Episode 10 Classic Time with Elizabeth Gaskell

North and South

Here’s the book summary: Set in the mid-nineteenth century and written from the author's first-hand experience, North and South follows the story of the heroine's movement from the tranquil but moribund way s of southern England to the vital but turbulent north. Elizabeth Gaskell's skilful narrative uses an unusual love story to show how personal and public lives were woven together in a newly industrial society. 
This is a tale of hard-won triumphs-of rational thought over prejudice and of humane care over blind deference to the market. Readers in the twenty-first century  will find themselves absorbed as this Victorian novel traces the origins of problems and possibilities which are still challenging a hundred and fifty years laters: the complex relationships, public and private, between men and women of different classes.

There are different perspectives in this story. Please remember that this book was published in the 1850's. Views of class, roles of men and women and other parts of society were different back then. I encourage you to have an open mind. This is a wonderful book and really fascinating.

Link to Elizabeth's book: North and South (Wordsworth Classics): Elizabeth Gaskell: 9781853260933: Amazon.com: Books

Link to my first book Amaranth: Amaranth (The White Dragon): Davenport, Samantha: 9781639886128: Amazon.com: Books

 Are you an unknown author? Please email me at theunknownauthorpodcast@gmail.com with a link to your book.

Music for this podcast is by JuliusH.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hello, welcome to the Unknown Author Podcast. I'm your host, Samathan Davaport, and today's episode is going to be a little bit different. So every end to episodes, I've decided since I'm the host and I can do this, I'm going to read and review a classic. So, and I need to reread the classics. They're great little nuggets of um fascinating plot points and just different perspectives of how they viewed the world. And so today's book is called North and South by Elizabeth Gasgow. It's about 403 pages long. It was originally published around 1854 to 1855. And the one I'm using, it was republished on April 5th, 1993 by Woodsworth Classics. And I highly recommend getting this version of it. It had tons of great footnotes in it and the back for like slang or certain words they used or references. I really loved this version. I'll have the link in the episode's summary. But here's the actual book summary. Set in the mid-19th century and written from the author's firsthand experience, North and South follows the story of a heroine's movement from the tranquil but moribund ways of southern England to the vital but turbulent North. Elizabeth Gaskill's skillful narrative uses an unusual love story to show how personal and public lives were woven together in a newly industrial society. This is a tale of hard-won triumphs, of rational thought over prejudice, and of humane care over blind deference to the market. Readers in the 21st century will find themselves absorbed in this Victorian novel, traces the origins of the problems and possibilities which are still challenging, still challenging 150 years later. The complex relationships, public and private, between men and women of different classes. Now, I originally wanted to do this um book in two parts because it's such a good book. It is so so good, and there is a lot to cover. However, it is taking me way too long to read this because I have to stop and do a little bit of research, or I have to pause and go to the back and see the references, and then I sometimes look up the references. So I'm spending way too much time on this book, and I have a huge stack of my TBR for this podcast next to my bed and I have to read. So I actually stopped about halfway, which is good because it has taken me over three weeks to get to halfway in this book. And and I'm actually a pretty fast reader, so but yeah, it was it's a lot taken, especially if you're not specifically like really into like the English literature, know the authors, know their references and everything. Um so yeah, I had to stop and research way too much for this book, but it's very, very interesting. I and I will be keeping this one. I'm gonna let you know ahead of time. I am gonna keep this one because there's tons of classics that they reference that um uh Elizabeth references, and I really want to dig back into my classic English literature. So uh let's see. Yeah, and my memory isn't like it used to be, so I'm gonna have to probably reread this story. And it's actually good that I stop halfway because if I actually did the whole book, it would literally take me four episodes at least to just to discuss this book. Um, however, I'm just gonna narrow it down and just tell you about the characters in this story because they're very interesting. So this story starts with a young lady, she's about 19. Her name is Margaret Hale, and Margaret, she's kind of she's caring, but she's also aloof. She's kind of she keeps people at an arm's length to up to a point, except for her family. It's kind of she's it's kind of interesting when she interacts with people. She cares deeply about people, but she's also has like this clear snootiness between classes. Like she sees people of middle class, and these are people during the 1800s who are tradesmen, um, and she sees them as beneath her so much, like she even refuses to talk to them or make their acquaintance. I'm like, what? I don't I gotta re reread my English literature and kind of understand this like distinctive of the classes. Um, and but the ones she sees as her so-called equals are those who are either in religious offices, so these are like your pastors, preachers, bishops, all that, those who are educated in college, so these are professors, or people in the military. That was quite interesting to me. Um, but so because of this snootiness of hers, it is quite hilarious when she meets Mr. Thornton, and I'll touch on him later. Um, she is currently in the very beginning, she's currently living with her cousin Edith and Aunt Shaw in London. So she's been there for about a year, and it's