New Year, New Fallen Woman: Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth Readalong

[BishyBarnyBee]

Following the very successful Madame Bovary readalong, we have decided to explore another woman who refused to be bound by contemporary mores.
So shocking at the time, two of Gaskell's friends burnt their copies.

"Elizabeth Gaskell's Ruth (1853) was the first mainstream novel to make a fallen woman its eponymous heroine. It is a remarkable story of love, of the sanctuary and tyranny of the family, and of the consequences of lies and deception, one that lays bare Victorian hypocrisy and sexual double-standards. Shocking to contemporary readers, its radical utopian vision of a pure woman faithfully presented predates Hardy's Tess by nearly forty years."

We will aim for two chapters a week - a weekend chapter and a mid week chapter. If I have time, I'll try and do a ChatGPT chapter summary, but anyone else is welcome to jump in if I haven't got there first.

We start 1st Jan, so if you are up for a bit of Victorian passion, guilt, regret and redemption, sign up here!

My Kindle is saying we're at 48%, so I reckon we're about half way through if you disregard the introduction, and everything is pretty peachy for Ruth. For now....

Anyone else giving an eye-roll at more description of the perfectly economical, threadbare but dainty home? Not sure why it winds me up, perhaps it's the "deserving poor" cliche, but I feel like - yes, we get it, these are the good guys!

But for a chapter which is basically saying "they all got older and things are going well", it's very readable and there are some well observed scenes.

Thurstan preparing the laburnum switch to beat Leonard while Faith, having got her way, back tracked, and Sally sorted them all out was well written, as was the reveal of Richard's sneaky character. And some of us will recognise the mismatch between how Faith feels and what she sees in the mirror - my mum is always saying she feels 20 inside.

How are you all feeling about it half way through? Are we wishing we'd found a a slightly less repentant fallen woman? It hasn't been at all what I expected, but I have enjoyed it so far.

@Piggywaspushed we cross posted but obviously having similar thoughts. Sorry you're finding it a bit of a slog.

It probably doesn't help that I am reading Dickens at the same time.

And finding it better? Or just too much plodding through Victorian sentimentalism?

Oh no, it's 1000000000 times better . Because he's funny!

Morning all! Yes. I was at risk of developing a bit of Swivel-Eye at the cleanliness of this godly home. We know already.

I enjoyed the repartee between Faith and Sally and can relate to it but was inwardly laughing at how she really didn't notice her greying hair. She is too absorbed in keeping her house immaculate of course. Although housework was a real chore then.

I'm disappointed in Thurstan. I didn't think he would go so far as to whip the boy. It seems harsh.

I miss Ruth's high-spirited nature that we had in the first part of the book. There seems to be no connection between these parts. It's poles apart as Ruth is living a completely different life. Anyway, I like Gaskell although I'm wondering if I would like her other books better. I'm reading Dickens too and agree with Piggy that there is lots of humour in Nicholas. It's good fun.

I must say I think I would already have given up on this book if it weren't for the insightful and engaging comments from fellow Ruth-readers!

I’m really enjoying it but I did start the book later than you and I have read ahead. I’m basically on a chapter a day. If I read slower than that I find that many books turn into a slog.
The moralising does get too much for me too though.

" Anyway, I like Gaskell although I'm wondering if I would like her other books better."
I think likely so @FuzzyCaoraDhubh - Ruth is definitely one of her lesser known books for a reason. I'd suggest North and South as a good one to try if you fancied reading something else of hers. ( Though Cranford is definitely the one to go for if Sally is your favourite character, but doesn't have much plot. Good as a bedside book though, it's very gentle.)

I've read all the others . I liked North and South the best but also Wives and Daughters. Mary Barton is really interesting in being seen through the lens of the Manchester working classes in tumultuous times.

I’m still here - looks like I’m only 2 chapters behind as on chapter 15. I’ve been reading in chunks which I am finding easier. Will be back with thoughts and catch up once done.

I'm sticking with it but I also am finding it a bit of a slog now - I think because Ruth remains such a wet flannel of a character. All pretty and sweet and sad and repentant and no fire in her at all. It's left her feeling very one dimensional to me - I would be hard to describe her character at all, really. Which is such a contrast to her intro to the book when she seemed more alive. Maybe that's the point being made by Gaskell?

I do, however, enjoy Sally's bits. I loved her savings story and her joy at tricking the Bensons into thinking they gave her a pay rise but instead saving the money to hand back to them. I also enjoyed her argument with the solicitor that she didn;t want an easy to understand will because she was paying for it - so ended up paying more for it than he would have charged her.

I do have a nagging feeling she's become more cartoonish for it, but she is very entertaining.

