I visit dark satanic Milton

North and South ***
By Elizabeth Gaskell

Elizabeth Gaskell has enjoyed a little uptick in popularity since the BBC adaptations of at least three of her works, including "North and South," which prompted my interest in reading the original novel.

Sadly, "N&S" does not rise to the level of anything by George Eliot, by whose work I measure all other Victorian novels that delineate that fine, nineteenth century sense of self-sacrifice and moral virtue. Neither does "N&S" measure up to Dickens, whose social criticism is leavened by wonderful (often wonderfully awful) characters like Miss Havisham, Mr. Dick, Fagin, Magwich, and the Aged Parent. Nor, as a stylist, does "N&S" match anything by Wilkie Collins, whose really just a thrill writer, but does it so well that you feel you're reading something "improving."

On the other hand, I kept referring to the original publication date of "N&S"--1854--because it offers remarkably modern observations about the tensions between labor and capital, and the often pig-headed mindset on both sides.

Young Lovely Margaret Hale has been routed from her bucolic home of Helston in the south of England to the dark satanic Milton ("mill town," get it?). During visits and teas and parties, she listens to the mill owners complain that the workers don't understand that installing safety equipment or raising wages must be balanced against profit margins that provide the work in the first place. During charity visits to the poor side of town, she listens to workers complain about the difficulties of maintaining their loyalty to the union in the face of lost wages and illness caused by breathing cotton fluff.

As the daughter of a former clergyman (not to mention the creation of the Unitarian minister's daughter and wife that Gaskell was), Margaret has Moral Uprightness on her side and urges both sides to try to work together. Her appeal is not completely lost on mill owner John Thornton, who rose from the ranks of the working class to become a successful mill operator. He also has the hots for Margaret.

"N&S" has lots of exciting moments--a strike, a riot, the arrival of Irish scabs, land speculation. And there's a general general sense that we're no longer in an England where the class system is based on blood heritage so much as on commercial success.

But there are also several distracting side plots involving a brother on the lam from the Navy for mutiny, religious dissension among the clergy, an invalid mother, drama with Cousin Edith and family, etc. Gaskell's romantic descriptions of Mr. Thornton's manly feelings and Margaret's proud demeanor and swanlike neck also get to be a bit much. Worst, though, is Gaskell's rendering of north country dialect, which attempts to capture rather than suggest speech patterns--sort of a cross between Hagrid and Long John Silver. The dialect slows the reading mightily in spots, and I was never quite able to "hear" the working folks' voices in my head.

My advice is to rent the BBC miniseries, which follows the novel very closely and stays true to its flavor but without some of the drawbacks outlined above. Plus there's the dishy Richard Armitage as Mr. Thornton.