Cranford: A Final Review

Since I will be leaving shortly on my Venice and the Italian Lakes adventure, and my blog will officially be on vacation, I wanted to finish up my review of Cranford before leaving. I apologize in advance for not being around to participate and comment, but I will pick up where I left off when I return:

All in all, I grew to love the novel, even though the beginning was difficult for me. I grew to love the little village, and long to find a place just like Cranford to put down roots with my own family (although my husband would come along! hopefully, he wouldn't be intruding). I think the following quotation is a good representation of the novel:

"But to return to Miss Matty. It was really very pleasant to see how her unselfishness, and simple sense of justice, called out the same good qualities in others. She never seemed to think anyone would impose upon her, because she should be so grieved to do it to them. I have heard her put a stop to the asseverations of the man who brought her coals, by quietly saying 'I am sure you would be sorry to bring me wrong weight'; and if the coals were short measure that time, I don't believe they ever were again. People would have felt as much ashamed of presuming on her good faith as they would have done on that of a child. But my father says, 'such simplicity might be very well in Cranford, but would never do in the world'."

Yes, I believe that too, at least not in my world. I love Matty's simplicity and good faith and her love of children is very telling. She is like a child in both her innocence and belief in others, and if only everyone could learn from her example, how this world would be a better place!

So far, I have yet to find a place like Cranford, but I will keep looking. I will always have this novel at least to read over and over again to keep my own faith in humanity going.

I am changing my rating to 5 stars for this very unique and touching novel, and I hope to continue reading more of Gaskell's work in the future. Happy Reviewing!

A Bien Tot!
Susan

Everything Austen II Challenge

I am so excited to be starting up a new challenge. Stephanie's Written Word Blog is hosting this challenge beginning July 1st and running until December 31st 2010. You just have to pick six Austen related books, shows, films, or anything else to read or watch or take part in before the end of the year. I am still in the process of compiling my list. There is so much to choose from! Definitely will be choosing the TV series "Lost in Austen"!

Cranford: A Review of the First Half

Up until a couple of days ago, I had been dreading writing this review. This is my first official blog read-along and I really, really did not want to hate the book and so give it a negative response. It wasn't until I was well into the second half of the book that my attention was caught. The chapter called The Panic was so hilariously funny, I decided to go back and re-read the whole thing! I figured that I wasn't really giving the novel my undivided attention (which I really wasn't), since I was in the middle of reading 4 other novels.

I think the main problem was, in my case, that I had seen the Cranford BBC mini-series, and was expecting quite a different novel. I did not realize that the series was not only based on Cranford, but other short stories by Gaskell as well. I loved the Cranford film, especially the male characters, so when I get to the book and all the male characters die in the first few chapters, I was really disappointed to say the least, not to mention the complete absence of the young doctor, who really made the series to me. It took me a while, but I eventually forgave Gaskell for not combining all her writing into Cranford. A novel that is about mostly women and their contained lives within a small town in mid-nineteenth century England does have some redeeming qualities, after all.

It is at times very dark and very real, at times heartbreaking and other times awe-inspiring, and still others times, rip roaringly funny. There is quite a good amount of death happening, and most of it is so very sudden, without much commotion corresponding to the event. It is almost as if, since death happens so often and so easily at this period in history, people are more accustomed to the aftermath. I actually like that it is written in a mostly vignette form with very little plot continuity. It enables the reader to sit down and read a chapter whenever he/she feels the urge. It definitely helped me after I decided to re-read the whole bloody thing. (I cannot tell a lie--I did skip over some of the vignettes the second reading. Some are really just too boring and too filled with inconsequential details.)

Miss Matty is by far my favorite character in the novel. I love her naivete, her caring attitude towards others, her sense of doing what is right and what is honest, and her acceptance of people for who they really are. She honors the memory of her sister Deborah in her healthy sense of propriety, but at the same time, she does eventually move on to live her own life after her death. Miss Matty tries to hold on to the traditions of her sister, but because of Matty's strong sense of, not necessarily a moral code, but a strong sort of empathy for others, she does let many of the senseless (though she herself would never call them that) rules go in favor of a more caring, make-everyone-happy approach. I also love how the narrator, Miss Smith, and her observations and contributions really increased the depth of compassion that we feel towards Miss Matty. I think Miss Matty made the novel for me. I entirely felt her pain and understood her softness amidst her sister Deborah's authoritarian rule. She respected her sister and many of the other characters in this small town. Miss Matty is definitely a character to whom I can relate.

I don't wish to say too much, since I am only reviewing the first half of the novel, so I will finish my first review with a tentative 4 stars for this novel, with more to come next week for the review of the final half. (I am subtracting one star, not for any fault in Gaskell's writing, but in the fact that there are times that my attention flagged and the book did not sustain my interest.)