Oh and it's funny pp mentioned about Dickens because I have read David Copperfield in the meantime and that is also laugh out loud funny in places.

I'm keen to read the other novels by Gaskell that you mention, Piggy.

I agree that Ruth has turned into quite a one-dimensional character, alas. That said, after an initial period of grumpiness about the pious/moralising nature of the story, I've kind of made my peace with it now. It's certainly an interesting window into Victorian mindsets.

In the most recent chapter, I thought the implicit message against corporal punishment was quite forward-thinking. I also liked the bit about Mr Benson being too inexperienced with children to realise that making up stories (lies!) is a normal part of child development. That's a bit of parental wisdom which Gaskell probably drew from her own experience with children.

I also like the way there's a lot of focus on women characters: not just Ruth, but also Sally, Faith Benson, Jemima and so on.

And I had some sympathy for Miss Benson with her whitening hair. I recently decided to stop dyeing my own hair and embrace the gray. As soon as I read that Miss Benson was worried about being old, I guessed she was probably in her 50s, and voila! she has indeed reached the ripe old age of 56 😂. I'm 52 and my hair is quite white in front!

And Sally is so horrified that Miss B wants to dye her hair. Honestly Sally should mind her own business when it comes to other women's hair. Sheesh! 😂

I’m another who is sticking with it but getting a little bit bored now. Just waiting for something interesting to happen - hopefully it will pick up now Leonard is older. I do like Sally’s little funny moments though!

The writing is keeping me going. I didn’t really love North and South either so it’s possible that Gaskell just isn’t for me. That said, I am really pleased I am reading it because I do have a bit of a fascination with literature that is about illegitimacy, adultery, ‘fallen’ women and suchlike so it’s adding to my overall view and understanding. I’m very glad to be doing it in a readlong, because I might still be reading in next year if I was alone.

I'd say what I most enjoy about Gaskell's books is the social history. So for example Margaret's reluctant acknowledgement in North & South that conditions for agricultural labourers are probably even worse than those of the factory workers in Milton, or seeing the Chartists & trade union pioneers in Mary Barton.

Chapter 20

In which Mr Farquhar and Jemima are embroiled in a classic rom com plot. There are misunderstandings, missed opportunities and miserable evenings until Mr Bradshaw pressures Ruth to intervene. Her inevitable grace and dignity shakes Jemima out of her rudeness but also affect Farquhar as he notices for the first time Ruth's brilliancy, tact and the unusual beauty of her face - and form.

Mr Farquhar has feelings for Jemima but believes it slightly preposterous to be in love with an impulsive 20 year old. Jemima has feelings for Farquhar, but resents his paternalistic moralising. She tries to provoke him then feels hurt when he withdraws. Her pride tells her he must love her for who she is, and she is furious when her father intervenes.

She assumes a sullen reserve which Farquhar cannot break through, and Bradshaw asks Ruth to intervene. Ruth is reluctant to accept, but relents when she sees the extent of Jemima's misery. Jemima envies Ruth's calm and heavenly serenity, assuming she has never really know what it is to suffer. Mrs Bradshaw is no help at all. We realise she is weak and not entirely honest, happy to ignore Richard's shortcomings as long as he hides them from his father.

Farquhar is close to giving up on Jemima and compares her gloomy sullenness with Ruth's heavenly calm and brilliant complexion. He notices for the first time the unusual beauty of Ruth's face and form, and her gentle firmness with the children hints at a discipline and strength that he has found lacking in Jemima. However, Ruth's presence brings out some of the old Jemima and Farquhar walks home through the garden-way happier than he has been for a long time, singing that "A man returns, always returns, to his first loves".

@StColumbofNavron @cassandre @Sadik, I read a lot of Gaskell in the 80s. I did English and Economic and Social History at Manchester Poly, so she was a required read, and I remember enjoying her at the time. But as someone said earlier, there is probably a reason why Ruth is not one of her more famous ones.

Stroppy, impulsive Jemima has livened it up a bit though, hasn't she, and so much more interesting than the Sainted Ruth. I feel we are drifting into Austin territory with the will they/won't they romance, and I don't mind that at all. There is a similar implication that a headstrong young woman needs a strong, benign fatherly figure to sort her out and help her grow into the fine woman she has potential to be. Which is a bit nauseating now but maybe in those days that was the best you could hope for. Because the alternative was a weak or vicious husband who would dominate you - not having a husband not really being on the cards.

@Sadik yes, and that makes it very not-Austin, doesn't it? An awful lot had changed in the 50 years between Emma and Ruth.

