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READING ROOM APRIL 25 · The Reading Room

0:00
Speaker 1: Babe the Bag write.
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Speaker 2: Reader.
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Speaker 3: Hello, good afternoon. Here we are in the reading room
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on Liverpool Community Radio I one of six point seven.
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I'm here Christa with Barry. Hello, and we have Sue
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on the phone. Hi, Sue, Hi, christ Welcome, Welcome to
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the show. So this week we are looking at Silas Marney,
0:39
which is a book by George Elliott whose that was
0:42
a pen name. It was actually written by a female,
0:45
Mary Ann Evans. I didn't know that a lot of
0:47
people did, but I didn't know that. And it was
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published on the second of April eighteen sixty one, and
0:55
an interesting tale written in the eighteen hundreds about the
1:00
eighteen hundreds too, which I know that Barry's not that
1:03
keen on historical novels. I absolutely love them, but I
1:07
did think I need to get a bit more modern
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because that's all I read is all the historical novels.
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So it's about a weaver, isn't it it is? Yeah,
1:18
it's about a weaver and he moves town. A lot
1:24
of tragedy happens in his life. But I loved the
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way there's a gap and it comes back to like
1:30
is at sixteen years later. Yeah, I thought that was
1:32
actually really really genius. But anyway, let's start. We'll start
1:36
with you, Barry. What did you think of the novel?
1:39
Speaker 1: Well, I enjoyed it reluctantly and as much as I
1:44
found that the writing, as with a lot of these
1:46
Victorian novels, very elaborate, shall we say, And I even
1:54
got to the point where I had to go back
1:56
and read the first couple of chapters again because I
1:59
found them further unfathomable. But once I got into the story,
2:03
I enjoyed the story. I thought it was a good story,
2:06
well told, but the writing style leaves me a bit cold,
2:12
I'm afraid.
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Speaker 3: So you see, I'm the opposite. I actually loved the
2:14
writing style. I love the I'm starting to talk an
2:17
old English like, I'll say things like I'll take my leave,
2:20
and it's a bit pretentious, but I just love the
2:22
poeticness of the writing. So give us your thoughts on
2:29
the book.
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Speaker 2: You're right, Well, it's the first novel I've actually read
2:34
by George Er. It's so I wasn't quite sure what
2:37
to expect, but I did think that considering that this
2:41
was about alone mys A Weaver, I didn't think it
2:44
would be as interesting as this I do agree with
2:49
the wordiness. The opening paragraph. I did think set the
2:54
scene perfectly because it does take us into the gentle
2:59
time in some respects of the bygone world. But I
3:03
do think the first thing that actually stuck me was
3:07
the use of the very long sentences. I mean, the
3:10
first sentence in the book is seven lines, which sometimes
3:15
makes it harder to read, as does the long paragraphs
3:18
as a whole page where there's no paragraphs, which just
3:22
solid text. So I always think that that's harder to
3:26
actually take him because we're used to a faster pace
3:30
of reading. And I also thought that in today's book world,
3:35
it's the fact that there was no dialogue for the
3:37
first three pages. It was all description and it was
3:41
only a scant recall conversation at that point. Is actually
3:46
in chapter three when we get a full conversation.
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Speaker 3: M that's really well observed. Hey, absolutely, you see. I
3:54
love all that, I love all the poetic language, and
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I'm like you at the begin, and I thought, what's
4:00
this going to be on about? And alone we've I
4:03
actually chose the book, and I was thinking one of
4:05
a done another historical novel. But I think but it
4:09
was for me, it was it was quite different because
4:12
with the gap in the years that passed, I thought
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that was genius. But also all the entwining relationships. I
4:19
loved that about those old novels because they don't have
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much to really kind of write about accept relationships in
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a way, and I love the way there was all
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those things that we're entwined. And then you know, Silas
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has has the child, doesn't he? And then the child
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is actually is it Gregory? Is that his name is?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? Godfrey?
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Speaker 3: Godfrey? Sorry Godfrey? Yeah, yeah, So marry any more any
4:44
more thoughts on it?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that, you know, like Sue
4:49
said that, you know that that was the reason why
4:51
I went back to the first two chapters because and
4:54
I think they're important to the story actually into the
4:57
understanding of the story. And yeah, I hadn't retained. I
5:01
found that I was asking myself questions because there was
5:04
there was this sort of you say, tragedy, but I'm
5:08
not sure whether that was a tragedy or just setting
5:13
of the scenes somewhat really given him a reason to
5:16
to move. I mean that the story he was a
5:20
young weaver in a sort of what would appear to
5:24
be a Christian community, although that's not particularly specified. I
5:28
don't think so. And I think that that's something to
5:32
do with George Elliott as well, because I think George
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Elliott was a bit of a rebel about religious issues
5:40
and that caused some problems. I mean, the book having
5:44
been banned in certain areas. But the weaver himself silas Marna.
