tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post852864242610155587..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Elizabeth Gaskell and Herman Melville aid the English poorAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-38373843888000702992010-07-25T22:25:33.889-05:002010-07-25T22:25:33.889-05:00Frances Trollope was right on top of things there....Frances Trollope was right on top of things there.<br /><br />If I accomplished anything this week - and let's not investigate that claim too closely - it's been to try to understand the <i>aesthetic</i> basis of the novel's argument. I agree, the argument comes first with this book. It makes no sense otherwise. I had to work on it to get it to make sense at all.<br /><br />But it does, in the end, doesn't it, in a way that <i>Hard Times</i> just does not. What on earth does Dickens actually want his readers to <i>do</i>? <br /><br />On the other hand, parts of <i>Hard Times</i> - parts! - are typically brilliant Dickens. (I'm not sure who my joke about <i>David Copperfield</i> was directed at - I hope to get to it soon.)<br /><br />I would not really recommend <i>Mary Barton</i> to anyone as a novel. But it's not quite a period piece, either, even though it's such a capsule of Victorian themes. I don't know.<br /><br />This is why, nicole, <i>Cranford</i> was such a surprise. Boy howdy, is it different than <i>Mary Barton</i>.<br /><br />By the way - loved <i>The Perpetual Curate</i>. Oliphant pulls off some tricks worthy of writers of much greater reputation.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-91900249447232263292010-07-24T16:50:36.366-05:002010-07-24T16:50:36.366-05:00I could tell where you were going with the compari...I could tell where you were going with the comparison as soon as I read a scrap of that passage from <em>Mary Barton</em>; uncanny resemblance is right.<br /><br />I may have mentioned earlier in the week that Gaskell has never been at the top of my list, and I think I always saw her as Rohan Maitzen describes, more social intervention than aesthetic object. That may well not be true of her later work, which everyone seems to agree is better, but it does make me think <em>Mary Barton</em> is not quite for me, at least not until I decide to do a "condition of England" project (not actually in the works).nicolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17532641082944082516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-80129877985973537132010-07-23T20:24:08.042-05:002010-07-23T20:24:08.042-05:00She's not the first. Just for example, there&#...She's not the first. Just for example, there's Frances Trollope's <i>Michael Armstrong, Factory Boy</i>, which I think dates from around 1840. There are a couple of good scholarly books on industrial fiction that give all kinds of examples. But for most readers (me included), <i>Mary Barton</i> is first and, often, last, in the genre. It is a hugely uneven book, but the less you think of it as an aesthetic object and the more you think of it as a social intervention, the more sense it makes. The scene in the Davenports' cellar that you quote from is tremendously helpful for illustrating the difference between those two things, I think. I have a handout with the whole long page or so of Barton and his friend going to see Davenport, stepping through messes on the street and so on until they descend below even that level of civilizatito the cellar itself, and then on the other side the description of Coketown from <i>Hard Times</i>. Even the "slum" scenes from <i>Hard Times</i> have little in common with <i>Mary Barton</i>. Heck, even Tom-all-alone's in <i>Bleak House</i> is abstract fantasy compared to that cellar.<br /><br />I expect you'd love <i>David Copperfield</i>. It's funny, and sad, and brilliantly plotted, plus it's Dickens playing with first-person narration. Who could resist?Rohan Maitzenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12111722115617352412noreply@blogger.com