North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell)

[avrelia]

I remember one or two years ago a part of my f-list was gashing and squeeing over the BBC adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel North and South.

Well, I finally picked the DVDs from the library and watched it. And then I downloaded the book from Gutenberg project site and read it.

What can I say? I loved the book much more then the series, although I am glad I watched the series first. I loved the actors, especially the main characters, and I was glad to be able to put faces I liked in my head when I was reading.

The larger part of the series I was mostly meh. Of course, Mr. John Thornton (as presented by Richard Armitage) broods as the best of them, and I am very appreciative of a quality brooding, the whole as three episodes seemed to consist of walking and brooding and class struggle, and not much else. However, the fourth episode, mainly the ending, redeemed it all.

The book did not suffer from silent walks and long scenes where nothing happened - it had them, for sure, but it didn't suffer for all that. :) In fact, I was surprised just how engaging the slow beginning was - in contemporary fiction I would have been very annoyed if nothing much happened by the second chapter - but here everything flowed with the slow pace and yet I wasn't able to put the book away. The slow walks were not tedious but full of thought and passion. The looks have actual meaning, and the class struggle wasn't much of a grey mass affair as it was in a series. The Higgins family though are equally good in both book and TV form, but reading their accent was more tiresome than listening to it. :)

The ending, though, I loved it in book several times more than in the series. I guess it is just Victorian usage of familiar words, or that I am that much of a word person, but the book ending was damn hot! and very very satisfying. ;)



Mr. Thornton did not speak, and she went
on looking for some paper on which were written down the
proposals for security; for she was most anxious to have it all
looked upon in the light of a mere business arrangement, in which
the principal advantage would be on her side. While she sought
for this paper, her very heart-pulse was arrested by the tone in
which Mr. Thornton spoke. His voice was hoarse, and trembling
with tender passion, as he said:--

'Margaret!'

For an instant she looked up; and then sought to veil her
luminous eyes by dropping her forehead on her hands. Again,
stepping nearer, he besought her with another tremulous eager
call upon her name.

'Margaret!'

Still lower went the head; more closely hidden was the face,
almost resting on the table before her. He came close to her. He
knelt by her side, to bring his face to a level with her ear; and
whispered-panted out the words:--

'Take care.--If you do not speak--I shall claim you as my own in
some strange presumptuous way.--Send me away at once, if I must
go;--Margaret!--'

At that third call she turned her face, still covered with her
small white hands, towards him, and laid it on his shoulder,
hiding it even there; and it was too delicious to feel her soft
cheek against his, for him to wish to see either deep blushes or
loving eyes. He clasped her close. But they both kept silence. At
length she murmured in a broken voice:

'Oh, Mr. Thornton, I am not good enough!'

'Not good enough! Don't mock my own deep feeling of
unworthiness.'

After a minute or two, he gently disengaged her hands from her
face, and laid her arms as they had once before been placed to
protect him from the rioters.

'Do you remember, love?' he murmured. 'And how I requited you
with my insolence the next day?'

'I remember how wrongly I spoke to you,--that is all.'

'Look here! Lift up your head. I have something to show you!' She
slowly faced him, glowing with beautiful shame.

'Do you know these roses?' he said, drawing out his pocket-book,
in which were treasured up some dead flowers.

'No!' she replied, with innocent curiosity. 'Did I give them to
you?'

'No! Vanity; you did not. You may have worn sister roses very
probably.'

She looked at them, wondering for a minute, then she smiled a
little as she said--

'They are from Helstone, are they not? I know the deep
indentations round the leaves. Oh! have you been there? When were
you there?'

'I wanted to see the place where Margaret grew to what she is,
even at the worst time of all, when I had no hope of ever calling
her mine. I went there on my return from Havre.'

'You must give them to me,' she said, trying to take them out of
his hand with gentle violence.

'Very well. Only you must pay me for them!'

'How shall I ever tell Aunt Shaw?' she whispered, after some time
of delicious silence.

'Let me speak to her.'

'Oh, no! I owe to her,--but what will she say?'

'I can guess. Her first exclamation will be, "That man!"'

'Hush!' said Margaret, 'or I shall try and show you your mother's
indignant tones as she says, "That woman!"'

Comments

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

Yup, the last part is very swoonworthy. And I know what you mean about words being more satisfying ;-)

Sadly, I didn't have the same positive experience with the rest of the book. I didn't dislike it... I appreciated the level of detail and the measured pacing. And yet... I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I read it too soon after watching the series. I checked the text and I still can't remember whatever it was that bothered me. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

It just may be the mood, indeed. Or the expectations - I had very high expectations for the movie and low for the book.

[the-royal-anna.livejournal.com]

Now, I adored the adaptation - all the beautiful imagery, and that smouldering chemistry - but when I read the book afterwards I loved it more than I could possibly have imagined.

I love how vivid and resonant the characters' thought processes are in the book. It feels quite contemporary - so much so that after Mr Thornton is rejected by Margaret and goes off on a random bus ride, it took me a long while to realise the "bus" was very likely horse-drawn and not the double-decker I'd been imagining. :)

And yes, the ending is delightful.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I think I might have expected something different from the adaptation, that's why I liked it less. But in a book all characters suddenly got more alive and interesting. And, yes, I loved the very contemporary feel of their thoughts and emotions.