Group Read: The Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell

February 23, 201110 Comments

Having signed up for the Elizabeth Gaskell Reading Challenge I’m intending to read some of Gaskell’s full-length novels this year, but when I saw that Katherine of Gaskell Blog was hosting a group read of the novella, The Moorland Cottage, it seemed like a perfect way to start the challenge.

The Moorland Cottage is a short but very moving and emotional story. Mrs Browne and her children, Edward and Maggie, live with their elderly servant, Nancy, in a cottage near the town of Combehurst. It’s no secret that Edward is their mother’s favourite child but while she dotes on her son, she never has a kind word for her daughter. In a big house nearby live the wealthy Mr Buxton and his gentle, loving wife. There are also two children in the Buxton household: their son, Frank, and their niece, Erminia. The Buxtons attempt to befriend the Brownes, but while they can all see the goodness in Maggie, they find it difficult to like the spoilt, selfish Edward and the cold, snobbish Mrs Browne. As the years go by and the lives of the Brownes become more and more entwined with their neighbours’, Maggie is forced to make a decision which could potentially affect the future of both families.

The Moorland Cottage shows us the ways in which boys and girls were treated differently in Victorian society and I felt so sorry for Maggie. Throughout the first few chapters my heart was breaking for her as I saw how she was constantly pushed aside in favour of her brother. It was very, very sad to see the way, as a child, she meekly accepted her mother’s cruelty. For example, when Frank Buxton brings a pony for Maggie to ride, Mrs Browne decides “to spoil the enjoyment as far as possible, by looking and speaking in a cold manner, which often chilled Maggie’s little heart, and took all the zest out of the pleasure now”. How spiteful!

Maggie is also treated badly by Edward, and again, she allows him to do so, accepting that his needs are more important than her own. It’s not until she’s older and has spent more time in the company of the Buxtons and been exposed to other ideas that she starts to become aware of her brother’s faults. In the adult Edward, we see what happens to a child who is brought up always getting their own way and not being taught the difference between right and wrong.

I loved Gaskell’s descriptions of the Brownes’ home and the surrounding scenery throughout the changing seasons. Because the book was so short these descriptive passages had to be kept fairly brief which I thought made them even more effective.

The air on the heights was so still that nothing seemed to stir. Now and then a yellow leaf came floating down from the trees, detached from no outward violence, but only because its life had reached its full limit and then ceased. Looking down on the distant sheltered woods, they were gorgeous in orange and crimson, but their splendour was felt to be the sign of the decaying and dying year. Even without an inward sorrow, there was a grand solemnity in the season which impressed the mind, and hushed it into tranquil thought.

Finally, a few words on the group read itself: I thought this book was an excellent choice for a readalong. For such a short book it contains a wealth of interesting topics and issues. At only eleven chapters I could easily have read it in one day but I found that reading it slowly meant I had a better understanding of it and got more out of the story. And Katherine’s beautifully annotated chapter summaries were very useful and helped to bring the story to life. Visit Gaskell Blog to see them for yourself!

Final thoughts on Bleak House by Charles Dickens

November 2, 201011 Comments

I was hoping to have this review ready to post at the end of Amanda’s readalong, but as usual things didn’t go according to plan and I’m almost a week late!

I had tried to read Bleak House once or twice in the past but gave up after a few chapters, so I hoped that taking part in the readalong would give me the motivation to actually finish the book. And it did. However, I was reminded of the reasons why I had given up on the book on my previous attempts. Dickens’ writing can be very long-winded, descriptive and detailed, even in comparison to other Victorian authors, and there were many parts of the book where I really had to force myself to concentrate – particularly during the first two chapters.

The plot is so complex I’m not even going to try to write a summary, other than to say that the story revolves around a court case called Jarndyce and Jarndyce with which many of the characters are in some way involved. The action moves back and forth between the foggy streets of London and a quiet country estate in Lincolnshire. Half of the story is told by an unnamed narrator in the third person present tense, and the other half is narrated by Esther Summerson. There are some characters who appear in only one of the narratives and some who feature in both, so that the two cross and intersect from time to time.