because Edith, her cousin, is getting married to Captain Lennox, and the Captain is in the Navy, and after they marry, he is going to be restationed somewhere in Italy, and that's where they'll be living. Now, in the first five chapters, there's like two Lennoxes, and I believe Captain Lennox has a brother. So Captain Lennox is Edith's fiance/slash new husband. Mr. Henry Lennox is Edith's now brother-in-law, and he's also kind of like a family friend, mostly Aunt Shaw, mostly the aunt family friend, who also fancies Margaret. However, Mr. Henry Lennox is much older than Margaret. Elizabeth doesn't outright say how old he is, but he he mentions that he's been practicing law for 20 years. So I'm gonna safely say he's in his 40s, and just as a reminder, Margaret's only 19. I'm like, dang. That's that's a wide gap there. Um, and after he confesses his love to her, Margaret actually gently rejects his affections, which I understand because she only sees uh Mr. Henry Lennox as a friend. She's just like, you're just a dear friend, I don't fancy you like that. So good on her. Now, Margaret's parents are Mr. and Mrs. Hale, and they live in a small village called Hellstone, and Mr. Hale is the pastor there. And Margaret absolutely loves Hellstone, it's very green, it's away from main London, it's away from the Hue Blah, it's lush, it's fresh, it like it's everything London is not. But Mrs. Hale hates Hellstone. Honestly, I think she just loves to complain about everything and everyone. Um, she kind of suffers from some kind of unknown ailment. Honestly, I thought at first it was depression, but then later on, I actually think she had a stroke. So, but it but Elizabeth Gaskell doesn't actually go come out and actually say exactly what she has, so it's kind of mysterious. And Mrs. Hale, this is Margaret's mother, she's disappointed that her husband isn't more ambitious in the church hierarchy. I think she thought she was going to be a wife of a bishop in the Church of England rather than a small town pastor, or she would have even liked him to be a professor at Cambridge or Oxford. Um, but Mr. Hale loves Hellstone and he actually went to Oxford and studied English literature, so he actually could become a professor technically. He just doesn't want to. But um besides that, I don't like Mr. Hale. Um, for me, he's a very weak person. So in the beginning, he decides he's gonna leave the Church of England as a priest and he's gonna recolocate to Milton in the north without discussing this with his wife, without really any real reason. He doesn't really say why he's leaving. Um, but when he decides to relocate, he doesn't have the courage to tell his own wife about it and basically guilt trips Margaret into telling her own mother, and he only gives him like two weeks to pack up the entire freaking house. Like, dude, man up. Like, you only gave your daughter well, you first off you guilt trip her, and then you're like, oh yeah, by the way, we don't have two weeks to go up there, and by the way, we actually don't even have technically a house, we're just gotta move back up there. We just gotta move up there. Like, dude, I don't like you. And even when and during this whole time, he doesn't really s take his wife's illness seriously, and I think in part that's because during this time, it's and this is an ongoing trend, is that every woman seems to be sickly of some sort of something, like sick of something, and I'm like, yes, that I can there's plenty of stuff I'm sick of, but not like these women, they're like dainty, sick of stuff, and um I'm just like what's going on with y'all? Something in the water, or not in the water, and so he's kind of neglectful, like he doesn't take his wife's illness as serious as he should. And so there's him. Now there's also a lady named Dixon, who is Mrs. Hale. This is remember that's Miss that's Margaret's mother, um, her servant, and Dixon and Mrs. Hale have known each other since like forever, and probably and Dixon's probably Mrs. Hale's only friend. Because the woman does not go outside unless she absolutely has to, like she's scared of the outside. Um, now Dixon and Margaret do clash at times, and most of it is the amount of time and space Dixon tends to take up when Margaret wants to talk and bond with her mother. And Margaret does blame Dixon for not allowing her to bond with her mother. Um, and I do see that Dixon is very protective, overprotective at times, and extremely loyal to Mrs. Hale. But Dixon doesn't dislike Margaret, she actually does care for Margaret. Um, I think it's mostly their personalities, just clash. Um, but Dixon doesn't care for Mr. Hale, and she and I will agree on that. Now, when Margaret gets to Milton, this member, this is up north, she meets Mr. Thornton. So Thornton owns a cotton mill in Milton, and he's one, and that's one of the main manufacturers, meaning the main job hubs up there. And he's an interesting fellow. So it's funny because every time he sees Margaret, he thinks he can't stand her because her perspective is so different from him, and she doesn't agree with him most of the time, but at the same time, he cannot take his eyes off of her. It is hilarious. So, for example, Mr. Hale and Margaret were looking at homes because Mr. Hale is not prepared and the man can't think ahead for the life of him. So they're looking for homes to rent, and the one they really wanted had this hideous wallpaper, apparently. It actually sounded pretty to me, but to each their own. Now, the homeowner originally refused to remove the wallpaper. So Mr. Hale and Margaret thought, okay, so we can we can withstand, you know, seeing this hideous wallpaper. Um, but then after they get the they get into the house, the homeowner actually removed it because Mr. Thornton had overheard that conversation, and Mr. Thornton told the guy, you need to remove the wallpaper. So for a guy who can't stand Margaret, he does a lot for her in the shadows. Now, this is there is um Mrs. Thornton. Now, this is Mr. Thornton's mother. This is not his wife, this is his mother. This is Mrs. Thornton. Late, I want to call her Lady Thornton so people aren't confused. So, Lady Thornton, she's a piece of work, she's