5:50
He's engaged to a to a young woman, and he's
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got a good friend and and and the good friend
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sets him up so it looks like he's stolen when
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he hasn't done. And then they had some sort of
6:06
very strange system of deciding whether he was guilty or not,
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which is this drawing of lots, and he was found
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to be guilty. And then sort of a month later,
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his best friend married his ex fiancee after he'd moved away.
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So that's the sort of the scene that sets. So
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then he goes to another place sort of as a
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bitter about life, if you like, and spends his time
6:35
being a weaver and a bit of an outcast and
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mistrusted by people. But he because he had previously been
6:43
working as a for a company, if you like, and
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getting a wage too. Then once he goes out into
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the country. He's working for himself, and he makes a
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lot of money, and he becomes fairly obsessed with gold
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and he counts it each night, and he's and that's
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the sort of character he is. Is also a bit
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of an odd character because he has what is maybe
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a form of epilepsy or cataplepsy or whatever, catalepsy anyway,
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and so and also a bit of a healer because
7:17
of certain circumstances, although he isn't really and so when
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people come to him and he can't heal them, they
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sort of mistrust him even more. So he's an outcast
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at that stage. So I think that you know, there's
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there's quite a lot of that scene setting in order
7:34
then to tell the other story, which basically for me
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becomes like karma. You know, it's like, you know, good
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people will out in the end if you like, and
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people get their come upance in in the end. And
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I thought that that was done very well. I thought
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that that was like a pretty well tied up in
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the stories. But like I said earlier, there were some
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there were so certain aspects of it which were so like,
8:02
for instance, when they're going to a party and the
8:06
ladies are talking about the dressers and what have you
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just left me totally cold. Yeah, it was like it
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went on and it went on, and it was like
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a lot of those historical novels in that it begs
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the question, I think, you know, did they have nothing
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else to do? These women in those days, I don't
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worry about cloth and like stitching, you know, I mean,
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it just seemed like such a waste of fifty percent
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of people's lives, really, you know what I mean?
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Speaker 3: So certainly, do you want to add something?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think by today's standard, I think it does
8:39
have a slow pace, and it does contain.
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Speaker 4: An awful lot of description.
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Speaker 2: But I think that Elliott does that well. But then
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I suddenly realized that it's the book of its time,
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and I think Barriers touched on this and she reflects
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how much time people aren't, particularly women. But by the
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same token, at night there wasn't television, there wasn't distractions,
9:05
it was books, and as people did not travel as
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they do today, I think in order to take the
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reader to that location, the picture had to be shown
9:16
in words and not as an image. So most of
9:20
us have been to a rural village. But if you
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take this book in the context a lot of people
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might not have been, and the only source of what
9:28
it was like is through the book. I think despite
9:34
these sometimes the wordiness of the pros, I found myself
9:38
drawn into the world and I was enchanted by Eliot's writing.
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And I think at the first part I felt very
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sad for Silas and the way fate had treated him.
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And then later on when another calamity struck him, I
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just wondered how an author could treat her characters so
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cruelly blow after another. There was a beautiful retention within
10:02
the story, and I thought the ending was.
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Speaker 3: Lovely, So did I. I found there was one sentence
10:08
in it which I thought was like, really quite interesting
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when someone says that the poorer kids have a better
10:15
childhood than the rich kids. And I thought that was
10:18
quite interesting really, because that's why ePIE she doesn't want
10:23
to go into into kind of you know, higher class.
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She likes she likes to stay in the working class
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because she loves Silas. But then she can play and
10:34
she can have she can have a real childhood, whereas
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the richer children are stuck at home with all the
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the rules they have and the class rules that they have.
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So I thought that was actually quite an interesting look
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on life. Then in the eighteen hundreds, Barry, can you
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carry on with your your review?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think the thing was with the
10:56
I mean, and this was the artifish that she used
10:59
in the writing, inasmuch as what you got out of
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it was that she'd had such a beautiful childhood and
11:06
being brought up when an actual fact, you know, from
11:09
the moment she's like tiny and adopted by Silas at
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the time she's like seventeen or eighteen. You don't get
11:16
any description of that at all. You know, it's all
11:19
implied really because the whole thing moves on. But yes,
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you know, you yeah, absolutely, no, I mean, I mean,
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you know, and I think, like I say, the artifice
11:28
of the writer, but it's very well done in as
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much as you know, the view that you get of
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it is that she's had a wonderful childhood with Silas
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as a lone parent, and you know, and he's had
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a wonderful time as well, and they've sort of grown together.
