North and south - Genevieve's BookWyrm

450 pages

English language

Published Nov. 25, 1995 by Penguin.

ISBN:: 978-0-14-043424-8

(1 review)

When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction.

In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fuses individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale creates one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature.

33 editions

Gertie MacDowell reviewed North and south by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Still relevant two centuries later

4 stars

I liked this book even if I did not, per se, 'enjoy' it. Charles Dickens was correct to demand the title be 'North and South' because to have called it simply 'Margaret Hale' would be a disservice to the story, and the reader. By far. it's the themes of the story that rise above the characters in it. Conflicts between the urban and rural, rich and poor, male and female, and indeed, north and south provide the overarching sky under which things take place and without which, the story would not stand out amongst its contemporaries.

I cannot say that I liked the characters in 'North and South' as much as I did Gaskell's other work, 'Cranford', but their various interactions gave the story a much needed conflict and friction.

It's perhaps hard from the 21st century vantage to appreciate the dramatic crisis of faith Mr. Hale undergoes that gets …

I liked this book even if I did not, per se, 'enjoy' it. Charles Dickens was correct to demand the title be 'North and South' because to have called it simply 'Margaret Hale' would be a disservice to the story, and the reader. By far. it's the themes of the story that rise above the characters in it. Conflicts between the urban and rural, rich and poor, male and female, and indeed, north and south provide the overarching sky under which things take place and without which, the story would not stand out amongst its contemporaries.

I cannot say that I liked the characters in 'North and South' as much as I did Gaskell's other work, 'Cranford', but their various interactions gave the story a much needed conflict and friction.

It's perhaps hard from the 21st century vantage to appreciate the dramatic crisis of faith Mr. Hale undergoes that gets the ball rolling. Yet it is not hard to appreciate the various trials and tribulations that everyone within his orbit must undergo by way of collateral damage. Margaret Hale therefore is a commendable protagonist who shoulders everything as best she can while maintaining her dignity.

Like many Victorian novels, I found the ending not so much too good to be true, but, shall we say, unsurprising. It also brought the novel's great themes to a crashing halt and we are left to wonder what happened afterward.

Overall, 'North and South' is a historical book that can help place modern times in the right context. Disparity of wealth and power, geography and people, all seeming so shamefully current are, in such a light, neither so new or so uncommon. While we have moved beyond the 19th century in so many ways, in many others, we have never budged. Reading 'North and South' is a good reminder of that.