If you’re thinking of reading Bleak House you should be aware that a huge number of characters are introduced throughout the first half of the book. As I mentioned in one of my readalong update posts, it felt as if storylines were being started then abandoned for hundreds of pages at a time. It takes a long time for the separate storylines to start coming together so you’ll need to have patience, but when they do the book becomes much more enjoyable.

Although many of the characters lacked depth, they were all different and memorable enough that I never had a problem remembering who was who. There were some that I liked (Mr Jarndyce, Inspector Bucket and George), and some that I hated (Skimpole, Smallweed and Tulkinghorn). As for Esther, she appeared to be Dickens’ portrayal of what an ideal woman should be like (i.e. perfect in every way, loved by everyone, happy to be nicknamed ‘little housewife’ and ‘Dame Durden’). But although Esther irritated me, I would probably have enjoyed the book more if it had all been told from her perspective. I found I could get more absorbed in the story while she was narrating and her chapters were much easier to follow than the others.

Bleak House has everything I would normally love in a book: an intricate plot, secrets and revelations, humour, a mystery, unusual characters. Unfortunately there was something about the book that didn’t quite work for me; I’m not sure whether it was the writing style or the narrative structure or a combination of both. But although I didn’t love it, I didn’t dislike it either and as this was only the second Dickens book I’ve read (the other being A Christmas Carol), I’ll definitely be giving him another chance.

Bleak House Readalong: Chapters 20-32

September 22, 2010September 22, 20101 Comment

I didn’t post my Bleak House Readalong update last Wednesday as it was Book Blogger Appreciation Week, so in this post I’ll be discussing Week 4: Chapters 20-25 and Week 5: Chapters 26-32.

*Please note: If you haven’t read as far as chapter 32 of Bleak House, you may encounter spoilers in this post.*

In the first 19 chapters of the book, we were introduced to a bewildering number of characters and storylines. As I mentioned in my previous update, the story had so far felt disjointed and slightly confusing. In these next few installments though, things finally start coming together and the story is beginning to get really interesting. There were still a few new characters (the Smallweed family, Mr George, the Bagnets and Mr Bucket the detective), but I think we’ve met all the major ones now.

I won’t even try to write a full summary for these chapters, but here are a few of the more important plot developments: Charley, the orphan girl we met earlier in the book, arrives at Bleak House as Esther’s maid. Richard changes career (again! I wish it was really as easy as that) and joins the army. Everyone seems to be very interested in Captain Hawdon’s handwriting, Caddy Jellyby marries Prince Turveydrop, Esther becomes ill – and in Chapter 29, the identity of Esther’s mother is revealed! I was very surprised by this because, although I had already guessed who it was, I hadn’t expected to find out so early in the story and had thought it would come towards the end of the book.

So overall, I found these chapters much more compelling than the previous ones because it feels that things are actually starting to happen now. And this section ended on an exciting note, when one of the characters spontaneously combusts! There are still some parts where I’m struggling to stay interested (Chapter 25: Mrs Snagsby Sees It All – was there any point to that chapter?) but I think I’m going to enjoy the rest of the book.

You can see other readalong participants’ thoughts on Bleak House here.

Bleak House Readalong: Chapters 14-19

September 8, 20106 Comments

I’m a few chapters ahead of the readalong schedule again, but this post is based on my thoughts at the end of Chapter 19.

*Please be aware that this post may contain spoilers*

It’s week 3 of the readalong, I’m more than 230 pages into my edition of Bleak House, and Dickens is still introducing new characters and new storylines in every chapter!

In this week’s installments, Esther accompanies Caddy Jellyby to the dancing school where her fiancé Prince Turveydrop works. We also meet his father, Mr Turveydrop, who is always talking about the importance of ‘Deportment’ – very annoying! In chapter 15, Mr Skimpole reappears with news that the debt collector Mr Neckett has died, leaving his three children orphaned. The oldest girl, Charley, is taking care of her brother Tom and the baby Emma, as well as going out to work.

