Book 85: Mary Barton and Book Stats.

Title: Mary Barton

Author: Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)

First Published: 1848

My Edition: Penguin Classic (seen at right)

Pages: 417

Other Works Include: Cranford (1853), Ruth (1853), North and South (1854), The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857) and Wives and Daughters (1865)

I am fairly familiar with Elizabeth Gaskell. One of the first readalongs I hosted here was on Cranford (posts are linked below). In college, I had a friend introduce me to the wonders of the BBC adaptation of North and South, which I promptly purchased to watch over and over again. I eventually read the novel (which I LOVE), so I would say that I am definitely a fan of her work.

It was a recent re-watch of the BBC miniseries that inspired me to pick up another of her novels. I was feeling all needy for some Gaskell-inspired England, so this was the only choice left to me off my list (When I made my list, I originally excluded Gaskell, but eventually put in three of her titles. Since I had already read North and South, I decided to add in three titles I was unfamiliar with: Cranford, Mary Barton, and Wives and Daughters, which may be a readalong in September). Whew. Anyway, I am excited to read some of earlier work. This one seems promising and I am excited to dive in.

Have you read anything by Gaskell? I would love to read her biography on Charlotte Bronte, but I need to find a copy first. :)

If interested, here are the links to my posts on Cranford (Book 48):

• Readalong Sign-ups
• Post 1 on Chapters 1-8
• Post 2 on Chapters 9-16
  

Cranford Read-Along Post 2: Chapters 9-16.

I am glad that Cranford was chosen as one of the two books for my June read-alongs. It was such a fun, lovely read that I am glad I got to share the experience with some of my readers, and my mom.

Those participating made their first posts two weeks ago and I think there was a general feeling of enjoyment on part of everyone who posted and commented. However, I did find that many of us felt that the book was a little scattered and it didn't seem to have an overarching plot in the beginning.

For me, the book definitely took off in the middle. The story seemed to pull together in a couple different ways. The focus shifted permanently back on to the character of Miss Matty. While there were some side stories, like that of "the panic," the novel was essentially about Miss Matty's role in this town, and how the people perceived her.

In fact, the whole book is about perceptions. The women all saw Lady Glenmire as this woman they needed to impress, but ultimately, she was just like them. The explosion of gossip after they found out she was engaged was hilarious!

"'What do you think, Miss Matty? What do you think? Lady Glenmire is to marry-is to be married, I mean-Lady Glenmire -Mr. Hoggins-Mr. Hoggins is going to marry Lady Glenmire!'

'Marry!' said we. 'Marry! Madness!'

'Marry!' said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her character. 'I said Marry! as you do; and I also said, What a fool my lady is going to make of herself!'" (135).

They also give off the impression of wealth and grandeur, but some make their own party trays and refuse to buy new fashions. They all want to give off this image of something they really aren't. And the funny thing is, everyone KNOWS everything anyway! It is not as if they are really hiding anything!

That's why when Miss Matty goes bankrupt and it forced into making some hard decisions, the ladies of Cranford touched my heart. Miss Matty was a woman who worked hard to maintain an image and a standard that she believed in. She didn't want anyone to know her struggles, but all of the women chipped in to help her maintain the life she had.

"Every lady wrote down the sum she could give annually, signed the paper, and sealed it mysteriously. If their proposal was acceded to, my father was to be allowed to open the papers, under pledge of secresy," (162).

The good will and charity of the ladies towards one of their own melted my heart. While these women may gossip, they truly care about each other, and when one of their own needed aid, they chipped in.

I was also happy to see the return of Miss Matty's brother, Peter, and the reconciliation and hope that resulted from his return. It was the perfect ending to this delightful little novel and I cannot wait to see what else Gaskell has in store.

"Ever since that day there has been old friendly sociability in Cranford society; which I am thankful for, because of my dear Miss Matty's love of peace and kindliness. We all love Miss Matty, and I somehow think we are all of us better when she is near us," (187).

If you have your post up, please leave a link here so that I may update this post throughout the day to show everyone's posts! Come back to check, and to visit other participants to see their thoughts!

Cranford Read-Along Post 1: Chapters 1-8.

I am glad to be kicking off the first of two posts on Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford. This is my second exposure to Gaskell, the first being North and South. A friend in college showed me the BBC mini-series which resulted in a reading of the book. I was in love, so I am glad I am reading more of her work!

I am also reading from my new hardcover Penguin edition of the book, which I am absolutely in love with. It is such a lovely green color, and I love the cloth bound feel! I know I rant and rave about these editions, but I am just in love with the old-fashioned feel.

Anyway, onto the ladies of Cranford!

The novel opens with some of my favorite lines;

"In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighboring town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad," (5).

The humorous tone takes over and paves the way for the gossip and meanderings of the Cranford women.

