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Cranford

Elizabeth Gaskell

Start date: January 1, 2015

Finish date: January 15, 2015

Discussion: Classics Corner

Discussion leader: Nicole

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Classics Corner

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What Members Thought

May 05, 2008 Inder rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, 19th-century, fiction, read-2008, england

Ah, so delightful! I loved this. It's really a series of vignettes, and, if there is a plot at all, it doesn't show up until halfway through. But it's so funny! And sad! And it's all about women! I laughed aloud a few times, and almost cried a few other times.

Sigh. I'm such a sucker for this stuff. But I loved it. Despite its disjunctive narrative, I read the whole book in less than three days. But I'm strange that way.

For Happy (I would alert readers to spoilers, but there actually isn't much Ah, so delightful! I loved this. It's really a series of vignettes, and, if there is a plot at all, it doesn't show up until halfway through. But it's so funny! And sad! And it's all about women! I laughed aloud a few times, and almost cried a few other times.

Sigh. I'm such a sucker for this stuff. But I loved it. Despite its disjunctive narrative, I read the whole book in less than three days. But I'm strange that way.

For Happy (I would alert readers to spoilers, but there actually isn't much to spoil):

Yeah, the makers of the Masterpiece adaptation took some serious liberties with the plot (or lack thereof). The series is fun and I'm really enjoying it, but it contains several plot lines that are not in the book. In fact, arguably the most important plot lines in the series are completely made up (as opposed to completely made up by Gaskell, I guess). For example, the young doctor and his girl, and all the associated story-lines, simply do not exist in the book. The carpenter with the broken bones - it's all made up. (That disappointed me, because, ever since Middlemarch, I've had a soft spot for young, ambitious doctors in 19th Century English villages. Alas, it was not to be found.) The cute kid who wants to rise above his station? Not only isn't he in the book, but I think the entire idea of him is alien to this novella, which (unlike Gaskell's other work) is centered entirely around the middle and aristocratic classes (and shifts therein), and barely touches on the working class at all.

More mildly, all of the timing is wrong (understandable, since following the vignettes too closely would result in a almost cliff-hanger free show, not good TV). And they skip a couple of deaths. There are a surprising number of deaths in this short novella, and I can see that if the series were more faithful to the book, it might be just too depressing. The book is never depressing, although it has sad moments, because of the quality of the narration, but this is difficult to reproduce on film.

Overall, there are probably more inconsistencies than similarities between the two. But it's hard to blame the screen-writer - the book doesn't offer much in the way of actual action to work with, and is noticeably missing any love affairs between attractive young people, which, let's face it, is the bread and butter of Masterpiece. The droll, sarcastic, disjunctive narration of commonplace events, makes for a particularly difficult adaptation.

But I love it - a new favorite narrator for me. ...more

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