Whom God Hath Joined

by Arnold Bennett

Book by Bennett, Arnold

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1906

About the author

Enoch Arnold Bennett was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboration with other writers), and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information during the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. Sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France.
Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people and he deplored literary cliques and élites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913).
Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.

Reviews

[AbZeroNow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read some of Arnold Bennett's earlier works, this stands with A Man From the North & Anna of the Five Towns as one of his better novels. Novel follows two failing marriages, both with a spouse committing adultery (of course the adulterous spouse in one is a woman, the other the man) and the painful process of legally trying to obtain a divorce. Bennett's strength is that there are no villains and each character seems a least a bit sympathetic. Ending has one character, Lawrence Ridware discover something about himself but doesn't try to unexpectedly have him start another romance. Shows Bennett's strength as a writer.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This looked like a sure 10 for a long time. But the conclusion was a bit on the shallow side.
It is the story of two divorces. A solicitor finds that his wife was unfaithful and immediately leaves her. At the same time his employer is left by his wife because of an affair with the French governess of his children. It seems daughter more or less forces her mother to leave.
Beautifully written. Very subtle. One of Bennett’s best works. In the end daughter can not bring herself to tell the story in front of judge. Whereas hero gets his divorce only later because of a technicality. Hero and daughter meet again in the end. But nothing comes out of this.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a difference a century makes! Two divorces; the first failed on grounds of geography, the second due to delicate sensibility. The main witness to her philandering father’s latest conquest cannot give her evidence in front of the riffraff in the public gallery (and the usher is unkempt). Much angst all round, but mostly focused on the scandal of it all. There were a couple of things I wanted to know at the end; the fate of the maid who was dismissed for nothing more than offending the sensibilities of an ageing spinster by simply existing, and whether the household maid wanted to move from Staffs to Folkestone. I’ll never know of course, because those people don’t matter

[Christine Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. The story is surprisingly current...would make a great tv drama

[Scout · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy, talk about reliving divorce. I will say that reading this story compelled me to document my divorce story. The description of the voyeuristic court hearings was disturbingly real.