I have to say, I like the fact that the narrator is an outsider, and not one of the town's mainstays. She, whoever she is, offers the reader another perspective to life in the town-one outside of what the women are going through. She lets us see the characters how others see them in the town, without coloring them with opinions or gossip. She merely reports the goings on and lets us see the events as they unfold.

I was surprised to see that Cranford doesn't appear to be a seamless novel. Instead, it acts as recollections and memories from different moments in the characters lives. As we move deeper and the focus shifts to certain characters, like Matilda, we begin to learn about their past. More importantly, the reader learns how the women became who they were. For Matilda in particular, we can see that she had a troubled past, as evidenced in chapter 5, "Old Letters." The reader gets to learn more about her early family life and how she became the person she is.

More than anything I am getting the impression that this is a book about social norms and impressions. These are women who see each other nearly every day. To one another, they give off impressions of who they are behind closed doors, but by the conversations our narrator is having with Miss Matty, we can see that those impression may not be wholly accurate. Instead, these women all harbor secrets and fears. I hope that my assumptions are correct, and I would love to see Miss Matty change and develop even more with the town.

Another portion I really loved are the conversations between women. When a wealthier neighbor has a relative by the name of Lady Glenmire comes to visit, I love the uproar. First, the ladies are thrown into a tizzy as to how to greet her, then are told they are not allowed to call upon her, then, when the woman host changes her mind, the dilemma of what to call her ensues! The conversations and wit are hilarious as I picture a pack of middle-aged women arguing over niceties and social norms. I also love their questions about fashion and their need to impress each other.

In all, I really enjoyed these first 8 chapters. While they are not exactly what I was expecting, I am really loving the humor and style of Gaskell. I expect I am in for a treat in the last 8 chapters and I cannot wait to finish, and see what you all thought of this first half!!

If you have your post up, please leave a link here so that I may update this post throughout the day to show everyone's posts! Come back to check, and to visit other participants to see their thoughts!

Cat
Alex
The Avid Reader
The Wing Chair Traveller
April (Books and Wine)
Lindsey Sparks
Park Benches & Bookends
Whitney
Shannon

Sunday Salon: June 13, 2010.

Matt and I have had a rough day today. We woke up to find out that Matt's car was broken into last night. His driver's side window was smashed to pieces and things were thrown everywhere on the inside of his car. His car was also broken into back in January, when we were gone on our honeymoon, so this hits twice as hard. The first time his stereo and speakers were stolen. This time it was his golf clubs.

It is a shame that people have to resort to stealing. I don't understand that and I don't think I ever will. I also can't believe that someone would be okay with damaging someone else's property. Now we have to get him a new window so he can drive his car around.

We are both concerned about safety and have decided if we are still in Michigan, we are definitely moving to a different apartment complex. In addition to the break ins, we've had some issues with our neighbors and the area in general, so it will probably be better.

In good news, my friend Jenny got married yesterday on her grandparents' farm in Ann Arbor. It was super warm and humid, but she looked beautiful and was so happy. I have known her since the first grade and she stood up in our wedding, so I was glad we were there.

In reading news, I did not have as successful a week as I had hoped. While I finished The Hound of the Baskervilles, I didn't start the other Holmes novel. I did read both The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, which was a great time, but I didn't even touch Gulliver's Travels or Cranford. I guess you know what I'll be reading before the read-along posts!

This week the goal is to finish both Gulliver's Travels and Cranford to finish up my posts. Then I really need to read the Turgenev for my Classics Circuit post. And perhaps start the Inferno. But we shall see!

Sunday Salon: May 23, 2010.

Browsing through my blogroll earlier, I noticed quite a few posts about the end of the TV show Lost. I am glad to see that so many people love the show as much as I do.

I watched most of the first season as it came out on TV, but when it came time for the next few seasons, I always had a class during Lost time. So I stopped watching and never got back into it. Way, way back in November, Matt convinced me to watch through the series with him so I could watch the new (current) season with him as it came out. Needless to say, I couldn't get through it that quickly. But in the last few weeks, I have been hooked and some of my my most precious reading time has been spent watching episodes and falling love.

If you have never watched the series, you need to. It is extremely character driven, which my book nerd self absolutely loved. The characters are amazing and real, and I love so many of them. Now, I am going to come to the end when I watch the finale tonight, and I will think about how, like a great book, the series is coming to an end...but I can always revisit it.

I won't be watching it as it airs, so in a little while, I am banning myself from the computer. Matt won't be getting home from work till late, so I am waiting for him to start it. We also are going have some friends over to watch it with us. I even made "Dharma fish biscuits" with the characters' names on them to eat while we watch.

Anyway, in book news I had a fairly successful week. I started and finished Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Many people were surprised when I said I had never read it before. I also attempted to start Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (he also wrote Heart of Darkness), but I am 60 pages in and I am bored out of my mind. I have no idea what is going on and I am completely uninterested in the story. I decided to set it aside and I have turned to one of my favorite books for some comfort, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. It is a marvelous book and I can't wait to review it.

