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Title: North and South (Penguin Classics) by Elizabeth Gaskell, Diana Quick ISBN: 0-14-086491-1 Publisher: Penguin Highbridge Pub. Date: 01 January, 2005 Format: Audio Cassette List Price(USD): $23.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (13 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Worth a read
Comment: Margaret Hale's father, a churchman, repudiates his beliefs, and consequently sacrifices his "living" in idyllic, sunny Helstone (is that "Hell" stone? Surely not...) in the South of England. The Hales relocate in Milton, in Darkshire, loosely modelled on Manchester. In the North, they learn the realities of industrial life, the poverty, social injustice, rampant death, etc.

Politically and socially, the local mill-owner, John Thornton, is Margaret's antagonist. Their initial mutual revulsion evolves eventually, through mutual sympathy, into love. Add in Margaret's brother, Frederick, living abroad under a cloud for mutiny, and you have the ingredients of a good story.

But the first 200 pages are, as another reviewer has remarked, tedious beyond belief. However, the last 250 or so pages fly by. Gaskell plots the story well. The many deaths, both lingering and sudden, are harrowing and moving. Ideologically, Gaskell was an armchair socialist, a middle-class wife who could afford to ally herself with the workers. Her style, packed with Victorianisms, is in some ways contemporary and highly idiomatic, and she handles conversation particularly well. There's much Northern dialogue to struggle through.

You'll struggle to reach the middle of the book, and then you won't be able to put it down. My fave chapter is the one where Margaret, after many reversals, returns to her native town of Helstone. Her nostalgia is tempered by the realisation that life moves on. Even this little jewel of a village is sadly changed. But, as she well knows, c'est la vie!

Rating: 5
Summary: One of the greatest and most underrated Victorian novels
Comment: I fell in love with this marvellous novel and it's main protagonists, Margaret Hale & John Thornton, when I first read it some five years ago. I remember when I was reading the chapters describing the riot at Thornton's mill while on the way home from work on the train, I was so caught up with the story that I nearly missed my stop.

One of the things that particularly impresses me about "North and South" is that Elizabeth Gaskell actually concentrates as much, if not more, on the principal male character's (John Thornton's) sexual and romantic desires and inner life rather than on the main female character (Margaret Hale). This is somewhat unusual to find in a book by female writer of the Victorian era. I feel that it makes the character of John Thornton one of the most interesting and attractive in 19th century literature.

His passionate love and desire for Margaret border on the obsessive at times. However, Elizabeth Gaskell details his torturous struggles with his emotions in such a empathethic way that you feel immensely drawn to Thornton from the first time you meet him. The scenes where Margaret rebuffs his attempts at a marriage proposal and the aftermath where he dazedly goes off into the countryside to calm down are vividly written.

I thoroughly disagree with some of the other reviewer's comments below, especially the person on 17 March 2003 who cannot even get the author's name right. It makes you wonder if they have read the same book as I did. I have no respect for people who impose inappropriate and modern notions on a work from this era and give their opinions, with such a sneering tone, in a trite and dismissive critique.

I know that there are many "North and South" fans out there who, like me, can appreciate the novel for what it is, not what they think it should be.

It is simply a beautifully written, engaging and satisfying book.

Rating: 4
Summary: Gaskell's Victorian novel with modern ideas
Comment: I agree with a lot that is written in the previous reviews here. Yes, there is a very slow start to this novel. I wonder whether that's because it was first serialized by Dickens, and Mrs. Gaskell was paid by the word. And, yes, the ending is rather abrupt, especially preceded by the last few slow chapters. Maybe Dickens lost his patience.

In so many ways, though, this novel is a treasure. It's not easy to write a political novel with a strong love story and good characterizations. Gaskell takes on quite a bit and mostly succeeds in her task of describing the changes industrialization brought to England. She balances her sympathy for the workers in the factories with the dilemmas posed to the mill owners by new machinery, competition from abroad, and the threats of potential workers' strikes. She contrasts very effectively the excitement of this new way of life against the nostalgia for the agrarian past. These were new concepts in Victorian England, but they are not so foreign today that we cannot readily understand their significance.

She gives us a sympathetic and spirited heroine in Margaret Hale, who is wise beyond her years. Another colorful character is Nicholas Higgins. I found myself looking forward to his scenes because he provides the humor in an almost-humorless book. (It is funny at the end, though, and I would have liked to have seen more of this tone.)

Mr. Thornton is a character we can readily identify with--someone who triumphs over adversity and seeks to constantly better himself. Someone with high standards, yet none higher than he holds himself to. Margaret is his match in every way.

I did see many plot similarities with "Pride and Prejudice" in the love story. We have characters of different class backgrounds who are initially repelled but who come to appreciate each other and are kept apart by misunderstandings and circumstances. The proposal scenes are strikingly familiar, and the first proposal includes almost the same language (re gentlemanlike behavior) that Elizabeth speaks to Darcy. And we have a Lady Catherine DeBourgh character in Mrs. Thornton, who does her best to drive the lovers apart. But I can't fault Mrs. Gaskell for borrowing plotlines from the master. Although Gaskell is a strong writer, she does not quite have Jane Austen's gift for revealing the humanity in her characters with humor and affection. There is not much "fun" and no banter (until the very last lines of the book) in the North and South love story.

There are many plot contrivances and conveniences, too, which compel us to suspend disbelief. A few too many rapid deaths, a character's coincidental presence at a key scene, another character showing up in an unexpected place, and more. But these limitations serve to drive the story and allow us to focus on the strong moral characters of our central characters and our strong wish for their eventual reconciliation.

In the Penguin edition, it is also rather disturbing to find the plot given away in the footnotes. I read the footnotes religiously to orient myself, but I don't understand why they have to mention so many plot occurrences (especially big things like deaths and proposals) ahead of time. So, if you don't want to know how things go, read the footnotes (and preface) judiciously.

OK, I've written a lot of negatives and yet I give the book 4 stars. Despite its flaws, North and South takes on a lot and mainly succeeds. I love its ambition and its great heart. I love that I learned a lot about English history at that particular time. I love that it rewarded me for getting through those first 150 pages with a rich, compelling story. I love that Mrs. Gaskell held my interest to the end. As Victorian novels go, this is surprisingly modern and a worthwhile read.