*Wives and Daughters*

[emma_in_dream]

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.

Comments

[cafeshree]

I've not tried this but it is her most popular one, it doesn't sound terribly interesting though.

[emma_in_dream]

Honestly, I just kept thinking that even people in the 19th century didn't read it as 900 straight pages. They read it as it came out chapter by chapter or they got it out the library in 3 a volume set one by one. Wading through it in the modern format is too much!