Saturday, July 10, 2010

Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell

At times depressing this book really showed the reader the human qualities bestowed to the poor in 1840’s Manchester. We have lost many of these qualities as our standard of living has improved. It wasn’t a case of keeping up with the Jones’s, but helping the Jones’s in times of need and sickness, even though you were in need yourself.


I found the writing style a little difficult to read, having to reread sentences and some passages to make sense of it all. The motto’s at the beginning of each chapter were annoying, and so were the notes as I just wanted to read the story and not keep flicking back and forth for explanations!

I found the first half of the book very interesting as we were introduced to the characters, the middle of the book became a bit of a slog for me but once Mary was in search of Will Wilson I couldn’t put it down. We had a real bit of adventure and heroism going on there.

The “Not Guilty” heading spoilt that particular chapter for me and I thought it could have been better work as we had such a lead up to the advent and it was over before we knew it.

To think when this book was written though, the story line does hold up and it has certainly made me think differently about certain things now – like do I really need that new pair of shoes?

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