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But you know, that would have been probably more difficult
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to do if she'd gone into detail about how he
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was being how she was being brought up, because like
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you know, a forty year old lone weaver in those
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days bringing up a you know, a three year old
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little girl must have had lots of difficult but those
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aren't you know, none of those things are mentioned. You know,
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it's like sort of a very rosy picture that's painted.
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Speaker 3: Well, they got help as well, didn't they. It was
12:09
help with her godmother, wasn't it.
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Speaker 1: Dolly Dolly, she's a lovely character. Absolutely, She's like a
12:15
proper little saint, is Dolly. And the whole thing, isn't
12:18
she She's like a little like a little.
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Speaker 3: Angel really and yeah, and ends at marrying Dolly's son, Yeah,
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which is a lovely It was just an amazing kind
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of choice of the storyline and where everything ends and
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everything's entwined. I just love all that. And she didn't
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want to go and live, did she with Godfrey?
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Speaker 2: No?
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Speaker 1: I mean, I think just as a background of you know,
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for those people haven't read the story and aren't a
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word of it. There's a the landowners or the cast family.
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So there's a squire and he has a couple of
12:53
sons or three sons or whatever. And one of the
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sons has been married with and has a child unbeknownst
13:04
to everybody else, and he's courting the sort of the
13:07
local other landowners, all the high high high born person's daughter,
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and so none of them know about this first wife
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that he has. And the first wife is is an
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opium adduct and she's she brings a child in order
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to get to see this Godfrey, and she dies on route,
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and the child, aged about three years old, then finds
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its way into Silas's house where he has had all
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this gold stolen as it happens the fact, and she's
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got golden hair, and he sees her and thinks that
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it is like his gold come back to her and
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and makes it into something like a you know, like
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a calma, like a repayment of some form, and which
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takes away all his obsession because he's a miser, isn't he.
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I mean, that's that whole sort of idea. He's the
13:59
image of an a miser, and obviously this little child
14:04
melts him. But it turns out later on that's Godfrey
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who is the father of the child actually owns up
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to be because he's childless in his own marriage. And
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I think his wife goes along with it as well,
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because she's like she thinks that she's unsatisfied him as
14:25
a husband because she hasn't been able to I think
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they'd had like a miscarriage or what have you ort too.
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So they think that they can maybe put it right
14:35
because they've got plenty of money. They offer to Epiat
14:38
the young girl, to be become their daughter and be
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entered into society, and she doesn't want it. She wants
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to stay with She does Silas and betrothed whose Dolly's
14:49
son Aaron. As you say, so, it's like a proper
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sort of it's a feel good story if you like
14:57
you it really is.
14:58
Speaker 3: But the irony is though that Nancy would have taken
15:02
her arm, wouldn't she because she would have yea, so
15:04
she so Godfrey could have looked, could have brought up
15:07
his daughter if he'd been honest. It's a lot of dishonesty.
15:10
I think in a lot of these novels, I think
15:12
people don't say things. It's all that, you know, stiff
15:14
up a lip, isn't it.
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Speaker 1: I think that is one of the things. It's like
15:17
the more is of the time, you know, I think
15:18
that you know she was able to say that. I
15:21
think you got the feeling that she would have been
15:23
happy with it, but I don't think she would have
15:25
been at the time, you know, hindsight reality, I don't
15:29
she would have been. But I think that the whole
15:33
there were, you know, certain aspects of the story which
15:35
which I thought we were very well done. In that
15:39
Godfrey's brother, who is like the sort of the black
15:42
sheep of the family who takes away his horse to
15:45
sell it and ends up killing the horse before he
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gets the money and what have you, and he is
15:50
the person who steals silas as gold, gets his own
15:54
come up and s which was which was great. I'm
15:56
quite unexpected. I thought, I don't know about you, Sue,
15:58
you did you know where he was.
16:02
Speaker 2: I was very surprised to that as well. I mean
16:05
I felt there was like to surprise as well as
16:09
what happened to Dunstan. And I think for me the
16:12
greater surprise was when it happened, you know, so I
16:17
won't get away. I mean, also the other surprise was
16:20
the forms of child punishment put the child in the
16:24
core hole, you know, and I don't think that sits
16:27
very well in today's world, but then again.
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Speaker 4: It's it's it's.