The Snagsbys invite the Chadbands for tea and Mrs Chadband turns out to be a face from Esther’s past. Richard changes career again, deciding he wants to be a lawyer this time. And on a visit to Mr Boythorn, Esther encounters Lady Dedlock, who seems strangely familiar although she’s sure she’s never seen her before.

There are an unbelievable number of characters in the first 19 chapters of this book alone! Luckily, I haven’t had too much trouble remembering who they all are. At the moment it’s difficult to tell which of the characters will play a major part in the story and which won’t. Maybe they all will!

As I mentioned last week, I prefer the chapters narrated by Esther to the others, as they are easier to follow. However, we are now starting to see some indications that Esther is not being completely honest with the reader and is choosing what she does and doesn’t want to tell us (usually in relation to a certain young surgeon called Mr Woodcourt).

“For I was so little inclined to sleep, myself, that night, that I sat up working. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was wakeful and rather low-spirited. I don’t know why. At least, I don’t think I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don’t think it matters.”

I’m enjoying the book but it still feels quite disjointed and confusing. It still seems that storylines are being started and then abandoned just as they’re starting to get interesting, and characters are being introduced then disappear for several chapters at a time. I’m sure that when things start to come together later in the book I’ll be able to appreciate the importance of these early chapters more. I think I just need to be patient!

More posts on the Bleak House readalong here.

Bleak House Readalong: Chapters 8-13

September 1, 20104 Comments

This is Week 2 of the Bleak House Readalong. I’m slightly ahead of the readalong schedule this week, but will keep this post restricted to chapters 8-13.

*If you haven’t read the book yet, you might encounter some spoilers.*

13 chapters into the book now and it still feels that not much has actually happened yet; Dickens is still bringing in new characters and new storylines. I’m enjoying the chapters narrated by Esther the most as I’m finding the other chapters a bit harder to follow.

In this week’s installments, Esther receives a marriage proposal, Richard tries to choose a profession, and a law-copier called Nemo is found dead from a suspected opium overdose. We meet Mrs Pardiggle who, like Mrs Jellyby, is supposed to be a ‘philanthropist’, but whereas Mrs Jellyby neglects her children, Mrs Pardiggle brings her five sons with her everywhere she goes and forces them to invest in charities that they are too young to know anything about.

We also meet a drunken brickmaker and his wife Jenny, who has a black eye and is nursing a sick baby. Other new characters include Mr Boythorn, an old friend of Mr Jarndyce’s who visits Bleak House, a ‘law-stationer’ called Mr Snagsby, and Jo, a homeless crossing-sweeper.

It will be interesting to see how Dickens is going to weave all these storylines and characters together. A lot of things don’t make much sense at the moment, but I’m hoping that everything will start to become clearer soon. I’m enjoying the book more than I was last week, though – and Esther isn’t annoying me as much now.

For more opinions on this week’s installments, see the list of participants at The Zen Leaf.

Bleak House Readalong: Chapters 1-7

August 25, 20106 Comments

Charles Dickens’ Bleak House is a book that, like Middlemarch by George Eliot, I have attempted to read before but abandoned after a few chapters. This summer I took part in a Middlemarch readalong and finally finished the book (and ended up loving it) so I’m hoping that this Bleak House readalong will be equally successful. I’ve read Chapters 1-7 this week and have now passed the point where I lost interest and stopped reading the last time.

In Bleak House, Dickens divides the narrative between an orphan called Esther Summerson and an unnamed omniscient narrator, which is an interesting technique but one that isn’t really working for me. The book begins by telling us about a long-running court case called Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which has gone on for so many years that the original parties in the suit are now dead and nobody can remember what it was about. In the opening chapter Dickens tells us about the fog that is enveloping London, which can be seen as a metaphor hinting that the court case and much of the following story is going to be shrouded in fog as well.

“Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats…”

When Ada and Richard, two wards of court, are sent to live with John Jarndyce in his home, Bleak House, Esther is asked to accompany them. At the moment we don’t know why this is, or how Esther is connected with the Jarndyce suit. On their way to Bleak House, they meet a variety of interesting people including Mrs Jellyby, who seems more interested in Africa than in her own family, an eccentric old lady who has been closely following the Jarndyce case, and the old lady’s landlord, Mr Krook.

The first seven chapters are concerned with setting the scene and not much has happened yet. I’m not really a lover of long descriptive passages but most of those were confined to the first two chapters. From the third chapter onwards, when the story really began, I started to enjoy it.

We are introduced to a huge number of characters in the first seven chapters. So far I’ve found it easy enough to remember who they all are, but I suspect that it might get more confusing later. One of the problems I had on my first attempt at reading this book was that Esther irritated me – and unfortunately she’s still irritating me this time. I hope I’m going to like her more as the book continues. I also dislike Mr Skimpole. He takes money from Richard and Esther to pay his debts, but everyone seems to think that’s okay because he’s such a harmless, childlike person.

“When you come to think of it, it’s the height of childishness in you — I mean me —” said Mr Jarndyce, “to regard him for a moment as a man. You can’t make him responsible. The idea of Harold Skimpole with designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, ha, ha!”

So far I’m undecided about this book. I’m not loving it yet, but I’m not hating it either. Although Bleak House is a very long book (over 700 pages in my edition) and I’m only around 80 pages into it, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finishing it. I found with the Middlemarch readalong that making a long classic my secondary book to read alongside several shorter books is a method that works perfectly for me.

I’ll try to post another progress update next Wednesday, when I hope to be able to tell you that I’ve started to love the book!

You can see other participants’ thoughts at The Zen Leaf.

Readalong: Middlemarch by George Eliot

August 23, 201018 Comments

I have had two previous attempts at reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch but both times abandoned the book after a few chapters. When I saw that Nymeth was planning a readalong this summer, I thought this might give me the motivation to persevere and actually finish the book. I think part of the problem with my past attempts was that I found the book so long and slow-moving it didn’t hold my attention and I ended up being tempted by other books on my shelf. This time round I decided to do things differently. I started reading the book at the end of June alongside other books (something I don’t usually do – I prefer to concentrate on one book at a time) and worked slowly through it, interspersing it with an occasional shorter book. As it turned out, this was the perfect way for me to read Middlemarch, as it meant I could take my time and give it the attention it deserved. And this is a book that really benefits from being read slowly.

The plot is so layered, every sentence filled with so much meaning, that I’m sure there are a lot of things that I’ve missed and will have to pick up on a subsequent reading. It certainly is a book that you need to concentrate on. There are so many characters, who all seem to be related by marriage in some way, that I had to make notes as I was reading and would never have kept all the characters straight otherwise. I highly recommend you do the same as I found my amateurish family trees became invaluable as I progressed through the book!

So what is Middlemarch about? Well, even after finishing the book I don’t really know how to describe the plot. Middlemarch is the story, not just of one or two people, but of an entire town and its inhabitants. It portrays the atmosphere of life in a small community where everybody knows everybody else’s business and most people’s biggest concern is what their neighbours will think of them. The relationships and interactions between the characters are wonderfully complex and Eliot cleverly weaves their storylines together, so that the actions of one person may have unforeseen consequences on the life of another.

The prologue certainly seems to refer to Dorothea Brooke and at first it appears that the book is going to be about Dorothea and her marriage to the dry and scholarly Edward Casaubon. Dorothea is an intelligent, sincere, idealistic girl who despite the warnings of her friends and family becomes determined to marry Mr Casaubon, insisting that he has a “great soul” and that nothing will give her greater happiness in life than assisting him with his studies.

“In this latter end of autumn, with a sparse remnant of yellow leaves falling slowly athwart the dark evergreens in a stillness without sunshine, the house too had an air of autumnal decline, and Mr. Casaubon, when he presented himself, had no bloom that could be thrown into relief by that background.”

