North and South--Book and BBC

Have made me give up American Pastoral, and work, and breathing, for a few days.

But how worth it it's been! What a fantastic story.
I'm in literary love.

...

I love it when a wonderful book and a wonderful movie adaptation are each wonderful in a different way. Although the Gaskell book exposed social ills, Victorian-style, and featured more romantic chemistry and less caricatures than a Dickens novels, the movie successfully managed to amp up the drama on both counts by taking us into the mill and casting the unconventionally gorgeous Daniela Denby-Ashe and the properly smouldering and rough-shod Richard Armitage.

I haven't been that absorbed in a book in ages; the edgy love story wasn't all that pushed me through it either. Margaret Hale is an incredible character; flawed but fiesty, kindly inclined but young and naive. Gaskell's style is properly Victorian without being difficult. I love her straightforwardness. She's like an Eliot for the working classes.

I also found the novel to be incredibly proto-feminist in the way that it advocates a union between female and male to bring about social change. Gaskell has presented us with a strong woman whose kindness influences a formerly male-run institution to move forward in a compassionate way, and to me that's not a cop-out, it's incredibly insightful for its time. And actually for ours. Because feminism isn't just about women being badasses and assuming power, it's also about formerly patriarchal institutions gaining a bit of gentleness. You know who understands that? Elizabeth Gaskell, that's who!

Hillary Clinton, are you listening?