16:31
Speaker 2: It's depicting at certain time. But I do think that
16:37
the Elliott brings it together very well. It's obviously very
16:41
keenly plotted, and I think by felt another surprise was
16:47
some sort of what I regard as modern words, such
16:51
as alien, and there's some wonderful descriptions. On page nineteen,
16:58
she describes silas virus is life as becoming that of
17:03
a spinning insect, which I think puts him in a
17:07
definite role of being a loner. And as you say,
17:12
cast drift. But I think it's has a lot of
17:17
humor in it as well. I think Ellen's quite dry
17:20
in a humor, and I never thought that Stormy about
17:25
a Mica down his look could actually be so amusing.
17:29
I mean there's a scene with a squire on page
17:31
one hundred and sixteen. And then Elliott's understanding of human
17:36
nature also allows the humor to come through, as with
17:40
the tinderbox. I mean, the scene so from me. But
17:43
she manages to summ up people so completely, and I
17:48
think there's wonderful turns of phrase such as dead men
17:52
come back to life again. On page jaydon her description
17:55
of Godfrey's indecision that he could be so indecisive, he's
18:00
his feet very just the same way. You know, you
18:03
walk in one direction, so one for going one way
18:06
and one for going another. And I think she has
18:09
the ability to sum her characters up.
18:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought I thought the characters were absolutely brilliant
18:15
because you could see all their floors. There wasn't anyone
18:18
who didn't have a floor. Really maybe maybe the little
18:21
girl she didn't have a floor.
18:24
Speaker 1: Hadn't developed anything. I mean, and again Dolly I think
18:27
didn't have a floor, you know. I mean I think,
18:29
like I said, she was sort of kind of perfect.
18:31
I think that that that Godfrey was flowed. But I
18:34
think deep down he was a decent sort of person really,
18:37
whereas Dunstan was was a wastetrel.
18:40
Speaker 3: Do you know his brother his brother, Yeah, and he
18:42
was getting blackmailed by his brother, wasn't His brother was
18:45
absolutely horrible. But his father wasn't very nice either was
18:48
He wasn't very nice to to Godfrey. He seemed to
18:51
prefer Dunstan, didn't he.
18:53
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I mean there's quite a lot there.
18:55
I mean, reading around and about the stuff with about
19:00
George Elliot, I mean there's the issue about she. They
19:04
seemed to me to be a bit of a parallel
19:06
with the Blooms Group group and what have you, and that,
19:09
and you know, with the sort of earlier early twentieth century,
19:14
you know, and yet it was like fifty or sixty
19:16
years before in that you know, she was like living
19:19
in a sort of a menaj choir with with with people.
19:23
You know, she was like the person that she called
19:26
her husband was married to somebody else and what have you.
19:29
And she was, I would say, on the outside of society.
19:33
You know, she was. She was certainly you know, she
19:36
was obviously interested in suffrage and I suppose early feminism
19:40
really and I think that's quite intriguing about that, that
19:43
the whole issue, because again I've taken on a male
19:50
non de plume, but then going into all those details
19:54
about you know, the material and the frocks just seemed
19:57
fairly incongruous to me, you know. But I don't suppose
20:00
anybody was kidded. But I mean I guess that nobody
20:03
really knew that she was a woman writer rather than
20:06
than George Elliott.
20:08
Speaker 3: So yes, can you add something.
20:12
Speaker 2: Yes, christ I don't know that she had quite quite
20:21
that she saw rebellious life and her second husband who
20:26
sorted out after her first husband had died, and he actually,
20:32
when they were in Venice, threw himself from the balcony
20:35
into a gondola and then assented suicide.
20:39
Speaker 1: On the honeymoon, apparently.
20:40
Speaker 2: Because he had mental illness problem. And I remember a
20:45
long time ago watching a program about her and this
20:49
second husband, So I think she had trauma within her life,
20:55
even though she'd moved out of the restrictions of a
20:59
lady of that area.
21:02
Speaker 4: And I think she does keep the.
21:05
Speaker 2: Village life kind of very composed and with very little change.
21:11
But when Silas goes to find the lantern pole, he
21:17
finds it's been replaced by a factory with all these
21:20
people streaming.
21:22
Speaker 4: Out, And that's clever.
21:25
Speaker 2: In the way she is indicating the industrial revolution is
21:29
here and life is changing, and it might not have
21:32
touched you yet, but it will touch you. Yeah.
21:36
Speaker 3: That's really interesting.
21:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think
21:39
the other part of that for me was that all
21:43
his life he'd had that thing haunting him, you know,
21:46
and that he wanted to really go back and clear
21:48
his name, and it had been like sort of very
21:50
much in the uppermost of his mind. And once that
21:56
Eppie was like eighteen the two of them went off
21:59
back to the yard in order to try and seek people,
22:02
you know, but it had all changed, and the whole
22:05
sort of that whole episode then basically disintegrated because everything
22:09
had moved on, and he went back sort of happy,
22:13
if you like, you know, because that thing that had
22:15
been haunting him had seed been late to rest.
