My Lady Ludlow

No será del gusto de todo el mundo pero a mi me ha ENCANTANDO este libro.<br />No puede ser más costumbrista; una anciana narra su niñez y juventud junto a Lady Ludlow, una aristócrata muy peculiar, con un fuerte sentido del honor y las tradiciones pero muy buen corazón. Esta historia esconde muchas otras, otros personajes y situaciones con las que Lady Ludlow se encontró en el pasado y vamos a ir conociendo.<br />Creo que es una novela con un encanto especial para los que disfrutemos de novelas de personajes y de otro tiempo tan distinto al nuestro que casi parece ciencia ficción.<br />Lady Ludlow, por sus ideales y despotismo, debería resultarnos un personaje desagradable, pero a pesar de la educación que recibió logra transmitir esa sensación de bondad que conquista a todos a su paso (incluidos los lectores).<br />Esta es una novela muy sencilla, que nadie espere la ironía de 'Cranford', el romance de 'Hijas y esposas' o la pasión de 'Norte y sur', esta es una historia plenamente costumbrista y nostálgica, para quienes disfrutamos de la palabra bien escrita y los personajes bien trazados.<br />Para mi ha sido una verdadera delicia.

This book was told from the point of view of Margaret Dawson who, at the age of 16, was taken in by her distant cousin Lady Ludlow. During the course of this book we learn almost nothing about Margaret, except that she suffered from some physical infirmities. In many ways, Lady Ludlow was charitable and kind, but she was also unyielding in her belief that the lower classes should never be subjected to education of any kind. I can't stop being bothered by the fact that everyone in the town had to seek permission to make any improvements from one woman merely because she had "Lady" in front of her name. But such were the times. <br /><br />This book was really missing the charm of "Cranford". Lady Ludlow's long, long story about the French Revolution really killed the book for me. I suppose this digression was intended to bolster her opinion that educating the masses was dangerous, but it was unbearably dull. The book never really got back on track for me after that. There were a few people in the town who interested me, but Lady Ludlow was not a compelling character at all.<br /><br />The narration of the audiobook by Susannah York was quite good.

I am trying hard to finish this book before a trip, but I must say it is slow going with the 64-page digression to tell a story from the French Revolution. Sixty-four pages. Digression. French Revolution. <br /><br />Elizabeth Gaskell is impersonating Victor Hugo.<br /><br />7/17 Update: Finished!!! I'll take my literary cred now, thank you. My full review will have to wait until I return from my trip, but I'll just say now that I have no idea what the point of this novel was. <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/159178.North_and_South__North_and_South___1_" title="North and South (North and South, #1) by John Jakes" rel="noopener">North and South</a> and <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/383206.Wives_and_Daughters" title="Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell" rel="noopener">Wives and Daughters</a> have likeable main characters and clear plotlines. This... this and <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/182381.Cranford" title="Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell" rel="noopener">Cranford</a> were just kind of all over the place and wowzers were they hard to read.<br /><br />7/29 Update: Here is the final review that went up on my blog. As you can see, my feelings towards this story did not grow softer with the passing of time. ;-)<br /><br />"My Lady Ludlow is a story that I never could get behind. I don't understand the point of it, and the way Elizabeth Gaskell tried to impersonate Victor Hugo by going on a 64-page digression about the French Revolution did not help. Very little of the story I knew from the miniseries was there, and even the characters who had made it to the screen did not always have the same names. The plot involves a poor distant relation of Lady Ludlow looking back on her youth, when she lived with Lady Ludlow for a time. Although you could possibly pull out a theme or two, this mostly seemed like a collection of random, unconnected, and insipid narratives."

Slim on plot but fat on character, and invaluable in the insight it gives to the times.

My Lady Ludlow is one of the Elizabeth Gaskell books that the BBC miniseries Cranford is based on, and because the TV series used more than one of her novels the plots had to be altered so they could fit together. Seeing the series made me want to read what Gaskell wrote, and though sometimes it’s irritating when the book and screen version diverge, in this case reading the book was like indulging in a pleasant alternate reality. I had a little more time to spend with characters I had come to love, albeit in altered but recognizable forms. Probably it’s better to go from show to book rather than the other way around, because in the book Lady Ludlow’s high and mighty ways are softened and given more context, and if this book Lady Ludlow were met first the BBC portrait of her might cause indignation. <br /><br />In both book and miniseries Lady Ludlow rules over her little village domain and is sure that education for the lower classes is a bad idea verging on blasphemy. It renders them unfit for the life they have been called to by God, and will surely bring on a reign of terror as horrifying as the French Revolution’s. She comes to see things differently, but in the TV series Lady Ludlow’s hand is forced, though she is graceful about it, and in the book changing circumstances lead her to eventually allow her naturally sympathetic nature to guide her actions. <br />