@StColumbofNavron I'm with you on the fallen woman obsession. In the last two months I've seen the circus version of Tess, read the Posy Simmonds version of Emma Bovary, and both read and watched the French Lieutenant's Woman. So I've been positively steeped in fallen women. Any others we can think of?

I also watched True Things on the Iplayer this week which is a contemporary film about a woman throwing caution to the wind and having a reckless affair with a compelling but unreliable bloke. I was practically watching through my fingers as she ignored the red flags. It was so risky for her but you could see the joy of being thoroughly spontaneous and not-sensible, though you were just waiting for it to end in tears.

Thanks @BishyBarnyBee Excellent summary. This is a long chapter.
I liked the dialogue between Jemima's little sisters and their speculation about Jemima and Farquhar. It livened up the chapter as Jemima does too. I feel we have had enough saintliness and godliness for the moment and that this is a welcome change.

I haven't finished chapter 20 so I'm keeping my eyes firmly away from the summary above, but I just wanted to jump on and say I'm enjoying this more than the Madame Bovary last year. I'm not sure why really, as I do agree it's not very exciting, but the writing and the social commentary have pulled me in, and I am finding myself interested in what happens to the characters. I think maybe there'll be a bit more fire in Ruth at some point!

Jemima seems very believable in her sulkiness. I think we’ve probably all come across young women a bit like this, who like to have a bit of an argument to test their points of view. As to her deeper feelings for Mr F, any wooing that may take place has to happen in front of the family. How awkward that must be!

I’m still mulling over what Ruth knew about sex.
I agree with the person who said her mother wouldn’t have told her anything as her mother died when Ruth was 12.
I also think that maybe the girls in the sewing house didn’t tell her much - maybe it was obliquely referred to but not in detail. The way that teens often chat and assume everyone knows what they know so don’t explain, but are afraid to ask if someone says something they don’t understand - it’s so awkward!
My final thought was I work in a primary school in a very rural area - about half our kids are farm kids. And yet sex ed lessons are interesting - they know what animals do but they often don’t apply it to humans. They just haven’t given it any thought. And it’s weird to think of people compared to animals so we still get a lot of questions about how it all works despite their often very detailed knowledge of sheep and cows.

So I’m still not convinced Ruth would have known what she was doing, or more precisely what bit of what she was doing would be viewed as wrong.

Chapter 21

In which Mrs Bradshaw is indiscreet, Jemima is infuriated, Farquhar feels rejected, Ruth is admired, strawberries are gathered, Elizabeth is exhausted, sea air is prescribed, an election is called and a seaside stay is arranged.

The happy conclusion of the previous evening is shattered when Jemima learns that Ruth had been asked to intervene in her behaviour. She feels managed from all sides and resents the secretive machinations, thinking that it would be more honest and preferable to be openly bought "like an oriental daughter."

Jemima again withdraws from Farquhar, who accepts this as final, assuming she is repulsed by his age. He notes that Ruth is older in experience, if not in years, and that she perfectly fits his notion of what a good wife should be - reserved, calm and self-governed. Jemima watches their growing closeness with an acute sense of what she has lost through her own actions.

The younger girls regale her with the details of their idyllic day of strawberry picking and invite her to join them the next time. She makes an abrupt refusal then spends the day tormented by visions of the happy gathering and Farquhar's imagined attentions to the blushing Ruth. But the walk in the hot sun is too much for Elizabeth who collapses and becomes seriously ill.

Ruth is ashamed that she allowed the girls to exhaust themselves so that Leonard could join them, and spends every spare moment nursing the invalid. Jemima remains cold towards her, denying that anything has changed but leaving Ruth in no doubt that she has lost a precious friendship.

Sea air is prescribed, and it suits Bradshaw to engage a sea-side house for the family, so he can use the town-house for his election campaign. He wishes to challenge the sitting Tory MP with a more radical Liberal and Dissenting candidate, and approaches a noted Liberal agent, perhaps unaware of his unscrupulous reputation. There are hints that the election will be won by hook or by crook, which the famously moral Bradshaw cannot bring himself to examine too closely, as he needs to be sure the campaign will succeed.

A suitable candidate is found - a man with more money than he knows what to do with, bored with superficial pleasures and looking for a new challenge. It is agreed that this Mr Donne will reside at the Bradshaw's and the family will adjourn to the sea-side house 20 miles away.

I was the one putting forward the "village life, farmyard animal" theory, but I've mulled it over too and I tend to agree. She was 15 when she met him, she had no idea what would happen, and no chance against his determinedly manipulative campaign. She remains fairly oblivious until the reaction of the child in Wales shows her the real cost of her relationship with B.