22:18
Speaker 3: Really, I thought, yeah, yeah, very interesting the wather they
22:22
did bring that in the industrialization and community and religion too,
22:27
So can you add something else?
22:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think with the scene with the factory, I
22:34
think it indicated to him that time had moved on
22:40
and as well as he'd moved on, and there was
22:44
now a solid division between that was in the past,
22:48
and he could just shug it off and say it
22:50
is in the past.
22:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And even if I wanted to.
22:54
Speaker 2: I can't do anything about it now because it's been
22:57
taken away. So I can now get on with the present.
23:02
And I've also got a tremendous future with Ettie and
23:07
the village. I sort of had it in the back
23:11
of my mind, well, I wondered what happened to all
23:13
the people that did him down At the first I
23:16
would like to pequ and wanted to have not as
23:20
good lives as as Silas ended up with.
23:23
Speaker 1: That was the thing.
23:25
Speaker 2: It was very very important to indicator to his future.
23:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, for me, I loved the part when Eppie walks
23:35
to the to the house because she see the fires
23:37
on the doors open, and you can just picture like
23:40
a little toddler in the in the dark. You know,
23:43
Mom's just fell over and was lying there and she
23:46
just like walks over. I think it was like it
23:48
was a really really poignant part of the book. And
23:52
to see that and she wasn't damaged. She just went
23:54
in there and she felt the warmth, didn't She's not.
24:00
Speaker 1: Cinde who was there Goldielocks looks like the Goldilocks thing,
24:09
you know, go in and lie down and go to sleep,
24:12
you know, to be discovered.
24:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, she just went to the light, didn't she to
24:15
the warmed you know, the poor little love. It made
24:16
you think of the poor little darling just you know,
24:19
and Mum was on opium and you know the tragedy
24:22
of that. And then I thought that was a beautiful
24:26
part of the book when she walks into the house
24:28
and then when Silas comes in, you don't know what
24:31
he's going to do because it's just it's just not
24:34
his life, is that he as you said, he's a miser,
24:36
He lives by himself, he's a recluse, and he just
24:40
brings up the little girl, Sue. Can you add some things?
24:44
Speaker 2: But it was their sight for the right at the beginning, though,
24:47
wasn't he which it's you would have expected the life
24:53
he was living, he would not want to keep the
24:57
chair of the young child put straight away when they
25:01
talked about taking her to the parish, And something in him,
25:05
I think, awoke and said, no, this is this is fate.
25:10
This is I've lost my gold. I've never been you know,
25:14
it's as if the gold had been turned into this,
25:16
this golden agel. So as he was concerned, but it
25:20
showed the humanity starting to creep out and and the
25:24
damage they had been done to him by the actions
25:26
of the people right at the beginning of the book.
25:29
And in a way it was like a bit of
25:30
a fairy story. Yes, it's all sort of how will
25:35
how will he survive and get get out of this
25:37
and get alife? And then suddenly it's resolved very cleverly.
25:42
Speaker 3: It is because you think, especially in that time, it
25:46
would be really maybe unheard of for you know, someone
25:49
like that to be bringing up a girl child. You know,
25:51
it was that was very kind of open minded thinking
25:56
to have that in the novel. And I was quite
25:59
sir prized when he does keep her and then he's
26:02
such a great dad to her.
26:04
Speaker 1: There's parallels with I think with a good night mister Tom.
26:08
You know that you know the story with whether where
26:11
the evacue and and mister Tom looks after him and
26:15
obviously you know and because I mean it is it's
26:20
the warmth of the story really and you see that
26:22
that that you know inherently Silas is like is like
26:27
a good man and deserves that sort of happiness, whereas
26:30
you don't really see that when it's set up, you know,
26:33
when you when you when you when it's all described,
26:36
But that's how it evolves in the in the story.
26:38
And you know, it would be a great shame if
26:41
it hadn't been such a happy ending really for me,
26:43
you know, and I you know, I don't mind dark endings,
26:46
you know, but in this particular case, it was like
26:49
that sort of yeah, it was that there was an
26:53
element to feel good about the whole ending, which was
26:56
which was lovely.
26:57
Speaker 3: But I thought I also found I love the description
26:59
of when he's looking for the gold, and I thought
27:01
that was so well written. You could just feel it
27:04
that he goes back, doesn't he can't believe it, you know,
27:06
the shock of it it's empty, tries again to find it,
27:09
he puts his hand down there. I just thought that
27:12
was a genius part way of writing, because that's how
27:15
you feel when you've lost something really important. You can't
27:17
believe it was going.