One of Elizabeth Gaskell's books that take a look at the British countryside of the first half of the 19th century, capturing in a humorous way the lives of the inhabitants and the way they were dealing with the social changes of the time. The interesting thing is that we see things from the side of the aristocracy, who is awkward to see the storm of changes coming in the early 19th century and the power to be slowly slipping from its hands. Its heroine, the widow of an aristocrat who has been left alone in the world, with the exception of her only son, who is living abroad, has deep conservative views and does whatever she can to prevent any substantial change by insisting on a mentality that has been overcome even by people of her class. She demands strict adherence to the rules governing relations between the social classes, seeing with particular suspicion anything that can make people violate them, even if this is the simple schooling that can bring new ideas to the poorest. Of course she does not think she's doing anything wrong, instead she thinks she's an ideal example of her class, and probably that's the reality for she is doing some of her traditional tasks like keeping her inferiors on her care to have a job, keeping them as good as possible in their health, forced them to be right Christians and to avoid heresies and above all to know their place and to not to question the social pyramid.<br /><br />All these of her fears are explained by her narratives, which many times revolve around the French Revolution, which she considers the most tragic event of recent history and a warning about what can happen if they let people be educated and leave the new ideas to spread unchecked. One of these stories is also the culmination of the book, an emotional love story under the shadow of the darkest period of the French Revolution, when human life does not had much importance. I can say that this narrative is the one that made me look very sympathetic to the book as it gives a different tone, more touching, breaking a bit of its already quite interesting humorous nature. Of course this is the basis of its value, the prominent nagging of our heroine for the change in people's behaviour, her fear towards the new one, her insistence with the "good old days", all that are written with a very enjoyable way. In the end, of course, there is necessarily a form of compromise with the fact of progress and this is definitely the writer's message.<br /><br />Ένα από τα βιβλία της Ελίζαμπεθ Γκάσκελ που ρίχνουν μία ματιά στη Βρετανική εξοχή του πρώτου μισού του δέκατου ένατου αιώνα καταγράφοντας με έναν χιουμοριστικό τρόπο τη ζωή των κατοίκων και τον τρόπο που αντιμετώπιζαν τις κοινωνικές αλλαγές της εποχής. Το ενδιαφέρον είναι ότι βλέπουμε τα πράγματα από την πλευρά της αριστοκρατίας που αμήχανη βλέπει την καταιγίδα των αλλαγών που έρχονταν στις αρχές του 19ου αιώνα και την εξουσία να χάνεται λίγο-λίγο μέσα από τα χέρια της. Η ηρωίδα του, η χήρα ενός αριστοκράτη που έχει μείνει μόνη στον κόσμο με εξαίρεση τον μοναδικό της γιο, που όμως και αυτός μένει μακριά, έχει βαθύτατες συντηρητικές απόψεις και κάνει ότι μπορεί για να εμποδίσει οποιαδήποτε ουσιαστική αλλαγή, επιμένοντας σε μία νοοτροπία που έχει ξεπεραστεί ακόμα και από ανθρώπους της τάξης της. Ζητάει να τηρούνται αυστηρά οι κανόνες που ρυθμίζουν τις σχέσεις μεταξύ των κοινωνικών τάξεων, βλέποντας με ιδιαίτερη καχυποψία οτιδήποτε μπορεί να κάνει τους ανθρώπους να τους παραβιάσουν, ακόμα και αν αυτό είναι η απλή σχολική εκπαίδευση που μπορεί να φέρει τις νέες αντιλήψεις στους φτωχότερους. Βέβαια η ίδια δεν θεωρεί ότι κάνει κάτι κακό, αντιθέτως πιστεύει ότι είναι ένα ιδανικό δείγμα της τάξης της και πιθανότατα αυτό είναι και η πραγματικότητα κάπως κάνει όλα τα παραδοσιακά της καθήκοντα που είναι να φροντίζει οι κατώτεροι της που είναι στην επίβλεψη της να έχουν δουλειά, να είναι όσο το δυνατόν καλύτερα στην υγεία τους, να είναι σωστοί χριστιανοί και να αποφεύγουν τις αιρέσεις και πάνω από όλα να γνωρίζουν τη θέση τους και να μην αμφισβητούν την κοινωνική πυραμίδα.<br /><br />Όλοι αυτοί οι φόβοι της εξηγούνται μέσα από τις αφηγήσεις της οι οποίες πολλές φορές περιστρέφονται γύρω από τη Γαλλική Επανάσταση, την οποία θεωρεί το τραγικότερο γεγονός της πρόσφατης ιστορίας και μία προειδοποίηση για το τι μπορεί να συμβεί άμα αφήσουν τον λαό να μορφωθεί και αφήσουν τις νέες ιδέες να εξαπλωθούν ανεξέλεγκτα. Μία από αυτές τις αφηγήσεις αποτελεί και την κορύφωση του βιβλίου, μία τραγική ιστορία αγάπης κάτω από τη σκιά της πιο σκοτεινής περιόδου της Γαλλικής επανάστασης, όπου η ανθρώπινη ζωή δεν έχει και τόση πολλή σημασία. Μπορώ να πω ότι η συγκεκριμένη αφήγηση είναι και αυτή που με έκανε να δω περισσότερο συμπαθητικά το βιβλίο καθώς δίνει έναν διαφορετικό τόνο, περισσότερο συγκινητικό, σπάζοντας λίγο την ήδη αρκετά ενδιαφέρουσα χιουμοριστική φύση του. Φυσικά αυτό το τελευταίο είναι η βάση της αξίας του, η γκρίνια της πρωταγωνίστριας για την αλλαγή στη συμπεριφορά των ανθρώπων, η αμηχανία της απέναντι στο νέο που έρχεται, η επιμονή της με τις "παλιές καλές εποχές", όλα αυτά αποδίδονται με έναν πολύ απολαυστικό τρόπο. Στο τέλος, βέβαια, έρχεται αναγκαστικά μία μορφή συμβιβασμού με το γεγονός της προόδου και αυτό σίγουρα είναι στο τέλος και το μήνυμα της συγγραφέως.

