Mumsnet Talk

September's Feminist Book Club is Winifred Holtby's South Riding.

Book Club meet's on Wednesday September 14 at 9pm.

Available here: www.amazon.co.uk/South-Riding-Winifred-Holtby/dp/1849902038/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315053569&sr=1-1

*Same rules as normal: you can join us at the time or post before or after if you can't make the time. If you haven't read it and have only seen the BBC drama, join us anyways.

I'm going to post early because my internet is a bit unreliable at the moment and there's a risk I might not be able to tomorrow (and it would be ridiculous if I didn't join in at all, what with me being a character from the book and all.)

When I watched the tv series before reading the book I was a bit freaked by the idea of the rapist as romantic hero, but when you read the book it's interesting how much Holtby stresses how much Carne is punished for what he did: firstly, his constant guilt (the bit about him not being able to enjoy a nice meal ever again because Muriel can't have one), the financial consequences, with his farm being ruined by the cost of the asylum, and finally his death - not a direct result of his wrongdoing in the book, but in the sense that fallen women are often 'punished' in Victorian novels by dying, his death feels retributive in sort of karmic terms.
In a way, though, he still doesn't quite add up for me, because Holtby generally draws him as so noble and splendid, and yet, you know, rape; does she see it as the kind of mistake any man can make?

Bumping because it's tomorrow!

we will need to send the Bat Signal out for Dittany - she had interesting things to say about the tv series when it was on.

Geraldine MNHQ loves this book too.

looking forward to this discussion. It's years since I read it, early teens, so I guess i've forgotten a lot, if I even registered it in the first place.

Interestingly, it was my dad who made me read it, on the grounds that all young girls should. Especially regarding Lydia being such a clever girl and denied an education because of the duties of her gender.

<Bluff old farmer dad (RIP) was a bit of a feminist, really>

oh he must also have loved it because of it showing the financial realities of farming (and possibly also because of the farmer character being all attractive and romantic) Sal.

Holtby is really writing what she knows about, I think that's one of the book's greatest strengths.

Did anyone else pick up the acerbic reference to Cold Comfort Farm, where Carne's frivolous and pretentious SIL says 'How are your cows, what are their names, Graceless, Pointless and Feckless?' (except she gets it wrong).
I read one of Holtby's earlier ones, Anderby Wold, after that, and realised it is definitely one of the books being lampooned by Gibbons in Cold Comfort Farm, so the ref to it in South Riding put in the mouth of a dislikeable character is Holtby's response to that.

That's really funny!

I'm not completely finished this book as I'm dying a slow death on my German OU course and spent most of today contemplating how to sneak UsingMainlySpoons into the exam instead of me.

I am loving this book though. I've been reading chunks to the cat [as DH is away]. The cat doesn't seem impressed though.

<clock chimes nine>

<looks forlornly round empty room>

x-post.
Good idea to sneak Spoons into the exam.

I loved this book so much. Partly because I live in the East Riding (which "is" the South Riding) and she describes the area very well. The Virago edition has a painting of the Dales on the front which is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT <rage>

I read somewhere she was trying to write a sort of updated Middlemarch; the way she weaves Big Historical Themes in with the minutiae is indeed very Middlemarchy.

That's the edition I have

you need to print this out and stick it on top

I've not read Middlemarch but it is on my list

I just love the way she writes. Mrs Beddows is brilliant. There are some great quotes.

ie it's much flatter and more open than the Dales, and lots of brick rather than stone building.

she's a fabulous character. I wonder how much like Holtby's mum she was.

I think there are a couple of snide remarks about Agatha Christie too.

@ Sybil. Maybe that was my dad's reasoning. But it also struck very close to home for him. A childhood (female) friend of his was forced to leave school at 12 to look after the house and children after her mother died. She was very bright, but her brothers got the chances she didn't. I remember he mentioned what a waste it was many times. This would have been the 60's. The book is quite hot on girls' education & leftyism afair - as was my father.
Sorry for making the discussion a bit personal. But at least I'm making the place look busy and it's all I can remember!

oh how interesting! I didn't pick those up.

Sal I think it's fascinating to look at how people received a book and why they liked/disliked it, based on their own history - not too personal at all.

Personal is fine.

The competing strands of socialism and feminism are quite present, aren't they? How many times have we discussed, on here, the role of socialist men in perpetuating patriarchal structures [and rape culture] That theme is throughout the bits I've read.

It's referenced in the sections on education but also when Carne and Mrs Beddowes visit the poor in the Cold Harbour estates and divide the meeting into "men's needs" and "women's worries".

the 1930s morality is interesting - the fact that she really was risking her job by spending the night with Carne and when she confesses all to Mrs Beddows she fully expects to lose her position.

Did anyone else want to thump Lydia Holly's dad?

it is just sickening how he can cause his wife's death and potentially ruin his daughter's life but get away scot free because he's got his daughter to take over her domestic responsibilities.