My Thoughts on Writing for a So-So Monday.......

I like the fundamental act of writing. The act is done independently, yet it is a conversation among many-those that have come before and are now gone, though their work remains, those that are writing in the present, and those of many cultures and backgrounds. Writing excludes no one with the ability to read and write. It even includes those who have yet to start, the young, and those who haven't touched earth yet. The conversation is eternal and ongoing.

I have been thinking about writing as a form of characterization. A character itself can be a sort of description of a feeling long lost. You can place a character within a memory and allow them to feel what you feel as you reflect on this memory, but also allow the character to experience things differently and make their own choices, perhaps in ways in which you yourself wish to have experienced them.

For instance, some kind of solitary experience--like my first trip to Europe. I was alone, so my own experience was very solitary and very personal. How many others have felt like me? Are there others with the same thoughts or feelings as myself? With the same values and past experience? If there are, how I would love to find them and reach out to them. Have a conversation with them. What kind of people are they? What are their hopes and dreams? How would a character that I myself have created react to this same experience? How I would love to have a conversation with this fictional character, and many others in the history of literature.

This is the conversation that I am always speaking of. Reaching out to someone in the vast reaches of humanity to share an experience. The best way that I know of is to contribute to this conversation created by writing, and reading about the experiences of others through writing of their own.

In the words of Gilbert Highet:

"These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. From each of them goes out its own voice... and just as the touch of a button on our set will fill the room with music, so by taking down one of these volumes and opening it, one can call into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space, and hear him speaking to us, mind to mind, heart to heart. "

"Through the Wormhole" and E. M. Forster

Last night, as I was wracking my brain over writing this post on the writing style of E. M. Forster, my husband put on this program, hosted by Morgan Freeman (click on the link for a short video):

Through the Wormhole: Your Second Life

The program was a commentary about science's ability to determine the presence or absence of a creator. Of course, I ended up staying up long past my bedtime thinking about the theories that were discussed. And somehow, in my crazy mind, I established a connection between this idea of perpetual questioning with E.M Forster's A Room with a View.

The final theory in the program is explained in the above link. A jet propulsion scientist is questioned regarding his idea that, 50 years from now, we will surpass the human brain's thinking capacity. So, are we really becoming the deities, creating a bigger version of our own universe? If so, then who is operating us? And are we just some computer simulation, being programmed to feel a certain way by some master computer programmer somewhere beyond "the window of our own universe"?

Of course, since my own mind is programmed to completely go off track and apply any knowledge that I have attained to something completely unrelated (or not!), and since my mind was trying to get wrapped around the writing of E. M. Forster, I established a connection between this TV program and Forster's novel.

More specifically, I remembered Mr. Emerson's conversation with Lucy Honeychurch over his son George's melancholic disposition. Mr. Emerson talks about how "things won't fit" for George. The universe is all questions, but no answers. Mr. Emerson explains, "We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let's love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world sorrow." Miss Honeychurch assented. "Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes, if you like, but a Yes." I think if we observe science's never-ending search to find answers, we also need to step back and say, "Does it all really matter after all? We are only aware of our present existence from our birth (kind of-we are not really aware because we don't really remember) to our death (and this we may not be aware of either, if we are sick or mentally diseased), so let's just make the best of our time here and find out what is important about our existence in the here and now.

Wow! I just realized why I love writing and books so much. It is this exploration of our existence that I speak of, and why we read novels and watch films and recite poetry and sing songs. So, while I enjoy exploring science and its fascinations, I also understand that it really may not even matter in the whole scope of things. What matters is the here and now, and who we are and how we treat others, work together for a common good, and learning to love.

So to conclude, and to finally comment on Forster's writing style, the reason why E.M. Forster has always been the pinnacle to me of writing is not because of his amazing ability with language (he writes very simply, not as simple as Hemingway, but he doesn't really sway too much from the point), or his wit (which he does have), it is because he attempts to get right to the "quick" of humanity, our source, our reason for being and living. He exhibits a depth of characterization within this emphasis on the resounding "Yes". Who in his novels is willing to really "live", and to live with integrity, not because of societal expectations, or even to purposely rebel against society?

To me, this is the goal of us all. Breaking away from illusion. And for that to happen, I believe, education is the key, specifically a humanities-based education. I give this a resounding Yes, and a Yes, and a Yes!

Coming Soon

My review, thus far, of Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I am reading and doing a book review for a Cranford Read-Along that the blog, A Literary Odyssey, is hosting.  Deadline is Tuesday, June 15th for a review of the first half of the novel.  Stay tuned for my thoughts...