play strong supporting roles in the novel. Job is something of an amateur naturalist while Margaret becomes Mary's best friend. Essentially, each of these characters are good people, with the novel's focus being the working out of the problem of unequal distribution of wealth and its consequences. If some have more than others, what does that mean in terms of daily existence, and is the prevailing social model one that is correct and justifiable?

Extract: From Chapter 15,

Four days had Jem Wilson watched for Mr. Harry Carson without success; his hours of going and returning to his home were so irregular, owing to the meetings and consultations among the masters, which were rendered necessary by the turn-out. On the fifth, without any purpose on Jem's part, they met.

It was the workman's dinner hour, the interval between twelve and one; when the streets of Manchester are comparatively quiet, for a few shopping ladies, and lounging gentlemen, count for nothing in that busy, bustling, living place. Jem had been on an errand for his master, instead of returning to his dinner; and in passing along a lane, a road (called, in compliment to the intentions of some future builder, a street), he encountered Harry Carson, the only person, as far as he saw, beside himself, treading the unfrequented path. Along one side ran a high broad fence, blackened over by coal-tar, and spiked and stuck with pointed nails at the top, to prevent any one from climbing over into the garden beyond. By this fence was the footpath. The carriage-road was such as no carriage, no, not even a cart, could possibly have passed along, without Hercules to assist in lifting it out of the deep clay ruts. On the other side of the way was a dead brick wall; and a field after that, where there was a sawpit, and joiner's shed.

Jem's heart beat violently, when he saw the gay, handsome young man approaching, with a light buoyant step. This, then, was he whom Mary loved. It was, perhaps, no wonder; for he seemed to the poor smith so elegant, so well appointed, that he felt the superiority in externals, strangely and painfully, for an instant. Then something uprose within him, and told him, that "a man's a man for a' that, for a' that, and twice as much as a' that." And he no longer felt troubled by the outward appearance of his rival.

Also Relevant: Read hard on the heels of Moonstone and Silas Marner, I would certainly admit that Mary Barton has its faults as a novel. (As Becs reminds me in the comments to this earlier post, Mary Barton was Gaskell's first novel.) The plot, while not a bad one, has points where it creaks with coincidence and moans with melodrama. There is plenty of Victorian piety and period verse (see Didi's entry on that aspect). Having said that, Gaskell's gift for observation and ear for dialogue lifts this above mere sentimental twaddle. In contrast to the costume dramas of television, where much of the impact of any historical period's filth and disease is softened, Gaskell makes sure that we are aware of the foulness of the streets, the dampness of a cellar, and other general suffering in the community.

I like Gaskell's work. Even if ultimately one must concede that Mary Barton is a flawed work, Gaskell has been given short shrift in terms of acknowledging the quality of her work. She is understanding of human nature and realistic in her characterization. Only Henry Carson is shown to be venal in his thinking and that largely due to his understanding of the class gap between his status in society and that of the working class. Mary Barton isn't as passionate in its voice as the contemporary novel, Jane Eyre, but Jane as a heroine cried out against the social forces immediately touching her personal status while Mary is brought face to face with larger social structures that may destroy, not just her own happiness, but the economic and social network of her world.

[My two other blog postings about this book and its author.)

Thereby Raising My Blood Pressure

Some twenty-odd years ago, Joanna Russ wrote a book, How To Suppress Women's Writing, that discussed the attitudes that had historically prevented the work of women writers from being taken seriously. It was in the early 'eighties when women's studies as a discipline were only just beginning to be being accepted at the upper levels of education. The mental attitudes tended to start with the phrase, "She wrote it, but..." She wrote it but she shouldn't have. She wrote it but look what she wrote about. She wrote it, but she only wrote one of it. The book has an extremely angry tone to it (as well it ought), but while I reading Elizabeth Gaskell's novel, Mary Barton, today, it struck me that this novel's relative obscurity was exactly an example of that which infuriated Russ.

Mary Barton is a novel of social injustice. Gaskell wrote it at the encouragement of her spouse who wanted to distract her from the death of a child. The fire of the book is fueled by her observations of the deprivations of daily life for the mill workers in Manchester and is critical of the mill owners' treatment of those in their employ. It was initially published anonymously but eventually her identity became known, an issue given that there were those within her husband's parish who felt themselves portrayed unfairly. Mary Barton isn't a polemic, but it does offer quite vivid descriptions of lower-class life in an urban environment during that period. Her descriptive passages are not so very extensive as to slow down the pace of the story but they are uncommonly clear in painting the scene. The novel was most well-received when it was published in 1848 and the work brought Gaskell to the notice of Charles Dickens who commissioned more of her work.