27:18
Speaker 1: I was going to say the same thing. I know,
27:19
I remember my car stole then, you know, and you
27:23
go back and think, well, did I park it somewhere
27:25
else or something? You know it is. It's that it's
27:29
suspension of belief for a while.
27:30
Speaker 3: Absolutely love the way that was written too.
27:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's I think it's on two fronts.
27:36
Is the fact that you've lost it, but in the
27:39
other side of it is who could have taken it?
27:42
And there's that side of it with silence, because you know,
27:46
you would think it's got to be a villager. Yeah,
27:49
which again puts another strain on of someone just walking through.
27:54
I love the description of the peddler that it starts
27:58
off with no earrings, then they had one earring, then
28:01
he was selling earrings, and then he had one big earring.
28:06
And it's just like Chinese whispers, you know, the story
28:09
grows and grows until everybody's invested so much into it
28:13
they believe it, even though they don't realize it's subconsciously
28:16
they've made it up. And I think that shows how
28:20
how well Elliott observes people and the mannerisms, and how
28:25
wanting one person sparks off something in another person. Anybody
28:31
believes this self, this self created myth about an innocent peddler.
28:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, so true. And Dancetown was a real villain, wasn't he.
28:43
Speaker 2: Yes, yes he was, And right Barry, I felt a
28:46
great sense of satisfaction that no good had come of him,
28:52
you know, and that most of the gold had been recovered.
28:56
Speaker 3: And that was great in the end, wasn't it.
28:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was all It was all good, although it
28:59
didn't matter that, did it. It's not as if he
29:01
went back and started counting it again or anything like that.
29:03
It was just he was delighted because it was there,
29:07
because his daughter was getting married and he was able
29:09
to provide for her, you know.
29:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I do like the way.
29:14
Speaker 2: She slipped it in that the stone pits were very dry,
29:18
and that's just the lie. You don't realize the significance
29:21
until later. That's right when Godfrey comes in, are flushed
29:24
and upset. Yeah again, it's hers to fight, She polished
29:31
said the words before she puts it in the sentence.
29:33
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:33
Speaker 1: No, it was good. I mean, it's the sort of
29:35
thing that if you were watching on Midsummer Murders, you'd
29:38
see it coming a mile off, wouldn't you. But I mean,
29:41
but but in this it was like it was a
29:43
genuine shock. I'd forgotten about him because you know, he's
29:47
painted as obviously as a bad character, but he's really
29:51
not in it very much. You know, there's like the
29:53
amount of description about him is very very slim, really,
29:58
but you have this idea of him as nerd do well,
30:00
you know so, and you know the fact he gets
30:03
has come up and is great. The only I think
30:07
I was on a slightly different topic really, just going
30:09
back to the George Elliott thing and the Mary Mary
30:12
sans Alter ego. I read something which was quite intriguing.
30:17
I thought that she was she was she was seen
30:19
as being I don't know whether loose is the right word.
30:23
But you know, she was seen as being not quite
30:25
of society, shall we say. And I think that one
30:31
of the things she said about herself and people said
30:34
about her that she wasn't very attractive woman. How they
30:39
you know, how they came about these things. But she
30:42
actually used that herself in the book, and that she
30:44
has the sister Priscilla, who is and who describes herself
30:50
as ugly, you know, because she has a were in
30:53
the same dress as her sister, but like doesn't look
30:56
the same on her, you know. And like I think
30:58
that's the characterization of Scilla is of the writer herself,
31:02
you know. And I was like to have that sort
31:04
of cameo thing, and it really is. That's how it
31:07
looked to me anyway, which is quite an interesting thing really,
31:10
and self observation so so well.
31:14
Speaker 2: I think as Silas became an outsider, George Elliot because
31:18
of the life that she she lived, was also an outsider.
31:25
I mean, if she hadn't had the talent for writing
31:28
and been successful in her own lifetime, you wonder what
31:31
would have happened to her because it was her. It
31:35
was the fact that she was so successful and so clever.
31:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, basically and well educated as well for the time,
31:42
wasn't she.
31:44
Speaker 2: The people accepted her, perhaps with a bit of a grudge,
31:49
accepted her, but she would never ever be fully part
31:53
of society, so she herself stuck to the life she
31:58
wanted to live and was so considered by many people
32:01
and outside a particularly a lot of women.
32:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, because she broke.
32:07
Speaker 2: Up, she broke up a marriage, so a lot of
32:11
society women would not respect her at all.