Just as we’re becoming absorbed in her story, however, Dorothea disappears for several chapters and we are introduced to some new characters. The first is a newcomer to Middlemarch: Tertius Lydgate, a young doctor with some new and radical ideas. Soon after his arrival, Lydgate enters into a relationship with Rosamond Vincy, which proves to be just as difficult and disappointing as Dorothea’s marriage to Mr Casaubon.

“Lydgate could only say, “Poor, poor darling!” – but he secretly wondered over the terrible tenacity of this mild creature. There was gathering within him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond. His superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he had imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set aside on every practical question.”

We also follow Rosamond’s brother Fred Vincy as he tries to find his true vocation in life and to earn the respect of Mary Garth, the woman he loves. These three storylines (and several other subplots) all run alongside each other, meeting and intersecting from time to time.

There are many things that make this book so impressive and so notable but the most striking, in my opinion, is the incredibly detailed characterisation. Every character Eliot introduces us to is interesting, nuanced and believable. She even gives her characters distinctive voices (literally!) – we are repeatedly told that Celia speaks “with a quiet staccato” and that Mr Brooke has a habit of repeating himself (“I thought you had more of your own opinion than most girls. I thought you liked your own opinion – liked it, you know”).

We see almost every conceivable personality type; we experience almost every imaginable human emotion. And most importantly, the characters develop throughout the book – they mature, they learn from their mistakes, they become better people. I could find something to admire in almost all of the characters. They all have their own flaws and faults but also have some good qualities – this makes even less likeable people such as Mr Bulstrode interesting to read about and allows us to empathise with them. There are plenty of characters who are very likeable, though. I particularly loved Mary Garth and her father Caleb.

“Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and annoyance at that fact. And she had already come to take life very much as a comedy in which she had a proud, nay, a generous resolution not to act the mean or treacherous part. Mary might have become cynical if she had not had parents whom she honored, and a well of affectionate gratitude within her, which was all the fuller because she had learned to make no unreasonable claims.”

I am not usually very good at spotting themes in books, but I could find several in Middlemarch. The most obvious is marriage and how it often fails to live up to our expectations (i.e. Dorothea Brooke and Mr Casaubon; Rosamond Vincy and Tertius Lydgate). In her portrayals of these marriages, George Eliot never places the blame entirely on either the husband or the wife. Instead, she shows how an unhappy or problematic marriage can be caused by personality differences, unrealistic idealism and a failure to understand the person we are married to.

“All these are crushing questions; but whatever else remained the same, the light had changed, and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday. The fact is unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether the same.”

Another theme is change: we should remember that although Middlemarch was published in the 1870s, it was set around forty years earlier at a time of great change: there were changes in politics (the Reform Bill of 1832); changes in transport (the arrival of the railway) and changes in medicine (as portrayed through Tertius Lydgate’s new ideas and theories).

There are so many other aspects of this book that I wanted to discuss here, but I have to stop somewhere! I haven’t even mentioned Will Ladislaw, who is made to feel unwelcome in Middlemarch by his relative, Mr Casaubon; or Mr Farebrother, who is in love with Mary Garth; or Raffles, who is as close to a villain as we get in Middlemarch.

After reaching the final page I can now see why so many people love this book so much. I would recommend Middlemarch to all lovers of Victorian fiction who are prepared to invest the time it takes to read such a long and complex novel. I don’t think this book would be for everyone though. If you prefer faster-paced stories you may have trouble getting into it, as I did on my earlier attempts. My advice to you would be to stick with it, take your time and savour every word, and the story does become more compelling as it goes on.

If I’m going to be completely honest, there are a lot of classics that I’ve enjoyed a lot more than this one, but I can’t think of any that are greater in scope, more insightful or offer a more penetrating study of humanity. After spending the summer with Dorothea and Will, Tertius and Rosamond, Fred and Mary, and the others, I’m really going to miss them all.

I’ll leave you with some more quotes from the book:

“But indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary.”