So why is it that nowadays no one is required to read Gaskell whereas Dickens' work considered to be so much a requirement? She's been restored to the nineteenth-century canon to a certain extent, but not to the level one might argue she deserves.

And that leaves me disgusted. And grumpy.

Geoge Eliot's Silas Marner

My #2 Review for the Winter Classics Challenge

My list of titles for this challenge appears here.

Title: Silas Marner

Author: George Eliot [ biographical info from Univ. of Virginia ]

Copyright: 1861 (Novel falls into the public domain); I used the Borders Classic hardcover edition, ISBN 1-58726-164-2, copyright 2005 Ann Arbor Media Group, LLC. Full text available here.

Genre: Fiction

Length: 172 pages

Summary: Falsely accused of theft and deeply shaken by the resulting distrust in his community, Silas Marner leaves his urban environment and moves to the rural village of Raveloe. Because of his slightly odd appearance and his intense sensitivity, he withdraws from community and approaches life from the perspective of a hoarder, a miser. He is however still an innately honest soul. Circumstances bring a daughter to him and in the interests of taking care of a child, he is forced to interact with his world in new ways.

Conversely, Godfrey Cass is the fortunate son of the local squire. Blessed with most of life's advantages, he makes bad choices. The consequential deceit that follows wreaks havoc on the lives of those around him and, in the long run, robs him of life's emotional treasures that he might have had.

Essentially, Silas Marner is a character study of two individuals whose paths in life direct them to different ends. Eliot contrasts the good and evil in choices made by two very human characters.

Extract: Silas himself was feeling the withering desolation of that bereavement about which his neighbours were arguing at their ease. To any one who had observed him before he lost his gold, it might have seemed that so withered and shrunken a life as his could hardly be susceptible of a bruise, could hardly endure any subtraction but such as would put an end to it altogether. But in reality it had been an eager life, filled with immediate purpose which fenced him in from the wide, cheerless unknown. It had been a clinging life; and though the object round which its fibres had clung was a dead disrupted thing, it satisfied the need for clinging. But now the fence was broken down -- the support was snatched away.

The above extract from Chapter 10 is actually a fair sample of Eliot's writing. Her sentences do tend to run long with lengthy clauses inserted into them. I can understand why the style is somewhat disconcerting to high school students. (In my day, this was a fairly standard high school assigned text, but I don't think that's true any more.) Those who speed-read may get the high points of the relatively simple plot but I suspect they will miss Eliot's intention in presenting the story. Casual readers may also want to be aware that Chapters 6 and 7 have a good deal of dialect in them which will also slow the pace (although you couldn't ask for a better text rendition of English lower-class existence in another century).

Also Relevant: Eliot is good, no doubt, but I must say that she doesn't speak to me across time the way other writers from the nineteenth century do. She's very realistic in the rendition of her characters which I liked. Silas Marner is the opposite of what many today demand of their chosen heroes; he's not physically attractive and he seems to be incapable of standing up for himself. On the other hand, we see him as a loving single parent which tends to make him more sympathetic as a character. Eliot's explanation of why he withdraws from society and the forces that drive his re-entry into Raveloe society struck me as entirely plausible and certainly, one roots for the underdog. Knowing that he's been badly treated by a number of people elicits some hope in the reader that Marner will somehow succeed against the odds. Having said that, he's not a particularly interesting person; he's basically taciturn by nature and too isolated and/or withdrawn to hold our attention.

Godfrey Cass, by contrast, is well-situated in life, but lacks an internal moral compass. Unsure of his father's approbation, he is deceitful because of his emotional insecurity. This causes him to wreck the lives of those women who have the misfortune of joining their lives to his.

I *think* there are a number of things going on in the background. Eliot may well be presenting the lower-classes and rural life as having a claim to inherent superiority over the life found in urban settings. Otherwise there's no purpose to the narrative framework she employs, showing Marner's life in Lantern Yard before he adopts Eppie and then offering the contrast in his view of Lantern Yard when he returns there late in life with Eppie. I am not sure that I buy any of these views by scholars and critics. There is a repeated theme of violated trust in the tale and the human need we have for that trust from those who we care for and who know us most intimately.

Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone

[ A review for the Winter Classics Challenge ]

Title: The Moonstone

Author: Wilkie Collins [ biographical entry, Wikipedia ]

Copyright: 1868 (novel falls into public domain); I was reading the Everyman's Library 1992 edition (Random House/Knopf)

Length: 473 pages

Genre: Mystery/Suspense

Summary: With a certain malicious intent, a British officer bequeathes a trophy of his service in India (a valuable yellow diamond) to his niece on her eighteenth birthday. However, because of the diamond's history, a curse follows it and evil touches the lives of those connected with the lovely young heiress, Rachel Verinder. The diamond is sought by various individuals with an interest in its financial and spiritual value. The story is told in first person, narrated by eight characters in different walks of life with differing perceptions of people and events. These include Gabriel Betteredge, a 70-something family retainer with a fondness for his pipe and book; Miss Drusilla Clack, an earnestly-sermonizing spinster sourpuss; Franklin Bates, a cosmopolitan young man who is also the suitor of Miss Verinder, and Ezra Jennings, a medical assistant. Mystery readers may figure out the logical suspect without a great deal of difficulty, but it's much more enjoyable to sit back and enjoy the twists that Collins constructed so carefully. The pacing is what one ought to expect of a Victorian novel as each narrator has particular points to make about the habits and relationships of each person observed. I found it satisfying, but others may not.

Extract: (From Gabriel Betteredge's narrative)

Looking back at the birthday now, by the light of what happened afterwards, I am half inclined to think that the cursed Diamond must have cast a blight on the whole company. I plied them well with wine; and being a privileged character, followed the unpopular dishes round the table, and whispered to the company confidentially, "Please to change your mind and try it; for I know it will do you good." Nine times out of ten they changed their minds--out of regard for their old original Betteredge, they were pleased to say-- but all to no purpose. There were gaps of silence in the talk, as the dinner got on, that made me feel personally uncomfortable. When they did use their tongues again, they used them innocently, in the most unfortunate manner and to the worst possible purpose. Mr. Candy, the doctor, for instance, said more unlucky things than I ever knew him to say before. Take one sample of the way in which he went on, and you will understand what I had to put up with at the sideboard, officiating as I was in the character of a man who had the prosperity of the festival at heart.

Also Relevant: My first exposure to The Moonstone was through the Classic Comics Illustrated that were popular back in the early 'sixties. The comic book didn't impress me at the age of eight or nine, which explains why I never felt particularly compelled to read this novel until now. It's a pity because I have thoroughly enjoyed this novel; on the upside, I can now look forward to reading other of Collins' works to see if they are as good. This was (if I may borrow The Bluestalking Reader's description of the Collins novel she read) a "truly RIPPING YARN". There were twists and turns, people dropped dead or went missing at interesting junctures, and went into seclusion or left town exactly at that point when amateur and professional sleuths were most anxious to meet with them. There was humor in the narrative as well as suspense, and a certain amount of satirical jabs (usually in the direction of Miss Clack who invited abuse by handing out Evangelical tracts at ill-chosen times).

Even early on, there were intriguing questions posed by the story. Had the diamond been stolen? Or was it put in hiding by someone with Rachel's best interest at heart? Who was in league with whom? Were they working to help the police or divert them? Was the upstairs maid really dead?

Imagine a strange petite woman suddenly grabbing you by the elbow, thrusting a volume into your hand, and stressing most emphatically that you just have to read this! That's me -- not Miss Clack --and how I feel about The Moonstone. You've just got to read this book. I very nearly called in sick to the office this week because I thought Moonstone was far more interesting than work could possibly be. I read long past the hour when I normally would go to sleep at night in order to find out what happed next. I neglected most everything today in order to finish it. Now I know why the Victorians called it sensation literature (and why they thought it was bad for female readers...)

Note: If you want further depth into the historical context of the novel, I can point you in the direction of these two educational sites that offer interesting background:

• The Moonstone and British India
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins homepage (Southern Nazarene University)

However, understanding the historical context isn't really critical to a happy enjoyment of the action.

One Additional Thought: I was not overly fond of the romance element in this, chiefly because Collins portrayed his heroine with a certain amount of sentimentality as the story reached its climax. At that point, I thought she was drippy and uninteresting; previously she had held some interest for me. But, as previously mentioned, this is a Victorian novel and one must be prepared to deal with some of the baggage that comes along with that.