Cranford is such a lovely little book. I’m a big fan of both North & South and Wives & Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, so I’m slowly making my way to her other books. Cranford is less of a traditional novel than the other two books. Really, it’s a set of connected vignettes or novellas. Most of the action takes place in tiny Cranford and within the social circle of the highest class in the town. It’s a long running joke in the novel that Cranford […]
Porn for Gryffindors
This time, K has our book club selection, and she chose one of her perennial favorites, Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South. I was excited—I’d never read it, my friends all raved about it and the Richard Armitage mini-series, and I liked Wives and Daughters (though some parts of it drove me CRAZY). Plus, I saved this up for my train ride to my in-laws’ house for Thanksgiving. All signs pointed to a promising experience. North and South is a story of contrasts, of class tensions, […]
Cranford: Come for tea, stay for gossip.
Every so often, I hanker something a bit…gentler. Less gritty. Not so violent or macabre. And from everything I’d heard about the popular BBC mini-series Cranford, the original book by Elizabeth Gaskell seemed to fit the bill. I decided that it would be fun to listen to on my long commute to work. And it certainly was a rather enjoyable way to pass the time. Our narrator is Miss Mary Smith, a young woman who makes frequent visits to the quaint village of Cranford, a […]