A ‘Reading for Wellbeing’ recommended read!
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
I got this book as a present and I probably wouldn’t have read it otherwise. I knew there was a BBC TV series and had never seen it as I’m not that keen on period dramas, but I loved reading this. It’s set in Cranford a fictional small rural town in England in 1800s. It’s reads like a series of linked short stories so each chapter can be read individually but there is a plot which runs through the whole book. It’s about women whose lives are circumscribe by the Victorian society they live in, by their gender, and also by genteel poverty. It’s mostly about women who are I think are frequently dismissed as being of no interest – most of the women I’ve heard of from this time are adventurers, extraordinary women, and these are very ordinary women who are nevertheless hugely entertaining. Most of the characters are female – there are hardly any men in Cranford and when they do appear, they are fallen on immediately by the Cranford women and dragged mercilessly into the endless round of afternoon tea parties and other minor social events which sustain life in Cranford. I loved it, I think because it’s funny and quite satirical, but in a kind way.
Gaskell pokes fun at the small privations, snobberies and panics of small town middle class life, where keeping up standards and appearances is all and the smallest things are blown up out of all proportion. She has real affection for her characters and by the end of the you will too.. They are sometimes ridiculous but they are also kind and loyal – good people in their own way.
Miss Mattie the central character faces reduced circumstances because the bank she has her small investments in collapses, and she is forced, horror of horrors, forced to open a tea shop in her parlour this sends shock waves around her social circle. But this book is also about the goodness of people – so her friends want to help her financially but they go to ridiculous lengths to prevent her from finding out how much they have helped her. Miss Mattie is almost like a saint – symbolic of goodness and innocence although she is a woman in late middle-age who has never seen herself as being brave or anything special.
The harsh world that many people lived then just isn’t really touched on, but then you get great social comedy which is up there with Jane Austen and unlike Jane Austen the plot doesn’t centre on a woman trying to find a husband. I also enjoyed it because it’s an escape, which is sometimes what reading should be – it’s funny and gentle but very true about people. Although there is sadness and loss sometimes, it’s not dwelt on and there is a comforting and faintly absurd sense that, really, the worst thing that can ever happen to anyone is you have to open a tea shop in your front room.
