Dear Serial Readers,
This past week I became a Serial Viewer by watching part one of the 1999 BBC adaptation of Wives and Daughters. It is really a splendid production with excellent casting and attention to period details. Like many recent adaptations of Victorian (and Austen) novels, it tends to be fairly faithful to Gaskell's text, but of course has these odd patches of pure invention--but nothing egregious so far. I stopped viewing just as Mrs. Hamley died and Cynthia arrived from France. Molly is exquisitely played by Justine Waddell, who seems to have a penchant for acting roles of Victorian heroines (with one exception--Natalie Wood): Tess (Tess of the d'Urbervilles), Laurie Fairlie (in The Woman in White), Estella (in Great Expectations, and even the invented wife of Van Helsing in the 2000 adaptation of Dracula. Keeley Hawes, who has the role of Cynthia, played Lizzie Hexam in Our Mutual Friend. I just can't imagine a more perfect Molly Gibson than Waddell's creation--amazing silent acting through facial expressions. I'm planning to watch just enough each week to keep up with the serial installments we're reading. Enough of my plug for serial viewership!
Not much comes out in this installment about Preston and Cynthia, except that when she learns he's to take Sheepshanks' (Dickensian name!) position as estate agent and live in Hollingford, she briefly contemplates going out as a governess to escape her "doom." Like Molly, I wonder what this "doom" could be--and can only imagine an unwanted marriage to Preston. There's also a hint that she's borrowed money from him.
The attention to reading characters continues--Molly fully sees Roger's romantic interest in Cynthia and wonders "how soon it would all end," since she can't imagine anyone declining an offer from Roger. In her modesty or self-suppression, Molly seems not to express even to herself at this point envy or pain over Roger's redirected interest, although she does object to him referring to Cynthia as her "sister"--but I thought this was more because he knew her initial unhappiness about her father's second marriage. Cynthia is not at all the kind of reader that Molly is, but we learn she's a good reader of boys if not books: "Instinctively she knew her men." So she understands Roger's interest in her is very different from his brother's, something her mother (who seems incapable of any accurate reading) fails to realize. Then Gaskell brings in another reader--"an older spectator"--who views the blooming romance (lopsided though it is) in a different way than Molly or Cynthia or Roger. Is this "said spectator" the hypothetical reader of the serial here? The episode ends with Osborne's "poetical and romantic" view of a reconciliation with his father brought about by the grandchild in the works. Clearly we're not meant to be readers of this sort. What kind of reader or readings does Gaskell seem to endorse most?
Serially suspended still,
Susan
5 comments:
I'm really fascinated with how Gaskell has let Molly become something of a bystander in the novel. It seems like she's watching Cynthia, Roger, Osborne, and everyone else without really doing much of anything herself. I get the impression that a lot is going to have to happen to prepare the way for Molly's ultimate happiness, but it seems like she's become less and less active as the novel continues. I wonder if she'll become an active shaper of her own destiny any time soon.
And I continue to find Cynthia very likable indeed. I love her witty rejoinder to Osborne's "I am only theoretical": "Does that fine word 'theoretical' imply that you are ignorant?" (323).
Mrs. Gibson seemed particularly rude to Roger in this installment, didn't she? I admire Gaskell's talent at getting the rudeness across while making it clear that Mrs. Gibson is the one to blame.
And I'll have to add the adaptation to my Netflix queue. I've been a little skeptical of nineteenth-century novels adapted to film after seeing some Austen adaptations -- losing that narrative voice and wit is a huge, huge problem -- but I'd be interested to see this one on the screen. Particularly since it doesn't rely on exciting plot development to be interesting and highly entertaining -- it will be interesting to see how it holds up.
It’s tempting, Susan’s movie review, if I can trust myself not to watch ahead.
As readers go, Mrs Gibson seems to always be doing the interpretive kind and adding running commentary with an end, or goal, in mind. She’s not so much an out and out manipulator, but seems forever to be trying to steer or shade things in one way or another. She’s her own kind of sideshow, and makes me laugh. Things like saying Cynthia inherited her prejudice against bought flowers, as if trying to distract from Osborne any unfavorable impression Cynthia’s bouquet burning might have given him.
