2018 Reading Group - January: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell - *Spoilers from 25 January*

[Plentyoffishnets]

Hi, lots of interest on a different thread for starting a 2018 MN reading group.
Aim is to read one book a month, finishing by 25th of each month then discussing and selecting the next month's book.
For January we have gone for North and South by Elisabeth Gaskell.
So this thread is for those who want to join in, all are welcome

that's funny Airey it did feel like she suddenly reached her word limited.

I wondered for a bit if she was going to disappear to Spain and never see Thornton again.
I guess that was the dramatic tension though. Will they get together or not? Romantic fiction of the time.

Perhaps at the time it was more in the light reading genre. So the magical rich Godfather and the finally getting together with the Hero are all just in the spirit of light fiction. Whereas to me, it's old and a classic so I expect it to be more highbrow.

I wish I had a rich godfather like Mr Bell! Loved him as character...he was quite pithy.

Novels were definitely not massively respectable in Victorian times, particularly those written by women. They were seen as fripperies, the light entertainment of the day. You couldn't really call in chick lit though, as there weren't as many genres around - novels were generally all lumped in together, except those with noticeably different themes, such as gothic fiction.

I felt it had quite a dickens-ish feel about it so that makes sense. The deaths were all rather convenient, which is something of dickensian attribute.

I think my feelings towards Margaret definitely changed throughout the novel - I thought she was bit of a pillock for much of the first half...

In some ways it's difficult looking at it from a 21st century perspective and I wonder if Margaret might have been perceived as a more sympathetic character at the time it was written. I was almost wanting her to fall down at some points in the book. At times she seems so deliberately spiteful.

Part of it is, I think, the change in standards - I couldnt conceive of getting so upset and anxious about a bloke who I wasn't in love with seeing me at the trainstation with another man after dark..... Particularly when she's not over fussed about the man who was killed. After all she seems so much more concerned about the lie she told than the death.

Having said all that, it was nice to read a classic where the girl has a bit of character about her. She seemed much more human than many other protagonists from that time.

I thought the lie was interesting. How we feel when we fall short of the standards we set ourselves. And how we feel when someone we respect (and she does respect Thornton by then) catches us in that failure to meet standards we both expect. I would have found it unbearable that Thornton should have caught me in that lie.

Did Margaret tell the lie about being st the station to yry to give Frederick time to leave rather than lie because she would have looked bad for being out with a man?

I believe so, because once she knows he’s safe she regrets telling and and considers coming clean.

Yes she hadn't even considered the possibility of being judged for being out with a man until Mrs Thornton brings it up. She was lying to protect Frederick but the lie convinced Mr Thornton that she was with a suitor.

Totally agree darth that Mr Thornton underestimated the opportunities afforded to him by his mother's teaching. He thought anyone could rise as he did.

I didn't understand the reason behind leaving the Church either so I felt I was missing out on some important background information!

As a book I found it quite hard going (and I love lots of the classics) but preserved to the end. It's not a book I would read again, unlike Sense and Sensibility for instance, but I'm glad I finished it.

I quite liked Thornton, he felt real to me, more so than Margaret, who I didn't understand or warm too. I didn't really believe in her relationship with the Higgins either. I can see why the story was considered quite shocking when it was published though.

I very much liked Mrs Thornton. She was proud but forthright and spoke her mind. And she loved her children, even Fanny, who was super annoying.

Yes Mrs Thornton tied herself in knots to avoid lying to Mrs Hale.

I liked the riot bit. I didn't expect that. I was gripped at that point and thought I could finish the book.

I guess Margaret could have just fallen in love with Thornton after the riot but instead she said she would have tried to protect any man in the crowd (owch). Then it took a whole half of the book for them to get together.

There were a lot of deaths but I imagine there would have been in real life.

About Mr Hale’s decision to leave his parish - I’m reaching back about 40 years here to the first year of my history degree, but basically there was a marked rise in nonconformity during the first half of the 19th century, as lots of people, including many clergymen, began to question the practices and established beliefs of the Anglican Church. This was particularly so in the north (Elizabeth Gaskell’s husband was a Unitarian minister in Manchester).
The reasons for the rise of dissent are pretty complicated and much too involved to go into here, but as regards Mr Hale’s position, all clergymen (and students at Oxford and Cambridge) had on appointment to swear to the ThirtyNine Articles, which originally dated from the 16th century and established how the Church of England differed from the Catholic Church, but also from more extreme Protestant sects.
When Mr Hale was offered a promotion, he would have had to reaffirm his faith in the ThirtyNine Articles, and this made him realise that he no longer believed as he should as a committed Church of England clergyman. This led him to decide that not only could he not accept the promotion, but he couldn’t honestly remain as a parish priest at all. The book doesn’t specify the exact nature of Mr Haley’s doubts, nor is he shown as attending any Nonconformist services in Milton, the whole thing is kept pretty vague.

Thanks Rusty. That's useful. It really did feel like I missed something. I read back a couple of pages and reread the quote Mr Hale showed Margaret but was none the wiser.

In fact my first thought when he said she had to leave was that he had had an affair! Talk about reading with a modern lense. Not that people didn't have affairs then presumably.

When Mr Hale said he had to leave I mean.

Hi, can I join in please? While I was reading the book I enjoyed it, but i would not have read it without this bookclub. Even though I enjoyed it, I feel that it is probably not a book that I will re-read in a hurry, i did find it a bit "hard going" in places. I found Margaret to be an awful snob, looking down on people in "trade", and I couldn't really understand why John Thornton gave her the time of day, never mind fell in love with her. I didn't mind Bessy, I think sometimes people who are dying can be quarrelsome and difficult, not necessarily accepting their fate easily.

M was a product of her time though. Her London family influences are strong and they really would have looked down on people in trade.

Thanks Rusty-that's interesting...amazing that the whole set up of the book really - the reason for the move etc, is so vague-but I guess it would have been bigger news at the time so readers would have got it straight away.

Thanks rusty I think it would have been useful to have had a bit more of the context in the book, I'm sure I read that it was Dickens who said to cut it.

The ending did feel very rushed.

Saw an interesting question somewhere about when do you think Margaret did fall in love?
I think she was already in love when she jumped in front of him at the riots but didn't understand her feelings yet.

That’s interesting about the move. I didn’t really get why he had given up the church whilst reading.

I didn’t really like Margaret at the start of the book but had warmed to her by the end. I think all her troubles and death in her life made her less judgemental and a bit more human.

I also thought the ending a bit rushed and a bit disappointing given how long the book was! The romance didn’t jump out at me and it felt like they were getting married because she had inherited a fortune and wanted to lend him money.

I don’t think I would have persevered with the book had it not been for the book club. But I’m glad that I did.

I agree with mamapants that she was in love with him at the time of the riots if not before.

I think she came across as setting a lot of store on control and tranquillity and rejected anything that could upset that. I mean, I was surprised she rejected the suitor (can't remember name!) so violently at the time - all her rejections were really strongly worded, as though she was offended. I think she was terrified of change and the unknown.

Yes I found her refusal of Henry a bit OTT and of Thornton even more so, like he had done something outrageous when he thought he was doing the right thing. But yes I think she was actually in love with him by then too.

I think she started to fall in love with him when he was so kind to her mum when ill. I took her behaviour at the riot to be what she would for anyone as she was so moral etc but also because she was on the side of the workers and didn't want them to get themselves in trouble.