very protective, very proud, and very close to her son. Sometimes I think she views her son more like a possession than a person sometimes. And Lady Thornton despises Margaret because her son is in love with her, and she cannot stand that her beloved son has fallen in love with a woman from the south who doesn't appreciate the manufacturing class, and she thinks Margaret is so uncultured and just simply not good enough for her son. She was what we call a monster-in-law. Thankfully, I am blessed with wonderful in-laws. I'm so glad I don't have that problem. So now, Mr. Thornton, he has a younger sister named Fanny. Fanny is a sickly lady. Like I said, there's a lot of ladies in here who are very sick. There's something in the air and something in the water, probably cholera, and smog. So they everyone is just sick. For some reason, the men are are okay, but the women, they're too delicate. I don't get it. I don't know if it's just the times. Anyway, Margaret doesn't like fan. Um Fanny doesn't like Margaret because Margaret doesn't know how to play an instrument, and also because her mother doesn't like Margaret. Fanny has is very meek, she doesn't like confrontation, she doesn't like going against the flow, and she just does what her mother says because her mother has a very strong personality. I would I would say now one of my absolute favorite characters, her name is Bessie, and she is a young lady who used to work at the cotton mill. And she but she doesn't work anymore because she contracted. I'm gonna butcher this by a lung disease contracted by inhaling cotton dust. Now, it's easily mistaken, and Margaret actually mistaken it for tuberculosis or what they call um um oh what was it, waste, I believe, something like that, because you waste away when you have TB, but it's actually this lung disease, and Bessie is an interesting person to her because she also has the opposite views of Margaret, and Bessie helps Margaret actually understand the working classes situation, and now Bessie's the same age as Margaret, um, and it just shows in their how they grew up differently because Bessie always knew of to work, worked for a living, um, in Milton, but and she never dreamed of like having to dress up to go to dinner parties that Margaret goes to, or you know, you don't associate with certain people. She's just like, I associate with everyone because that's everyone is uh all I know. I don't like I know there's different classes, I'm just not them. Um, and it's actually um quite interesting because Bessie is also super obsessed with the book of Revelations, like she is always quoting it and she's longing to die. And I just feel really sorry for her because I can't imagine the pain that she's going through, constantly coughing, constantly just never getting better, um, because there's literally nothing anyone can do it during this time. So that is all the characters of this book, and I've really enjoyed this book. It has rekindled my passion for looking at English literature and English work, so I'll be looking for more to share with you. And this is going on the shelf. Uh there is if there is a classic you want me to read and review, uh, please email me at the unknown authorpodcast at gmail.com and I will definitely put that on the list. And if I have piqued your interest for this book, please click the link in the episode summary to get a copy of this book, your copy. Now, to end this episode, I'm heading to another book, which they actually quote quite often in north and south, and that is the Bible. So today's verse is Romans chapter 5, verses 6 through 8. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So this section is talking about God's love. Like, it still amazes me how much God just loves us. Because I it's because I can't ever come to a good standard, like, and this is part of my up my religious upbringing. I always I'm still kind of struggling with. That's what man says to me, but this is what God's saying to me is that no matter what I do, or no matter what I did, he still loves me. What I did in the past is in the past, and all I have to do is look forward and follow him. And he and I will stumble. I I'm gonna admit that I will stumble, I will sin, I will make mistakes, but he said, you know what? I still love you, and I still want you in my life, I want to be with you, I want to be near you, I want to, I want you to talk to me. I want to have a relationship with you, and that is very powerful. And there's someone out there that needs to know God loves you, you are loved, you are so loved by him. He wants to know you, he wants you to know him. Look to him and talk to him, be like and let him fill you with his love. And he demonstrated this love by Jesus dying on the cross for all of our sins. That's just that's just amazes me. So let's pray. I lift up those who don't f feel loved. Maybe they're going through a phase in their life, maybe they're going through a tragedy, and they just they're just hurting so much inside, Lord, that they just can't feel your love. Lord, I lift these people up to you. Let you wrap your arms around them, Lord, and let them feel your love. And I just thank you, Jesus, for dying on the cross for my sins. Because no one else was gonna do it. Honestly, no one else was gonna do it. And Lord, I just thank you. Just thank you every time. But you still love me even though I mess up, even though I sin, even though there's times I stray, unfortunately. But you always reel me back, be like, hey, hey, come, come. You you you kinda wonder, you gotta come back, you gotta come back. And I do, Lord, and I thank you for. Never give it up on me. Thank you for listening to today's episode. All information about today's book, including the book summary, my grades and links are in the episode summary. I'm also an unknown author. I write young adult fantasy. And I just finished my first trilogy. Also in the episode summary is a link to my first book on Amazon. You can also find my books anywhere. You buy books online. Are you an unknown author? Would you like me to read and review your book? You can send me your book information to the unknown author podcast at gmail.com.

unknown 22:39

Ta-ta.