Elizabeth GASKELL : Mary Barton

I would note the blurb here if I thought this wouldn't spoil the story - since it does, just read this book with an open mind. If you buy the novel, don't read the blurb !!! I don't know why classic literature editors keep thinking they have the right to reveal the whole story and spoil our reading pleasure because a book is a classic ! 

 

I just finished this book, which I expected to really like but not love since it was Elizabeth Gaskell's first novel and that many Goodreads reviewers aren't enthusiastic about it. Some find it lacking with many things, yet I didn't.

 

I'll start with what I liked less :

- It was a very moral, Christian novel, which I expected given the era and Elizabeth Gaskell's position in life (she was married to a clergyman), but at the same time it was full of hope and generosity, of open mindedness for the Victorian era - funny thing to say for a "I liked less" first point ! 

- Maybe some parts were a little long ?... However, I read it on my Kindle, which means "read it during the night when I couldn't sleep", mostly, and the text itself never put me back to sleep, on the contrary. It even became a real page-turner !

 

Well, so much for the "less"... Let's move on to what I liked if it makes any difference between the two :

- It started almost like a romance with a love triangle and a social background and bam, something happened and the story turned into something completely different (to quote the Monty Pythons). I held my breath until the end to find how everything turned out.

- The industrial revolution and social criticism. The novel didn't waste time at the start to tell us about the worker's former "happy" lives when they had work, we began when the factories had less work to provide and everybody started starving - and dying. There was also a strike, a relation between unions in different towns and I couldn't help comparing at one point the discussion scene between factory owners and workers to the one I read a few months ago in Zola's Germinal. 

- The representation of characters : there were some excellent portrayals in there ! The psychology was well described, not one character resembled another. They felt realistic and full of life.  And I dare you to find someone like Margaret ending up the way she did in another Victorian novel !

- Without spoiling anything it will be hard to explain, but through what happened to two characters in the novel, you could hear the voice of Elizabeth Gaskell's own life experience and its representation was vivid and poignant.

 

The end wasn't exactly likely to happen "in real life", but I could see the message the author wanted to put through and how, in troubled times, men should still be able to communicate and exchange ideas even if they don't agree, whatever their rank in society. 

All in all, this was an excellent surprise and I truly believe Mary Barton is highly underrated. Go read it ! (And don't forget, don't read the blurb).