Good god, Elizabeth Gaskell!

[blamebrampton]

Death, death, death and a bit more death! 

Why yes, I am watching Cranford and remembering why I was so horribly scarred in the days I was reading through the Gaskell oeuvre ... So many magnificent male characters, each cut off just as his life reached the possibility of happiness. And no, leaving Jem and Dr Harrison to have happy endings is not sufficient recompense.

Elizabeth Gaskell. Great-Grandmother of Emos everywhere ...

Comments

[glass-violet.livejournal.com]

dear, cheerful mrs gaskell! you're right, she (and mr hardy, oh my yes, everyone who tells me they've just read "the most depressing book ever!" is handed my somewhat battered copy of 'jude the obscure') has a lot to answer for.
i have ever been fond of poor cousin phyllis...

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Oh I can't even look Jude in the frontspiece anymore, Tess is as miserable as I can face (quite miserable enough, thanks!)

CP was jolly good, though my great love of her works was North and South.

[glass-violet.livejournal.com]

i'm blushing as i admit this, but i've never read N&S.
*hides head in shame*
i'm sure gran has a copy lying around, i shall borrow it as soon as i have finished reading HP again (was accident! started reading 'philosopher's stone' and couldn't stop!)

[meredyth-13.livejournal.com]

You make me laugh. :)

I saw the ad for Cranford tonight and thought 'Oh, look, that's where old Austen cast members go to die ...'

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

You may well be right. (It's certainly one of the silliest periods of costumes for women!) Lost in Austen next week, ah ABC, it's as though I never left England some days.

[i-autumnheart.livejournal.com]

Heh - I've been enjoying Cranford a lot, but it was a wee bit focused, wasn't it?

Although... I went and read the original last week (I have to confess I hadn't heard of it until three weeks ago), and there was a definite addition of happy endings to the TV version.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Yes, from very vague memory it's Greatest Tragedies culled from several novels. They should have the Happy Moments edition ;-)

[deensey.livejournal.com]

this is why we love her?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I thought that was because Richard Armitage is a natural piece of casting for her adaptations?

[deensey.livejournal.com]

That too. Oh, yes, that too.

Just no killing him.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

That should be a rule.

[shu-shu-sleeps.livejournal.com]

Cranford is one of hers that I've never read, and I have to admit I've missed the adaptation on ABC. But she's not THAT depressing, North and SoOuth and Wives and Daughters were quite happy books...... not like that depressing Hardy man - god, talk about slit your wrists stuff - after three years straight of being FORCED to read just about everything that Thomas bloody Hardy wrote (his poetry is the WORST) I haven't gone near anything he's written for years!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

W&D was, but I seem to recallthat N&S had a few painful deaths and maimings as it went along ...

But yes, Hardy makes one wish to maim oneself, which is a different category altogether.