Cranford

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell is one of those novels that really has no plot. There is no mystery. There is no real tension that keeps a reader engaged and absorbed. Rather, it is a series of vignettes about life in this little English village, focusing on a small group of friends and their “adventures” as they meander through life. While it may not be the most exciting of novels, there is something about these glimpses into genteel life that is utterly charming. Therein lies its power.

Cranford harkens back to a simpler time. Life moved slowly, and the villagers were isolated. Visitors from other towns were exciting. Visitors from other countries were completely exotic and grist for the gossip mill for months. It is a life that is show more unfathomable to the fast-paced, rapidly-shrinking world of today, which makes Cranford all the more special for its portrayal of this historical era.

Not only does Cranford describe a simpler time, it also describes simpler people, ones who concern themselves with their knitting, their charitable acts, their invitations for tea and polite card games, and their new hats or caps. They also worry about money, albeit in a very polite, very understated manner. In fact, one of Cranford’s main themes is the limitations and lack of options women, especially unmarried women, had at the time. Regardless of a reader’s opinion on the matter, the fact is that single women over a certain age without family money and/or male relatives found themselves with very few socially acceptable options to provide an income upon which they could live.

More than anything, though, Cranford showcases the Golden Rule in action. Miss Matty is the written embodiment of acting towards others as she would like to be treated. Everything about Cranford is old-fashioned, including the seeming lack of a main plot. Yet, the Golden Rule and examples of what it looks like in action never go out of style.

Cranford is a simple story with very little action. It meanders throughout the lives of the women in Cranford with no seeming connections. Modern readers used to fast-paced novels will be uncomfortable at the slow pace and lack of action. Yet, the simplicity of the story is what creates the story’s charm. Miss Matty’s genuine niceness will soften even the most cynical of modern readers. The pacing of the story is perfect for reading it one chapter at a time, allowing for a wonderful break from the breakneck speed of modernity. So, grab your hot beverage of choice and snuggle in for a charming, old-fashioned story that is meant to be enjoyed slowly. show less

Everyday events among the upper class of a small village in England in the 1850s. There are almost no upper class men or children in the village for a variety of reasons - military service, lack of jobs, etc. - so the elderly, single, upper class women are in charge (not that there’s anything to be in charge of besides the social calendar). The narrator, a young woman, lives in the city but travels to Cranford periodically to socialize with her old family friends, which gives the book an episodic structure. Miss Deborah Jenkyns, her younger sister Matty, and Matty’s friend Miss Pole scrimp and save to maintain the lifestyle to which they are accustomed (living off their inheritance in a big house with servants) and navigate the show more complex and slowly decaying social rules.

This Victorian-era novel is *very* funny and charming. The little vignettes are sweet and soothing and the book is all anecdotes and minimal plot. However, my read did suffer from comparison to short stories I was reading just before about poor people at the turn of the century. The people of Cranford have no real problems. The worst thing they can possibly think of is having to sell some furniture or *shudder* getting a job. There are a lot of levels to this book, and the author is obviously aware of the absurdity, but it was hard to lose myself. show less

Cranford is a town almost entirely populated by women. Mary Smith, our narrator (whose name we only discover when we are most of the way through the story), is a frequent visitor who as both outsider and insider is able to sketch for us life in town while poking gentle fun at its inhabitants. Of particular interest is Miss Matty Jenkyns, Mary's friend, whose sweet nature and disappointed romance make up much of the story.

Elizabeth Gaskell first published Cranford in serial form, and apparently didn't initially think of it as a book. The first installment was billed as “a self-contained” sketch. Like The Pickwick Papers (which is referred to humorously relatively early on), Cranford is more a series of vignettes and a study of show more character than a novel. I found it charming, although it had nowhere near the impact on me that her North and South did. I have not seen the recent BBC series, but I expect the book must have been only an inspiration for it, since there's not much plot here. Towards the end, Miss Matty's reduced circumstances, opening of a shop in her home, and sudden return of her long-lost brother reminded me very much of The House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne's book was published right around the time Gaskell started serializing Cranford, and I wonder if it had any influence on her. show less

The introduction to my copy of Cranford says that Elizabeth Gaskell "did not intend [the book] as a novel—she had hoped to create a series of sketches to help Americans understand English country life." The first two chapters certainly read that way. But after brief introductions to "Our Society" and "The Captain," Gaskell launches into a full-blown narrative about Matilda Jenkyns—Matty to her friends— a middle-aged old maid living in the small town of Cranford.

Told by Matty's good friend and intermittent housemate, Mary Small, Cranford relates the interactions of Matty and her mostly spinster friends, Miss Pole, Mrs. Fitz-Adams, Mrs. Forrester and Mrs. Jamieson. These ladies consider themselves the elite of Cranford society, yet show more spend the better part of the novel showing their small-town provincialism. Spatting over a visiting Lady becoming engaged to the lowly town surgeon (the second straight book I've read from this era where doctors were held in low esteem). Frightening themselves and each other with rumors of marauding ruffians (who may be nothing more than passing strangers). Enjoying the magic act of a visiting Turkish conjuror (but only after they see the Rector in the audience, obviously conveying the church's approval of the evening's entertainment).

Cranford is a witty exploration of the way virtuous women can simultaneously be petty and pretentious, wrapped inside a satisfying tale of heartbreak, familial and financial loss, and—ultimately—the redemptive power of simple decency. show less

As Doctor Tom Recchio would be quick to point out, this isn't a novel so much as a series of vignettes. That doesn't stop it from being highly enjoyable, however. The old maids of Cranford, with their dedication to Victorian social etiquette above all else, are frequently hysterical, often charming, and occasionally moving. My favorite bits were those involving one of two men in book, Captain Brown, and the visiting ladyship. Since the book doesn't really have a plot, it can't be said to have a climax as such, but Gaskell does pull everything together in the end and caps things off with a satisfactorily big event.

