North and South - Genevieve's BookWyrm

No cover — Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell: North and South (EBook, 2009, The Floating Press)

eBook

English language

Published Nov. 25, 2009 by The Floating Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-77541-184-0
OCLC Number:: 606818482

(1 review)

North and South draws on Gaskell's own experiences of the poverty and hardship of life in the industrial north of England. Her heroine, Margaret Hale, is taken from the wealthy south by her nonconformist minister father, to live in a fictional northern town. The stark differences are explored through Margaret's abrupt change in circumstance, and her sympathetic reaction to the plight of the northerners. She comes into conflict with a local mill owner who proposes marriage to her. The two undergo a series of misunderstandings and changes of heart before they are reunited.

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.