North and South in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Feb 02, 2025 Isabel Jazmín rated it really liked it · review of another edition

En esta novela conocemos a Margaret Hale, una chica que siempre ha vivido en Londres, en el norte y por azares del destino, debe mudarse junto con su familia al sur, de regreso al pueblo de su familia. Este contraste entre lo que vivió y a lo que se enfrenta, la autora lo utiliza como un pretexto para presentar lo prejuicios de la época de lo que se consideraba aceptable y no.

Lo que más me sorprendió es la variedad de temas que se abordan, no solamente desde la perspectiva de Margaret sino tambi ...more

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Oct 24, 2018 Marcella rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, on-hiatus, 2023-75-book-challenge

I am so conflicted about this book. On the one hand, Elizabeth Gaskell is a very technically skilled writer. There are many elegant passages, deep observations, and truly astounding economic commentary considering that as a woman living in the 19th century, she didn't have access to higher education or the gentlemen's clubs where these issues were often discussed. Clearly, she was brilliant. Dickens may have pointed out societal problems, but Gaskell takes the extra step of trying to provide sol I am so conflicted about this book. On the one hand, Elizabeth Gaskell is a very technically skilled writer. There are many elegant passages, deep observations, and truly astounding economic commentary considering that as a woman living in the 19th century, she didn't have access to higher education or the gentlemen's clubs where these issues were often discussed. Clearly, she was brilliant. Dickens may have pointed out societal problems, but Gaskell takes the extra step of trying to provide solutions (although from a 21st century perspective, we know those solutions won't work). I loved Cranford and wanted to try her other work. The perspectives on the North and South of England are very interesting time capsules. She is aware of the suffering experienced by the class divide, though apparently doesn't think to consider the ethics of the cotton trade and how it relates to slavery during the 1850s, or the perspective of the Irish who are brought in as cheap labor and described only as unskilled "knobsticks" who are stealing jobs etc. etc. At the time this novel was written, the Irish were currently starving by the millions during the Great Famine, and this is only briefly mentioned, even though it was an issue of great concern in England. She's not perfect with her attempt at seeing all sides of the labor story, though it was probably progressive for the time.

On the other hand, this novel is a drag to read. Because of Margaret. Margaret is one of those infuriating Victorian heroines who are always obedient to their parents, suffering femininely in silence rather than taking any steps to change her trajectory in any active way. She puts a hand to her head and (according to the ethos of the time) feels quite good about her dedication to patience and suffering when there are literally SO many other options open to her. She could, for example, go out and earn money as a music teacher or something when her family is struggling financially, but instead she dedicates herself to the housework and claims to love it. Marge, NO ONE LOVES HOUSEWORK, stop gaslighting yourself. (Are gaslights around at this point in history? Stop candling yourself. Er.) The only time in this entire book where she acts according to her own best interests is when every last one of her relations is dead. She's also 19, and 19-year-olds think they know everything, and she is no exception, telling grown adults who work in fields she has no experience in that They Are Wrong and she will Show Them The Path Of Moral Righteousness. UGH. I just wanted to smack her the entire time. Every other character also seems to suffer from Plot Syndrome, like the father--

--look, her father is THE WORST. I need an entire paragraph to rant about this. He has A Doubt about his role as a parson, and I don't really understand what it was because it's not explained and I DID read what scholarly research I could find by googling, but it's not that he's lost faith in God (certainly not!) and it's not that he's lost faith in the COE (certainly not!), but he has A Doubt, borne up by the words of some priest from 100 years ago, and decides, without consulting his family, to quit his position. This does actual harm to his family and congregation (though they seem to be doing much better with their new parson at the end of the book, so probably it was for the best) and THEN he's too much of a coward to TELL HIS WIFE and MAKES HIS DAUGHTER DO IT. I had to put the book down. I don't need to like every character, and I wondered if this meant we were supposed to hate this character, because wow, that's a good way of accomplishing that, and I would have been fine with that, but he inexplicably keeps being doted on by everyone for the rest of the book, even though he deserves to be hit by a carriage the minute he steps foot in Milton. He doesn't, but his wife dies, and maybe that is meant to be his divine punishment for his weakness and cowardice? (Fridging wasn't invented with comic books.) Gaskell seems to be hinting at us that we should in fact dislike him, or at least disagree with his decision, so it's weird that Margaret never or rarely turns against him--

--deciding to move his constantly-ailing wife to the most polluted city in England for basically no reason, and who is then SHOCKED when she sickens (which does not at all lead him to let her move somewhere cleaner, which almost any real human being would do) and dies. Then he decides he will never let himself leave, as a punishment, and who cares what happens to his daughter, whose prospects he has basically ruined by quitting the church over very dubious reasons and removing her from her own family and the company of members of her own class. ("I will never marry," Margaret vows solemnly at 19, because of course she does.) Because he has The Doubts. It made me furious during the entire book, especially when Margaret wouldn't hear a word against him, because she's a Perfect Victorian Heroine. She has countless opportunities to leave the hellish Milton in Darkshire (the Mt. Doom of fictional place names), but doesn't, because she is Good. Telling a reader how perfect a character is doesn't work in the 21st century (amazingly, authors are still trying this) as much as it didn't work in the 19th. Margaret says, like, one sentence to actual baron of industry John Thornton, and then throws herself in front of him during a strike (the one exciting scene in the book, and it is actually a good one) and it changes his whole perspective on being a boss. It cures him of disinterest in his workers, and eventually he decides to let them use a communal kitchen. Which they have to rent from him. Okay. Sure.

It really made me appreciate Jane Eyre that much more, written just a few years previously, because Jane refuses all of these expectations of the Perfect Victorian Heroine. She admits to being bad, she disobeys, she longs for action, she refuses to suffer in silence as a mistress for some Stupid Man, she RUNS AWAY AND BUILDS A NEW LIFE, and refuses AGAIN to do something that some Stupid Man wants her to do that she doesn't want to do. (And she's explicitly not beautiful. Margaret shines with so much beauty that it is constantly referred to, although, you know, not like other girls.) Margaret Hale might understand economics a bit better than Jane, but she could NEVER. Of course, Jane is an orphan in a sort of class void, and Margaret grew up comfortably in an upper class family, so Margaret has more to lose by any sort of independent action. As for romance, sure, Rochester is a pile of red flags in a trenchcoat, but you really do feel that their love is genuine and these crazy kids are made for each other. Margaret and Thornton are merely going through the motions demanded by the format of the story.

I would never have made it through without the audiobook narration of Juliet Stevenson (in fact, I tried and failed to read it a few times). Perhaps I will try this book again one day when I have more of an attention span. My inability to read deeply right now probably robbed me of some enjoyment of this book.

Anyway, just watch the miniseries, you get Richard Armitage. ...more

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Feb 23, 2015 Joanna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-read, audiobooks, rws-2015-spring

How is it that I'd never read or really heard of Gaskell before? I'm supremely glad to have read this book as part of a group read with one of my GR groups. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Claire Wille, who did a very nice job with the narration.

I found the discussions of industry and factory labor surprisingly relevant rather than dated and am impressed with the debates that Gaskell engaged in this book about the role of capitalists and laborers and the distinctions between farm/rural c ...more

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Apr 20, 2022 Julie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: to-read-own

My first buddy read with was so fun! Lovely to read so slowly, a chapter a day and, while it was strange at first, I enjoyed the pace and the time it gave me to think through the themes. A grittier world than Austen’s, but the push/pull between industry/class, city/rural, business owner/worker, individual/community is riveting. Mr. Thornton is a great hero because he is so invested in the relationship.

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