32:14
Speaker 3: Yeah. So did she go to a good school then
32:17
marrying everything?
32:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was properly educated. Yeah, she was fairly unusually
32:23
of the time. I don't know whether I don't know
32:25
whether that was as a result of her being, you know,
32:29
for want of a better word, you know, a plain person,
32:32
and maybe her father thought that she might not marry
32:34
well or whatever, you know, But the net result was,
32:38
you know, she was obviously, you know, a great addition
32:42
to society really because her writing is good, notwithstanding the
32:49
overflowering aspect of it, which which still draws me back unfortunately,
32:53
which would probably preclude me from reading any other George
32:56
Elliott that well actually heres.
32:57
Speaker 3: Something about her actually. Mary Anne Evans twenty second of
33:01
November eighteen, nineteen to the twenty second of December eighteen eighty. Alternatively,
33:07
Mary Ann or Mary Anne, known by her pen name
33:10
George Elliott, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and
33:15
one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She
33:18
wrote seven novels, Adam Bede, The Mill On the Floss,
33:23
Silas Marner, Romola, Felix Holt, The Radical, Middle March, Daniel Dernda.
33:30
Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England.
33:34
Most of her works are set there. Her works are
33:36
known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place, and
33:41
detailed depiction of the countryside. Middle March was described by
33:45
the novelist Virginia Wolfe as one of the few English
33:49
novels written for grown up people, and by Martin Amis
33:53
and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language,
33:58
scandalously and unconveyed mentionally for the era. She lived with
34:02
the married George Henry Lewes as his conjugal partner from
34:06
eighteen fifty four to eighteen seventy eight and called him
34:10
her husband. He remained married to his wife and supported
34:14
their children even after she left him to live with
34:17
another man and have children with him. In May eighteen eighty,
34:21
eighteen months after Lou's death, George Elliot married her longtime
34:25
friend John Cross, a man much younger than she was,
34:29
and she changed her name to Mary Anne Cross. So
34:32
that's right, it is so she an unconventional woman. So
34:36
she went gaes on, sorry, go on, sue.
34:40
Speaker 4: So she was that saying that that stood out that
34:45
she was not bound by the times and she was
34:50
not going to become a parish spinster.
34:54
Speaker 2: She was going to follow her career and the path
34:57
of the life she.
34:59
Speaker 3: Chosen absolutely, and she obviously, you know, was had a
35:04
sexual relationship with a married man and in a way,
35:07
you know, upper class women didn't have that, did they.
35:10
You know, that was like something they didn't experience. But
35:13
she was was that modern woman?
35:17
Speaker 2: Well, I think she was. That's why I think she
35:21
was an outside because of that, because of the times
35:25
in which she lived and the society in which she lived,
35:30
they would be absolutely shocking. Absolutely if everybody was confronting partners,
35:36
it would still be shocking. It's a bit like Virginia
35:40
Woolf and her sister the artist, the whole scene there
35:48
where they lived in them in triangles. You know, I
35:52
think it was Joeysy Parker said they worked, they lived
35:57
in squares, they worked in circles, and I loved in triangle.
36:01
Oh yeah, And that again was a very similar situation
36:06
where they scandalized society.
36:09
Speaker 3: Well, George Jenmiet absolutely it says here like the young
36:14
Evans was a voracious reader and obviously intelligent. Because she
36:18
was not considered physically beautiful, Evans was not thought to
36:22
have much chance of marriage, and this, coupled with her intelligence,
36:26
led her father to invest in an education not often
36:29
afforded to women. From ages five to nine, she boarded
36:32
with her sister Chrissy at Miss Latham's School in Attenborough,
36:37
from ages nine to thirteen at Missus Wallington's School in Naneaton,
36:42
and from ages thirteen to sixteen at Miss Franklin Franklin's
36:46
School in Coventry. At Missus Wallington's school, she was taught
36:51
by the evangelical Maria Lewis, to whom her earliest surviving
36:56
letters are addressed. In the religious atmosphere of the Missus
37:00
Franklin's school, Evans was exposed to a quiet discipline belief
37:04
opposed to evangelicalism. That's interesting. Yeah, anything else you want
37:10
to add, Barry, No.
37:12
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think that we're pretty much
37:16
covered it. Really. Like I say, I mean, I think
37:18
the thing which is, you know, if you if I
37:20
were to sum it up, it was the sort of
37:22
an exercise in karma, you know, in that the people
37:28
who deserved some good look got someone, the people who
37:31
deserve some bad look got some. So it's an interesting
37:35
aspect of a Victorian novel to me, real, sue, what
37:39
about you?