I have to complain about my edition, though, a Penguin Non-Classics one released to tie into the BBC miniseries starring show more Dame Judi Dench: it's the Penguin Classics edition of Cranford, but with the introduction, textual notes, and appendices lopped off. The explanatory notes are still there, though, and make frequent references (i.e., "See Appendix III 'Fashion at Cranford'") to the portions of the critical apparatus that are no longer in the book! The explanatory notes also seem to think that I'm an idiot at times, telling me that someone saying she'll soon be seeing her late sister indicates she thinks she's going to die soon. D'you think?

added June 2012:
I first read Cranford over three years ago now, and in the intervening time, I've seen about half of the TV show and thought about a lot of the novel (Dr. Thomas Recchio, author of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford: A Publishing History, is my dissertation advisor). When I went into it, having since read North and South (twice), Mary Barton (twice), and Wives and Daughters, I was expecting/remembering a light piece of fluff that wouldn't be as good as those more serious novels.

I see that in my original review, I commented on the novel's made-up-as-it-went-along nature (indeed, it wasn't supposed to be a novel at all when it started), but it was much more striking this time through. The first two chapters form a self-contained story about the coming of Captain Brown to the town of Cranford, where "all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women" (5). He runs afoul of the genteel women, especially the Jenkyns sisters, Miss Deborah and Miss Matty. Captain Brown dies, then one of his daughters, making for a depressing tale of female community in the face of hardship. At the end of the second chapter, we learn in passing that Miss Deborah too has died by the writing of the story.

Then, the third and fourth chapters form another self-contained story of their own, about Miss Matty and a long ago love she let slip through her fingers coming back, but still not happening. And then it ends with him dying, too, giving us four character deaths in the first four chapters, and two stories that aren't altogether cheerful.

In the midst of all this, sadness, though, are of lot of humorous details about how the ladies of Cranford live, and it must have been this that readers wanted more of, because chapters 5-10 have much more of this. Not that there's no sadness, because there's definitely some, but the emphasis flips. It makes for an odd structure: had Gaskell planned it as a novel from the beginning, I would imagine we'd start with the fluffy stuff about what to call people with titles and possible foreigners and the panic over the alleged robberies, and after we'd gained some connection to the characters, it would be time for the heavy emotional stuff. As it is, it feels very odd.

I think that it's around chapter 11 where Gaskell decided she was writing a novel, because that's where we get out first clues about the potential return of the Jenkyns's brother, Peter. More than that, though, we get what is surely one of the saddest and most moving passages in literature, where Miss Matty recounts how she and her sister used to plan for their futures, and Miss Matty always wanted to have children, and now they don't even express interest in her, and she dreams sometimes that she has one! How depressing is that!

From there to the end (chapter 16), we get an abbreviated novel about the financial crisis that threatens to ruin Miss Matty's life and how everyone comes together to deal with it; just as the part where she tells of her lost dreams is so depressing, the parts where the community bands together to help her are so triumphant, feel-good in a way that is actually earned by the text. There's a lot of emotional power in Miss Matty helping out the man with the bad bank certificates, and in her creation of a tea shop, and in the events of the last two chapters. (I'll try to hold something back, spoiler-wise.)

"We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow think we are all of us better when she is near us." From its quick, depressing beginning, to its humorous middle, to its quite touching ending, this "accidental novel" turns out to be better than I remembered and expected, and I'm now sorry I consigned it to a second tier of Gaskell's works. show less

Cranford is a warm, gently wry look at provincial life in the mid 19th century. On the surface, whimsical and twee, but underneath are knowing winks and nods to the foolish vanity of polite society. Elizabeth Gaskell loves her characters generously, and her ribbing is never other than gentle. Some characters are innocent of the hardness of life, others choose not to acknowledge it.

The book has a big heart. Miss Matty is the focus of everyone's concern and is the gentlest soul who brings out the good in others.

The structure of society, particularly the hierarchies of social standing, are simultaneously important to Cranford's residents and rules to be broken, with the genteel mixing with their servants quite happily. Intrigues and show more squabbles between the ladies who think themselves grander than they are, are described with a warm humour. Elizabeth Gaskell seems to be winking at us through the pages.

The book is set in the period I deal with at work, and gives a different view to that of commerce and innovation found in the records I look after. This is a society predominantly made up of women, and retired women at that. The narrator is a young woman who divides her time between Cranford and Drumble, the nearest large town. Drumble is based on the city where I work. As an almost outsider, the narrator is able to view the oddness of Cranford society with a twinkle in her eye, and others who appear in the village having experienced life elsewhere do the same.

Nostalgia can be a strange thing. The book made me nostalgic for something I have never known - the quiet life in a village at a period of great economic and social change, where life continues quietly, and residents are often unaware of the kind of events taking place in cities that would eventually bring in the modern era. It isn't a sentimental nostalgia, either. There are no rose tinted spectacles. It is a snapshot of a particular way of life at a particular time in history. show less

Giving it four stars as it exceeded expectations and was genuinely funny in parts. Funniest book I've read all year in fact - although looking back, not a difficult achievement. Each chapter was really a vignette but the book was none the worse for this and there was a kind of plot that came together at the end. Poignant in places. Good to know that people's obsession with status and appearance was being satirised 150 years ago.