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Cranford - Chapters I - V
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Jenn, moderator
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Nov 04, 2013 03:18PM
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Chapter I. I was a little confused with Gaskell´s type of writting, although I couldnt pinpoint why. Maybe is that 1st person which I dont even know her name. Or maybe that sort of humour blended with irony. Chapter II. I was truly shocked and disgusted with (view spoiler) :´(
Chapter III. Apparently choosing a man to marry then was even a more important decision that it is now cause: (1)women could not just mantain herselves, (2) spinters were truly beneath the social status, (3)there were barely divorces then, so an ill match will literally haunt you forever.
On the other hand, I understand that is the 1800 but I had the impression from other novels of the time (Austen and the Bronte sisters) that the parents and relatives could have a lot to say of a woman´s pretender, but that the final decision lied always on the woman. Although, again, it would be difficult for a woman to oppose that hard to her parents wishes.
Chapter IV. I feel bad for Matty, (view spoiler) I could relate more with Miss Jessie, who rejected a marriage proposition to take care of her sister and father, at least was her decision. I found it funny how english authors speaks of france in general and in this case of Paris, as an unhealthy city where there is always revolutions. While french authors tell us that England is this cold and polluted country.
Chapter V. At this point, I still didnt get Gaskell style, I didnt dislike it but there was something about it that just didnt do it for me. There was humor, but too plane, not enough irony or sarcasm for my usual taste. That and the fact that persons seems to drop like flies. Fortunately, I kept reading, cause It got better from here on ;D
So far I'm not impressed. The plot seems to be almost nonexistent... I mean, the narrator is really just talking about these families who live in a sleepy little town. Although the process in which they stay a member of society without any money is interesting, it's nothing I haven't heard before from authors in this time period.
Funny as in interesting or funny as in humorous?
I believe that Gaskell's purpose in writing Cranford was to capture a way of life that was fast disappearing. She also wrote an essay called The Last Generation in England for the same reason; to document these things before they were gone and people forgot. Some of the things she mentions in the essay were incorporated into the miniseries Cranford, such as the woman who would dress her dog. With the advent of the railroad, people travelled more, more goods were distributed in areas where they had been unavailable, etc. These pockets of more or less isolated villages were no longer so isolated. Gaskell appears to have had affection for the 'old ways', and in this novel I think she wrote it more as a series of vignettes than a plot-driven story.
Joy wrote: "By the way, I'm not sure what chapter this was in since I've finished the book, but who is the author "Dr. Johnson" that some people preferred to Charles Dickens?"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J...
Lauren wrote: "So far I'm not impressed. The plot seems to be almost nonexistent... I mean, the narrator is really just talking about these families who live in a sleepy little town. Although the process in which they stay a member of society without any money is interesting..."The introduction to my edition calls the subjects of the novel "the genteel poor" - which is very interesting. They are definitely very penny-pinching and frugal, yet there is quite a bit of snobbery, class snobbery.
This will come into play later in the book when (view spoiler)!
Lauren wrote: "So far I'm not impressed. "Hang in there, at this point I thought that it was like listening to the gossip of a boring aunt, but later it gets better.
I do love the way Gaskell writes this book. The episodic nature of every story sounds like real small town gossip, letters back home, and the affection seems real for this cosy, protected, hidebound-but-warmhearted world that was gone even when Gaskell was writing the book.The early chapters are full of a satire that's as sharp as Austen's but without her acid, you should certainly never take anything written at face value - just as with the characters, what sounds polite can be the deepest cut and what seems to be painful can be warmly meant.
I'm thoroughly enjoying it - it's like an early Victorian Cheshire version of Lake Wobegon Days.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I had a tear in my eye when Miss Mattie gave Martha permission to have a follower. So much potential happiness forgone because it wouldn't have been seemly.
Philip wrote: "Due to my lack of available time Cranford is still on my 'to read' list. However, I have seen the TV adaption and was interested to see how much of the history and social attitudes of the time we may learn from it. It may be hard to understand some of the behaviour looking back from our very different societies but then surly that is part of the pleasure of reading classics. Of course there is also the inevitable individual humour and outlook of both the author and the characters."Some who have seen the miniseries may already know this, but those who haven't might be wondering if something is missing from the novel: The miniseries was based on a combination of several works by Gaskell. The original miniseries Cranford was based on Cranford, Mr. Harrison's Confessions, and My Lady Ludlow, with a few touches from Gaskell's essay The Last Generation in England. The miniseries Return to Cranford continued with the plots of Cranford and My Lady Ludlow, and added The Moorland Cottage and the short story The Cage at Cranford (which Gaskell wrote some years later, in response to readers who wanted to know more about what happened to the ladies). Of these, I have only read Cranford, and my edition also includes the essay and the short story, but someday I would like to read the other short novels that made up the miniseries!
I agree with many of the comments here.True, there is little plot. But for me, as for others, that's okay. I enjoy its portrait of a life which has passed away, showing how simple lives can still be very passionately lived, and the importance of traditions and traditional practices in keeping a small town happy and content.
It reminds me of the Mitford books, and also of Miss Read, both series with little plot but just a pleasant visit with some nice people living nice lives but showing the interest in those lives. As Thomas Gray wrote in his Elegy in a Country Churchyard,
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
Gray could easily have been writing about the Cranford churchyard and people.
I also agree with the humor in the
Philip wrote: "Due to my lack of available time Cranford is still on my 'to read' list. However, I have seen the TV adaption..."I had also seen the adaptation, several times, but had not read the book until now. I am surprised at how different the book is from the adaptation. It is not only that, as Denise noted, the adaptation was a compilation of several of Gaskell's writings, but there were major plot changes even in the Cranford elements of the adaptation. I won't say more here, but if you read the book after seeing the adaptation, be prepared for some significant surprises.
I was also disappointed (and a bit angry), as was Karel, by the early death of Captain Brown, who I also had come to like. In fact, in the early chapters Gaskell kills off more significant (and all likeable) characters than most murder mysteries do. We lose Captain Brown, Miss Brown, Miss Jenkyns, and Mr. Holbrook all in the first three chapters. I miss all of them except Miss Brown -- the others I am very sad not to have the chance to spend more time with.And now Miss Jessie is gone to Scotland.
The remaining characters are less interesting to me, and unless Gaskell brings someone more interesting and enjoyable into the story than the remaining major characters (the narrator, who I really don't feel I know much about at all, Miss Matty, Miss Pole, and maybe Martha are all that are really left of any significance, aren't they?) I may pass on the rest of it.
I do enjoy that phrase "elegant economy" and the amusing ways in which the ladies of Cranford practice it -- the treatment of the wine, not lighting candles until their guests arrive, and the like. My own grandmother and her sister, my Auntie Ginger, who after grandmother was widowed lived together for many years in a large house in Maine, practiced many of the same sort of economies, but always elegantly.
Don't give up on it, Everyman! It's a fairly short work, anyway. And there are some interesting episodes to come. Nothing earth-shattering; this is a gentle book, but I'm sure you don't require high melodrama from a classic to be able to appreciate it. Of course, incidents that I don't consider earth-shattering may be very earth-shattering, indeed, to the ladies of Cranford.Having seen the miniseries before reading the novel, I have to agree that Captain Brown's early demise was rather a shock.
This one starts out slow, but it's rather quaint, in a cute way. Reminds me of All Creatures Great and Small (and on through the series) in which Herriott tells episodic adventures, but kind of weaves them together into a collage of what the people of the countryside are like.