37:41
Speaker 2: I didn't necessarily before, I didn't know what to expect,
37:44
and I for me, the humor kept it grounded. And
37:51
I do like a style of writing, even though sometimes
37:55
it's it's just that today's reader it's very can be
37:59
very wordy. But it's made me want to go out
38:03
and read another George Elliot novel.
38:05
Speaker 3: Yeah me too, I will.
38:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:06
Speaker 3: I don't think Barry wants to do you Marry No,
38:10
But I'm glad you enjoyed it because I because I
38:12
thought I heard a bit of a groan when we
38:14
when it was chosen from me historically a historical novel again, absolutely,
38:24
but yeah, but I actually do want to read more
38:26
modern stuff as well, because I just I'm stuck in
38:28
the past in the old Victorian novels. Out of ten,
38:32
what would you give it?
38:35
Speaker 1: Well, i'd give it seven. I think maybe eight.
38:38
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I am surprised, and you how much would
38:42
you give it?
38:43
Speaker 2: So I would give it eight as well.
38:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think i'd give it nine. Actually, I
38:48
really really liked it. So we've come to that time
38:52
now when we're going to choose the next book. So
38:56
I'm going to actually let Mary you.
38:59
Speaker 1: Just take one. I don't know what mine.
39:07
Speaker 3: This is live radio, you can tell. So there's only
39:09
two pieces of paper there we need to is that three.
39:13
Speaker 2: S?
39:13
Speaker 3: This is one's gone missing? There is that it?
39:17
Speaker 2: So?
39:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, in fact, we're just gonna.
39:25
Speaker 1: Mix them all around.
39:27
Speaker 3: And choose our next novel. I don't know any of
39:30
the novels here, so let's just fix them all around
39:33
and here we go. What is this one? Oh, Death
39:38
comes to Pemberley P D. James. Okay, I know that,
39:44
I know that is you. So that's going to be exciting. Actually,
39:48
that sounds like a good, good novel. Is it a
39:50
Victorian one or is it a modern one? Just wondering.
39:57
Speaker 2: Creat remember very still portrayed. She created a specter dark wich.
40:06
I think there's been three TV series, but it's situated
40:11
written you know, very recently, but it's Pemberley is the
40:17
place in Pride and Prejudice. Okay, so she took Pride
40:23
and Prejudice. This is my belief of it. She took
40:27
Pride and prejudice and created a murder mystery.
40:30
Speaker 3: Sounds really interesting. I'm excited about that.
40:32
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean I have to read Pride and Prejudice
40:34
as well, does it?
40:36
Speaker 2: No? I, well, I hope not, because I think I
40:38
think you've been a bit put on very really, No,
40:42
you don't. Well.
40:44
Speaker 3: I also want to thank actually Sefton Park Library because
40:47
they do loan as the books for the reading room,
40:50
and I want to thank everyone for listening, and we'll
40:53
arrange it for next month or so. Anything to add
40:56
you lovely people before we go.
40:58
Speaker 2: No, No, I think the risk. I just want to
41:04
say that one of the benefits of the reading room
41:06
is that it's led me to read novels that I
41:11
would possibly never have read and found great enjoyment in
41:15
doing it. So I think that's the real plus for
41:17
the reading room for me.
41:19
Speaker 3: I totally agree with you, and it makes it makes
41:21
you read as well. It makes you get up the
41:23
book and read because you've got a deadline. Anybody who's listening.
41:26
Speaker 2: Goat deadline and you need to read it. I think
41:30
because you feel a sense of responsibility, you read it properly,
41:33
and you read it cover to cover. You know you
41:37
don't peak at the end. Well, I don't anywhere, oh exactly.
41:40
Speaker 3: But also it's nice to when we analyze it because
41:43
you learn so much about it. And I think I
41:46
think you and Barry are amazing the way you can
41:48
just review it and say, so, you know, really interesting things.
41:52
I think it's great. Anyone who's listening can join in.
41:55
They can come to it. They can get the books
41:56
from the library, or they can come to the studio
41:59
and get Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James.
42:02
So it's open to anyone, really, but we love to
42:06
have the listeners and we love to have it here.
42:08
Anything you want to add, very know you're find I.
42:10
Speaker 1: Just echo what Sue said. I didn't. I actually spent
42:14
a lot of time last week when it was really
42:16
nice weather, sitting in the garden and I enjoyed it immensely.
42:18
It was a lovely spring. Yeah, spring experience for me,
42:21
it's good.
42:22
Speaker 3: Absolutely Springer spruing. Okay, wonderful people. I will speak to
42:25
you later and yeah, good luck, Happy Easter you two sisters.
42:32
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed,