'Cranford' by Elizabeth Gaskell

Through a series of vignettes, Elizabeth Gaskell portrays a community governed by old-fashioned habits and dominated by friendships between women. Her wry account of rural life is undercut, however, by tragedy in its depiction of such troubling events as Matty's bankruptcy, the violent death of Captain Brown or the unwitting cruelty of Peter Jenkyns. Written with acute observation, Cranford is by turns affectionate, moving and darkly satirical.

MY THOUGHTS:
I'm making this my choice for the Abandoned Classic category in the 2020 Back to the Classics Challenge. I almost finished it long ago when I studied it for Uni English as a teenager, but only read enough to pad out what I felt my essay required. At the age of 19, I thought it was all about a bunch of pompous old spinsters and widows in a poky old town, regretting missed opportunities and trying to enforce a snobbish pecking order. Well, I still think it's about a bunch of self-important senior women trying to maintain their social status. But I seem to have developed more of a tolerance for that sort of thing, perhaps because some of it has come home to roost. The themes of dwindling time and money really leaped out at me this time round.

The narrator is a modest young woman whose name is revealed close to the end as Mary Smith. Mary often stays with distant family at Cranford. Miss Deborah Jenkyns was an autocratic town leader who has recently died, leaving her far more gentle and nervous sister Matilda (or Matty) in charge of their household. Matty thinks she'll make a mess of things and shame Deborah's memory. But several of her bossy sister's former decisions turn out to have a negative impact on her own life, which is obvious to Mary but not to Matty. And Miss Matty pulls through on strengths Deborah never had, such as empathy and generosity.

The community is revealed as one of general poverty, but they're able to conceal it, and even make it fashionable with an unspoken pact to disapprove of 'lavish spending.' The ladies all consider their cost cutting a form of 'elegant economy' and pay out anyone lucky enough to be able to splash out a few bucks as vulgar and ostentatious. I have to laugh as I read their reasoning, since this sort of sour grapeism has even made its way into our 21st century budgeting over the years.

The story deals with layers of time. Mary the narrator is speaking nostalgically as she looks back to her youth when she stayed with Miss Matty Jenkyns at Cranford. During that time period itself, she helps Miss Matty delve even further back as they collate old letters and talk about the happenings of former generations. This really makes time feel like a set of Babushka dolls, in which we can't help finding ourselves stacked. And what goes around most certainly seems to come again.

Several memories for me were loaded with extra significance Gaskell definitely can't have intended, because the events in my mind were way in my past and her future. She was long dead and I hadn't been born yet. Reflecting on her girlhood during the Napoleonic war, Miss Matty muses, 'I used to wake up in the night many a time and think I heard the tramp of French boots entering Cranford.' I straightaway remembered my Dad talking about about his own boyhood in the early 1940s of South Australia, and saying, 'I used to wake up and imagine I heard German troops marching down the streets of Adelaide.' Nothing levels human experience quite like reading books.

I can't help noticing that when Elizabeth Gaskell pokes gentle fun at the old snobs, they still come out on the page as sort of lovable. Even the totally stuck-up Mrs Jamieson. In Jane Austen's merciless hands, the same ladies could be made to look ridiculous and even villainous. (Think Mrs Elton, young Mrs Dashwood, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.) Is there a lesson there for us readers? Maybe since we have a choice to choose the lens through which we view people, we should make an effort to see those around us lovable instead of abominable. That can sure be a hard ask though. 

Overall, it's not an exciting book, but a highly readable one if you like small town politics and the fusing together of different personalities. And it was said to have been Mrs Gaskell's own personal favourite. I'm guessing that might have been at least partly because of the many gentle teasing and humorous remarks she slipped in. Such as when Martha the maid says, 'I won't listen to reason. It always turns out to be what other people have to say.' This little book is worth reading for Elizabeth Gaskell's keen sense of humour.

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