I also wanted to give a huge shout-out to everyone who is participating in one of my two read-alongs! I have been updating the main posts all week as people have expressed interest. If you are interested or plan on joining in, please sign up on the original posts. You can sign up for either Gulliver's Travels or Cranford. Those of you who are reading Cranford have totally left poor old Gulliver in the dust. But I have read Swift's work before, and it really is a great, quirky little book! Think about it hard!

This week I am planning on finishing As I Lay Dying, and maybe getting back into Lord Jim, if I can. There are also a few other things sitting on the shelf that I have a craving for...so we'll have to see what else I grab!

Happy Reading!

Cranford Read-Along Sign-ups.

I am happy to announce that in June I will be hosting a Cranford read-along, as voted on by my readers!

If you unsure if Cranford is the book for you, here is the synopsis taken from Goodreads.com:

"A gently comic picture of life in an English country town in the mid-nineteenth century, Cranford describes the small adventures of Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two middle- aged spinster sisters striving to live with dignity in reduced circumstances. Rich with humor and filled with vividly memorable characters—including the dignified Lady Glenmire and the duplicitous showman Signor Brunoni—Cranford is a portrait of kindness, compassion, and hope. "

If you are interested, you can leave a comment here and I will link you to the post to show that your are participating. I would also appreciate it if you could spread the word on your own blogs so that we can get more participants. I have found that the more participants in a read-along, the more fun it is!

Since Cranford is a relatively short book, I decided to have two days for posting. There are 16 chapters, so a post on chapters 1-8 can be made on June 15th (a Tuesday). I will have a post up with my own thoughts. You can write your post and I will link to everyone's reviews here on my blog.

The second and final posting can be done on June 30th (a Wednesday). Again, I will have a post up and will link to everyone's reviews so that you may go and visit other people's blogs to see their own thoughts as well!

Again, leave a comment here saying you are interested and I will add you to the participant list.

I hope you will join us!

Participants:
April
Cariitoo
Carolyn
My mom (I think I will have her post on my blog as well, since she doesn't have her own blog). :)
Atla
Avid Reader
Whitney
Alex
Kim
Julie
Jessica
Shannon
Cat
Susan
Kellie
Emme
Katherine

Changes and Goals.

While I have been away from here, I have been reflecting a lot on the blog, the books I have chosen to read, and my goals for this coming year.

To start with, I simply planned on chronicling my reading of a set list of books that were predetermined in advance. Based on everything I researched, I simply selected 250 of the most recognizable classics. Even as I was making the list I was questioning myself. I wasn’t sure if I should slim down the list to a more “manageable” number (like 100), or if I should cut out all dramas, which slim the list down even more. It was a hard task, and inevitably, some books didn’t make it on the list while others did.

In the time since then, I have come to realize that there are 2 authors NOT on the list that should be. Both of these authors are considered among the “classics” and their work is from the same time period. I feel like it is only fair to myself and the credibility of my list that they be added. However, I didn’t want to add more numbers, so I decided, after a lot of indecision, to remove 5 books from the list.

Choosing which books should be removed was difficult. I honestly just wanted to remove the entire remaining Dickens novels….but I figured that would not be a good thing in regards to my goal of reading the classics (classics and Dickens seem to go hand in hand). I eventually decided to remove some of the few volumes of autobiographical work, as well as a few nonfiction titles. Pretty much everything on my list is fiction or drama, so those few volumes seemed to stick out.

So, here are the new changes.

Titles I will be removing:
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
Utopia by Thomas More
Autobiography by Malcom X

With the exception of Origin of Species, I have read all of these books in college, so I won’t be missing out on too much.

Here are the authors and titles I will be adding in their place:
Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (I am leaving North and South off the list since I have watched the BBC mini-series more times than I can count and know nothing of her other work).
The Woman in White and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

I am also going to give myself 5 free passes to take a break from this list to read something NOT on the list. I am doing this for a few reasons…but mainly because there are a lot of great concluding novels coming out in the next year or two to series that I have been following. I don’t want to have to avoid reading other book blogs for a time period because of reviews on those books. Also, I will need that opportunity for a break.
Don’t get me wrong, I love reading these classics, but they take a lot more brain power than a fantasy novel, or a young adult read. My reading pace has slowed considerably and it is hard not to get discouraged.

I am also going to be networking a little more than I was. I kind of “Gave up” on reaching out to other bloggers in the last month or so (the wedding being the main reason), so I want to really pick that up and discover some other new blogs to read.

As a personal “book” oriented goal, I really want to hit the magical 100 again this year, since I only hit 90 last year (a huge disappointment), so I will be trying to pick up some more things, or trying to switch between a few things if I get into a rut.

Anyway, that seems to be all of my thoughts on the blog and blog details for now. I am updating the book list (which was posted back in August) to reflect my new changes.

Happy reading everyone!