*Wives and Daughters*

If this is regarded as Gaskell’s best work, that explains why I have none of her work on my shelves.

I absolutely could not wade through 900 pages of this. I could barely make it through the quite well made BBC production.

I have rarely loathed every character in a book before. Molly is a wimp who does not take decisive action at any point. Act, Molly, act!!!!

Her father is apparently emotionally retarded. He wants Molly to not marry, to belong to him. Then he decides he will achieve this by marrying the repellent, vapid, petty Hyacinth Kirkpatrick who of course prickles at Molly in a way that is hard to pin down but horrible to live with.

Then Hyacinth’s daughter Cynthia is wordly, secretive and also annoying.

Given my complete inability to like any of the characters at all, I could not get into this work.

Last week

Apologies for the sound of whining last week. Had a particularly not good week as Pearl had gastro followed by a cold. This, combined with her enormous sense of displacement, has led to some pretty bad behaviour on her part. Poor kid.

And poor Ruby who is constantly being harassed with kisses and hugs that squash her, interspersed with attempted (and sometimes actualised) bites.

And poor me! Have completely lost my patience... and after only three weeks. Not very good.