North and South

Margaret Hale and John Thornton are both too proud to admit to their mutual attraction and, what's worse, Thornton is in 'trade'. As a romance, North and South has a lot in common with Pride and Prejudice but it's somber where P&P can be a little superficial. Romance aside, Margaret's family is a study in conscientiousness: her father's crisis of faith, her brother's stand against a cruel captain, and her mother's marriage for love instead of wealth and position. Margaret's own involvement with the family of a factory mill hand shows the social impact of industrialization as the workers strike for a living wage. It's good enough that I want to revisit it, either in audiobook or miniseries form.

I've tried to read this before, when it was a book club pick, but at the time I just couldn't put the time into it. I've meant to get back to it and I'm glad I have now done so.
Written in the mid 1800s, this manages to combine a romance with social history and the industrial revolution. Margaret Hale is the female lead. A the start we find her living in her Aunt Shaw's house, one of an affluent class who don;t seem to have to do a great deal for their money and the women lead idle, pampered lives. Shortly after the opening, Margaret returns to her father's house. He's a vicar in the New Forest, and live in more reduced circumstances than her mother's sister and their family in London. Her mother seems to feel their situation and show more complains that she wishes to leave Helstone. And when her father suffers a crisis of confidence, they do move - to industrial Milton, Darkshire. This suits her mother no better she makes her feelings know. As things progress, Margaret's father increasingly relies on her. The family are a bit fish out of water in their new situation. They are not on a level with the working people in the mills, but they do not feel that they fit with the mill masters either. Margaret has a certain snobbery over the mill owners, implying that they are in trade, but she seems to feel more sympathy for the working men. She and her opinions provide a southern view to contrast with the northern situation that she finds herself in. I feel that the North/South divide is slightly artificial, a divide between industrial and rural would be more accurate.
In time Margaret develops human relationships with Bessy and her father, Higgins, and finds more understanding of the mill owners, in the figure of Mr Thornton. We discover more of him and he begins to be more human. Along the way he discovers feeling for Margaret. The life of the workers and masters does not run smooth, and there is a strike. This was, in part, arranged by Higgins, on the Union committee and Mr Thornton is one of the masters affected. There is a crowd and a riot ensues, with potentially more serious effects mitigated by Margaret's presence, although she maybe precipitated the events that preceded this. At times she still seems to misunderstand the complexities of the situation at play in the industrial landscape.
Along with the social history, there are more human threads of story. There is the unfortunate events surrounding Margaret's parents and then her God father. He seems to be introduced almost as a tool in order to set up the final portion of the book, but as a plot device he is unoffensive enough. There's the fate of Margaret's brother, Frederick. He arrives and leaves in short order and causes a certain amount of pain to those around him without knowing. There is the gradual humanisation of both Higgins and Thornton. Margaret interacts with both of them and by doing so she seems to act as a bridge between the,. They both come to understand each other's position more by her intervention in both of their lives. And then there is Margaret's romantic life. In 400 odd pages she receives 4 proposals from 2 men, and turns 3 of them down. The final one doesn't come as a surprise, but the contrast between it and its predecessor is quite marked. In Henry Lennox's proposal, she is being viewed as an asset to his professional life, he want to use her inheritance to further his career. He seems to view her as being interesting and will not disgrace him socially, but he barely seems to know her or her way of thinking. The second proposal from Mr Thornton seems far more a match of equals. He comes to her to renegotiate his rental of the mills, he ends up by being offered capital to recover the situation. I think the contrast between the two of them makes for a clear differential between the idle affluent class (as represented by Henry Lennox) and the working classes. Mr Thornton may be a mill master, but he still represents a more industrious attitude to life, he has risen to his current position and is not above returning to a lower position and carry on working in a way that Henry Lennox seems not to relate to. At times in these types of books I wonder what the main protagonists see in each other, or I doubt the happiness of the match. In this case my only concern is his mother - but I feel sure that Margaret would prove equal to the task.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. It had been described as Pride & prejudice meets the industrial revolution - I'm not sure that is fair. It felt to have more in common with some of the Bronte sister's writing (I'm thinking more strongly of Shirley) than the rather rarefied life of the Bennett sisters. This is far more gritty and it benefits from the various contrasts that are set up between the different factions at play. show less

At publication, Elizabeth Gaskell was derided for wading into knowledge unfit for female consumption, with her depiction of the conflict between industry and labour. I think it's brilliantly done, and considering it's only incidental to the novel's focus, that makes it even more so. It is first and foremost a romance, with the labour relations playing as a grand metaphor and commentary in the background: two people of opposing backgrounds but similar character, greeting one another with poor assumptions based on first impressions and having to build towards better relations for arriving at mutual happiness. Maybe comparing a romance to labour negotiations isn't exactly romantic for some, but for me it makes perfect sense. And I do like show more things to make sense, especially in the confusing world of courtship.

I read this almost on the heels of Hard Times by Charles Dickens, which was published just before it and takes place in a similar setting. Dickens' depiction of an industrial town was like a watercolour, whereas Gaskell paints with acrylic. Everything is more grounded and relatable, whether it's descriptions of the buildings and factories or of the people who work in them. For a true, close examination of the place and period, this is the better of the two. Margaret seems like a Charlotte Bronte leading lady, as the introduction suggests, headstrong and independent. The novel gets off to a couple of false starts, required to give us an adequate background that will explain how she is able to relate to various layers of social strata and see all points of view, but also where her heart lies. It is also quick to establish how very far romance lies from her mind, and how much self-control means to her. She is more than just strong for those who depend on her (and there are many of those, orbiting around her), she is also being strong for her own sake as the correct way to be. The ending is pitch perfect, after causing me stress as the remaining page count rapidly petered out. I am full of superlatives. show less

This was a reread of this classic tale by Elizabeth Gaskell that deals with contrasts and misunderstandings. The first case is between the leading characters of Margaret Hale, a clergyman's daughter who was brought up between the rural parish where her parents lived, and fashionable London where her aunt and cousin lived and Mr. Thornton, a stern mill owner in the industrial town of Milton who brought himself up to his position from an impoverished start through the sheer strength of will of both himself and the mother who raised him. They are brought together when religious doubts lead her conscientious father to give up his position as a in the Church of England, and move to Milton to take work as a tutor, with Mr. Thornton as one of show more his first students. The other conflict is between labor and management, with labor represented by Thornton, and management by Higgins, a pro-Union worker. A strike looms with far reaching consequences for all.