This is a bit of an odd story because it starts with characters who are vague at best and then we hear nothing about them until the very last paragraph. The story is told to the narrator who is in Edinburgh for treatment for an illness. The storyteller is an elderly, crippled woman named Margaret Dawson who lives with her doctor brother who is treating the young narrator (whose name I can’t remember!). The narrator visits Miss Dawson every Monday night and listens to her relate events from forty years before when she lived with Lady Ludlow for several years at Hanbury (a country house and village).<br /><br />A lot of Margaret’s story is secondhand from the people around her at Lady Ludlow’s since she was confined to a sofa for much of the time as the result of an accident. All of the above means that the perspective of this novel/novella is oddly complex and convoluted. I can’t decide if the oddity in the perspective was intentional or if Gaskell was just in a hurry with the story. Perhaps the biography I’m reading of Gaskell now will spill the details. <br /><br />Regardless, I thought this story was great fun once it settled into itself. It’s definitely more along the Cranford line with a village and its inhabitants and their small but fascinating lives. There is gossip and humor and a spinster and a poacher’s family and a dissenter’s family and, over it all, the very class conscious and yet surprisingly humble, kind, and open-minded Lady Ludlow. It’s rather a funny story in a way because Miss Dawson will make some hard-and-fast statement, like: “My Lady Ludlow never recognized illegitimate children” and then the next chapter will be about how Lady Ludlow comes to have an illegitimate young woman over for tea.<br /><br />Despite Lady Ludlow’s occasional imperiousness which immediately made me want to gape at her, I could never dislike her for long. No sooner would she climb on her high horse about no education for the lower classes or the horror of schismatics (Baptists) then she would be climbing down to donate wool to the Vicar’s school or provide money for the poacher’s son’s education, etc. Lady Ludlow can never seem to stick to her blanket moral statements however hard she tries. Very amusing, very satisfying. <br /><br />My other favorite character is Miss Galindo, one of those delightfully eccentric spinsters that are so often found in English novels. She is a hoot! She is a confirmed busybody but so friendly and warm and gossipy and well intentioned that it is impossible to dislike her. I might try to edge past her coming out of church on a Sunday to get home to my lunch, but I’d gladly have her over for a good tea time gossip.

Meh.<br /><br />Where I found charm in <i>Cranford</i> and <i>Mr. Harrison's Confessions</i>, there's not really any charm in <i>My Lady Ludlow</i>. There is a multiple-chapter story as told by Lady Ludlow to the narrator (a young woman who lives with her) that is used to explain why Lady Ludlow doesn't want the lower classes to receive education, and I honestly can't tell if the story is met to be read as Lady Ludlow being entirely serious in her defense of not wanting people educated or if we're supposed to find her ridiculous. The narrator is near-constantly reminding us how kind and sweet Lady Ludlow is even if she can be old-fashioned, and perhaps if I had a better understanding of the British aristocracy, I'd be more sympathetic, but I find Lady Ludlow to be silly and somewhat boring, and there's no real charm in the book that makes me want to recommend it. <br /><br />It reads like Gaskell had a list of characters she'd meant to do something with, so she built Lady Ludlow into what she needed to show us those characters. It makes the narrative disjointed and uneven and not a lot of fun.

For me this was the least enjoyable of the 3 books of Cranford chronicles. I had a hard time keeping with the story, but at least it was an audiobook that kept me going with something in the car. Happy to finish it...

Nuh-uh, Gaskell.<br /><br />I love you, and I appreciate your beautiful soul for attempting to write a pro-progressive story from the perspective of a upper-class oppressor who starts out the story thinking that education "ruins" the lower classes.<br /><br />But are you seriously going to make me sit through that tedious and never-ending French Revolution interlude and not even let poor Margaret Dawson <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="e1a34081-b817-4fc7-96fa-7d1e73776e11" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="e1a34081-b817-4fc7-96fa-7d1e73776e11">get her a piece of that vicar Mr. Gray</label>? That is not cool. Not cool, Elizabeth. Not cool.<br /><br />On a happier note, this means I am now fully prepared to watch the <i>Cranford</i> series!