I like Cynthia, too, the way she calls her mother out on things, with equanimity and intelligenc: “In short, Momma, one man may steal a horse, but another man must not look over the hedge.” These gentle upbraids may be lost on, rather than read by, Mrs Gibson.
Mr. Gibson is reading Osborne’s health, and I wonder what’s coming there. I almost forget I’m reading a novel, and jump the gun, thinking things will happen quickly when they only gradually unfold. That may have something to do with serial reading.
I agree with readerann, I sometimes expect things to happen quickly--but other times I expect a long build-up and they quickly are exposed.
Yes, it seems that Osborne is ill and Mrs. Gibson is now willing to have Cynthia get closer to Roger! Poor Roger, I think, though he makes his own problems by not loving the right woman, darn him. And why *does* Cynthia seem to owe Mr. Preston money? So many questions! And I just remembered this past week that the novel is unfinished. I guess I'll be able to make up my own appropriate ending.
Susan was struck by readership this week and I was struck by creativity, of a sort. I loved the way Mrs. Gibson's discussion of the ball is described; it's how I think of some comments on Facebook: "her words were always like ready-made clothes, and never fitted individual thoughts. Anybody might have used them, and, with a change of proper names, they might have served to describe any ball." (that's in the beginning of Ch. 28.)
I did also note how Cynthia chastises Molly for always taking her too literally in the chapter named Bush-Fighting. I couldn't figure out the reason for that chapter title. Is it a reference to fighting in New Zealand (as in a book I found on Google books from 1873)?
I do think Mrs. Gaskell is a little loose with the time frame, since when she started writing (and wasn't that 1863?), she said Molly was 12 "45 years ago," which would have been 1818ish, and by now Molly has grown to be about 18, so it should be around 1824 or 25, before any reform act may have passed. I believe the novel is set in Ye Olden Days, as in the old rigmarole of childhood established back on the first page.
so, more mysteries this week, or any resolutions?
I agree with readerann, I sometimes expect things to happen quickly--but other times I expect a long build-up and they quickly are exposed.
Yes, it seems that Osborne is ill and Mrs. Gibson is now willing to have Cynthia get closer to Roger! Poor Roger, I think, though he makes his own problems by not loving the right woman, darn him. And why *does* Cynthia seem to owe Mr. Preston money? So many questions! And I just remembered this past week that the novel is unfinished. I guess I'll be able to make up my own appropriate ending.
Susan was struck by readership this week and I was struck by creativity, of a sort. I loved the way Mrs. Gibson's discussion of the ball is described; it's how I think of some comments on Facebook: "her words were always like ready-made clothes, and never fitted individual thoughts. Anybody might have used them, and, with a change of proper names, they might have served to describe any ball." (that's in the beginning of Ch. 28.)
I did also note how Cynthia chastises Molly for always taking her too literally in the chapter named Bush-Fighting. I couldn't figure out the reason for that chapter title. Is it a reference to fighting in New Zealand (as in a book I found on Google books from 1873)?
I do think Mrs. Gaskell is a little loose with the time frame, since when she started writing (and wasn't that 1863?), she said Molly was 12 "45 years ago," which would have been 1818ish, and by now Molly has grown to be about 18, so it should be around 1824 or 25, before any reform act may have passed. I believe the novel is set in Ye Olden Days, as in the old rigmarole of childhood established back on the first page.
so, more mysteries this week, or any resolutions?
In this installment, I was really intrigued by the long proper name Mrs. Gibson signs at the bottom of her apology letter to Roger---"HYACINTH C.K. GIBSON." I think this name shows her life history as well as her character--she wants to include every title she held up so far(or having been held up by others), although she is called mostly "Mrs. Gibson" by the narrator and us the readers most of the times.
I try to keep track of the forms of names Gaskell used as the narrator in referring to Cynthia and Molly. As Susan noticed before, it is really confusing who the narrator refers to when "Miss Gibson" is called out by Roger or other people. I wonder how Cynthia could remain "Miss Kirkpatrick" even after she joined the family long time now. Did the law at that time prohibit the daughter from the previous marriage from being renamed after her new father? I have no idea, but it is just interesting to see how Cynthia is a bit excluded from the rest of the family in that way.
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