Book Review: Cranford

[osprey_archer]

When I was in AP English in high school, we took a practice AP test, and one of the excerpts that we read electrified me. “This is from a real book,” I thought, feverishly attempting to memorize enough of the passage to be able to use it as a search term later. “I must find it!”

Fortunately the passage contained the word Cranford, so I swiftly laid hands on Elizabeth Gaskell’s magnum opus.

Okay, I realize those are fighting words, and probably people are taking to the corners to fight for North and South or Wives and Daughters. Rather I should say, my first and still my favorite Elizabeth Gaskell novel, a gentle and charming portrait of the town of Cranford, which is, to quote the first paragraph, “in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women.”

In fact, there are few people less Amazonian than the spinsters and widows of a certain age who make up Cranford society. Gaskell is poking a little fun at their foibles, but this gentle mockery lies on a solid bedrock of affection for the place and the real tenderness and strength beneath the sometimes-silly ultra-gentility.

It’s also a wonderful example of, not exactly the female gaze, but a female perspective. Men are handy at times, and sometimes beloved, but also “so in the way in a house,” and indeed just a bit in the way everywhere, cumbersome and mysterious outsiders. “My father was a man,” Miss Pole says in exasperation, “and I know the sex pretty well.”

It’s just a pleasant world to visit - a sort of spiritual ancestress to the works of Miss Read. A nice book to read when the world is too much with us.

Comments

[msilverstar]

Sounds delightful!

[osprey_archer]

It's just a nice read.

[genarti]

I really ought to read some Elizabeth Gaskell one of these years; I never have. This one sounds deeply lovely!

[osprey_archer]

It's pretty short, too! Some of her books are doorstoppers and maybe not a good starting place.

[hunningham]

I like to think of Cranford as a 1970s radical lesbian feminist separatist utopia. I mean it just fits. One of those stripy book spines from the Women's Press

[osprey_archer]

Someone should definitely do an adaptation that sets it in a 1970s radical lesbian feminist separatist utopia!

[regshoe]

I might be one of those people taking to the corner for Wives and Daughters, because it is really very good—but then it's been much longer since I've read Cranford, and I do remember it being lovely, and I really liked the Amazons and the 'female perspective' you talk about. Maybe it's time for a re-read :D

[osprey_archer]

Confession: I've never read Wives and Daughters. I do mean to someday, but I also know it's the one where Gaskell died before finishing the last chapter, and I just don't know how frustrating it will be to go into it and then have the story abruptly stop.

[regshoe]

It's not just the last chapter—there is a non-negligible amount of plot missing, though not loads—but I did not find it as frustrating as I might have expected to! The editor of the magazine it was being serialised in wrote a little wrapping-up piece summarising how it would have ended, which was included in the edition I read, and I think that helped.

[asakiyume]

Very nice sounding!

I enjoyed my one Elizabeth Gaskell, even though it wasn't any of the famous ones. (It was Ruth).

[osprey_archer]

I've also been meaning to read Ruth since forever. Someday...