It is a masterful story, and one close to Mrs. Gaskell's heart, as she was brought up in a rural village (similar to her fictional Cranford) but married a crusading clergyman and went with him to work among the industrial poor. She had an admirable way of seeing all sides of a question, and does not view any of them with rose colored glasses. For a Victorian novel, it is remarkably restrained in language and sentiment, and remains readable to this day. show less

This is a Victorian novel without any attempts to pace the exciting bits. It just plows ahead with plot, no pauses at all to drink tea or write a letter. If you've watched the BBC mini-series (and if you're reading this novel now, it's because you spent a few hours watching Richard Armitage stare off into the middle distance in a brooding sort of way, let's not pretend otherwise) you'll be familiar with the events of the novel. What is surprising is how closely the television adaptation follows the novel. With the exception of Bessy, who is rather cloying in the novel but a caustic breath of fresh air in the mini-series, the characters are on the page as they appear on screen.

Despite the way Gaskell keeps things moving along rapidly, show more she doesn't fail to create a cast of memorable characters. In this novel, the parents are a lot. Mrs. Thornton reacts to the world around her with a prickly defensiveness which is understandable given that her husband lost their money in a foolish bet, then committed suicide, leaving her to eke out a living for her two small children. But understandable doesn't mean that she isn't a hard person to be around. And the Hales, Margaret's parents, are both weak and whiny. And yet their children love them deeply and also manage to have become the kind of people who animate their morals with action, so that Margaret befriends a working family and sets out to help them in the ways they both need and can accept and Mr. Thornton postures and yells a lot, then works to improve the conditions for his employees.

This novel was clearly intended to illuminate what conditions were for textile workers, but did so with a certain, not unexpected belief in the need for bosses to call the shots. But Gaskell is also pushing against the caste system with her constant theme that men who make their fortunes in factories are the equals of those who inherit theirs and that working men are as intelligent and ingenious as those who supervise them. There are a number of digs at the moral and intellectual abilities of the Irish, I guess proving that humans will always manage to scapegoat somebody.

This novel was a lot of fun and was often hard to set aside and I'm sure I'll revisit it soon. show less

delicious and slow; a perfect drowsy rainy-day book. (and lo, today it doth rain, and cast grey drops upon the window-screens.)

The creeping character advancement is the best part -- Margaret changing from a somewhat abrupt girl, Thornton developing alongside her, each in their own private grief and losses. (Speaking of which: poor Margaret! The people around her drop like flies. Someone should get her tested.)

Thornton was the only person fully drawn, I think; there's a bit too much Victorian Angel Of The Home clinging to Margaret, with the constant deaths and the whole handmaiden-to-the-poor bit; she never quite took breath for me. -- Except as she displaced her own needs again and again for other people, and finally found a place to show more express herself in quietness. There were so many tiny, tender views of her, but the most effective were always from an outsider: Thornton distracted by her bracelets as they fell down her arms; in deep mourning, palely upright on a sofa after someone died; her hands clasped in Frederick's hands as they waited at the train station. There's a power in these views, and Gaskell is very, very good at this sort of detail (at her best she is entirely modern and direct, like Katherine Mansfield) -- but she falls into didacticism, telling without showing; she doesn't seem to trust her own voice, or her own awareness & expression of it.

Still there are a million little things. Mrs Thornton and her different relationship to her children! Mrs Hale and her relationships! (When she tells a desolate Margaret something like "my first baby was prettier than you, and I prefer him even now" -- and later, Margaret's despair that she's lost her mother just when they were getting to understand and love each other ... I mean. Shit.

I never stopped wanting to punch Mr. Hale, though.

The romance is too brief and, yes, too delicate, to be stretched thin over such a framework (and WHAT IS WITH THAT ENDING WHAT). It's a damned shame. Loosen the reins, Gaskell. (I must read more of this.) show less

This is a delightful novel reminding one of George Eliot or Jane Austen mixed with a bit of Dickens. A story of the changing fortunes of a young country gentlewoman, Margaret Hale, who is forced to move with her family to the crass industrial city of Milton in the north of England. Here she befriends an impoverished mill working family as well as a successful mill-owner Mr. Thornton - who cannot be seen as a gentlemen as he is in "trade."

Who couldn't love Victorian notions of the gentry, courtship, maidenhood admixed with the more harsh realities of death, poverty and social injustice? Margaret is also a great heroine and her maturation and kindheartedness are well portrayed. The writing is fine, and actually given her contemporaries, show more Gaskell showed restraint in regards to verbosity.

My complaints are minor -- occasionally a bit long winded with the labor issues, and I agree with the author - the ending is a bit rushed. My other major complaint is entirely the fault of the publisher/editor 'Penguin.' Heinous spoilers in the footnotes! For shame! Why is it that no one at these publishing houses can conceive that there are readers of classics who don't know the story and are reading for pleasure?

Overall, quite good -- a must for lovers of 19th century English literature. show less