Cornflower Book Group - South Riding

   

     "... a rich, panoramic novel, bringing vividly to life a rural community on the brink of change." Indeed it is, but what the cover copy did not lead me to expect was quite what a roiling mix of passion and principle drives Winifred Holtby's 1930s novel South Riding. 

    From the almost gothic romance between Robert Carne and Sarah Burton - he the brooding, reactionary squire, she the spirited, modern headmistress - to the social commentary and proselytizing on issues of welfare, rights and mores, the book is part Victorian melodrama or Bronte-esque 'Penny Dreadful' almost, part fictionalised political tract. It's a curious combination, with untempered passages which take it over the edge of the sentimental, to other parts which amount to a measured hymn of praise for humanity. As a portrait of an area and a period it is quite compelling, and it's a book for which many readers will have much affection, I'm sure.

    I enjoyed it thoroughly, its socially conscious social conscience, its picture of encroaching 'progress', and the end of the old ways, its Mr. Rochester hero, the generous, indefatigable, loving Mrs. Beddows, always compensating for others' failings, the emancipated, idealistic Miss Burton who is all too human; there's so much there - too much, perhaps. Some plotlines have impossibly sudden, neat solutions, viz. the Hollys and the problem of Lydia's education, while elsewhere ... well, I'd have wished for another outcome for Carne. As for the odious Snaith and Huggins, do they not make your flesh creep in their different ways?!

    There were some great lines such as the condemnation of Carne's modernist sister-in-law: "All fish and finger-bowls and no common sense", Mrs. Huggins " 'washing out a few things' when she needed them, thus preserving her amateur status, as it were, in domestic labour...", Mr. Drew who "did business in a small way, but [...] moral censorship in quite a large one" (and he does literary criticism as well - see p. 270); but all in all it's a great story and an absorbing read. What did you think of it?

PS. Here's what to eat with South Riding.

Comments

[Mrs Red]

Dear Cornflower
Thank you so much for choosing this book. It has been a rewarding read, so relevant to and resonant with our times. I started out with a bit of a deep breath, as I scanned the cast of characters and wondered how the story would hold together. In many ways it did although I felt , at times, that there were too many strands to render the story 'whole'. Winifred Holtby could have sacrificed some of the individual tales and yes, maybe even edited a bit more ruthlessly. Like you, I felt some of the plotlines were just too neat but all in all, a wonderful tale with some brilliant passages. How sad that the writing career and indeed the life of such a talented woman was so cruelly cut short.

[Susan in TX]

I started the book thinking I wouldn't like it, but I was very quickly sucked into the story and found it hard to put down at times. I love that you compare Carne to Rochester (I thought it was only because I was simultaneously reading Jane Eyre with my dd that the comparison came to my mind). I did want Carne to succeed and I was hating Snaith (who reminded me of Snape from Harry Potter) and Huggins (a corrupt Mr. Collins, anyone?). I wasn't sure what I wanted for Sarah, though. I didn't think she quite deserved to win Carne - not and hate everything he stood for. A good pick, Cornflower!

I did try to see some of the clips on the BBC web site, but they are "not available" in our area. I think the delay of seeing it over here will help me, though. The actors pictured didn't fit my mental pictures at all, so a little time between the two will make the movies more enjoyable. :) I'll be looking forward to reading others' thoughts on this one.

[Dark Puss]

I found South Riding a most frustrating book. The ideas expressed were strong, I appreciated greatly the feminist message Holtby was sending in many aspects of the book. Her passionate view, expressed by many of the female characters that one's lot (often a very downtrodden one) does not have to be blindly accepted was a real strength of the book. However I found myself irritated by the cardboard cut-out characters and some very trite situations. Problems were often resolved in a most cartoonish way, the frustrated sexual encounter between Carne and Burton being a classic example as was the contrived 'solution' of Carne's death. We had also dying mothers, the honest Communist, the creepy God-bothering adulterer etc etc.

I think Cornflower's Penny Dreadful description is very apt and I found myself thinking that this book, whose underlying idea was excellent, was a very good candidate for high quality editing whose lack was much bemoaned on Cornflower earlier this year.

I watched the first episode of the TV adaption and felt that the characters fitted quite well my imagined versions from reading the book. In some ways Holtby's writing suits a script rather better than I felt it made a novel.

Your frustrated friend in Stuttgart!

[Elizabeth]

I've just lost my post - trying again!
I feel ambivalent about this book,there were times when I didn't want to stop reading, and other times when I skipped many long and obviously boring passages. It's a book of its time,and it was interesting to read of life in this (fictional) area of England so close to the beginning of WWII.
Carne is certainly a Rochester-like figure; and I thought of Middlemarch when reading about the repellent Snaith.
I'm glad I read it, but I don't think it's a book I will return to. However, I have a copy of Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth (or of Experience - not sure) here which I bought years ago after the TV series - I might have a look at that! From memory there is a lot about the friendship between the two women there.

[Elizabeth]

Not only did I lose my first post, the link to my blog also disappeared!

[Teresa]

I enjoyed reading this book because it was of it's time. I thought about what was going on in the world at the time and got a sense of how exploring ideas of patriotism, morality, social change might have been strong motives for this writing. I really got a sense of a young woman rushing to record what she felt was a really big truth in her life before she lost that life. I felt she was really deft at giving us characters in a few strokes of her pen that jumped off the page fully formed, like them or loathe them. Yes, it was frustrating that the story lines were neatened off too quickly but I felt Carne was Holtby herself, ill and dying young with an unfulfilled love.
Having been a Parish Councillor I think that she got those characters spot on, they still exist today as do the housewives, farmers etc - you only have to closely examine people to see that we are still the same and we are still fighting the same concerns about poverty, housing, development, schooling and so on.
I watched the television programme and found the choice of actors mostly well done but was frustrated that the depth, albeit melodramatic, couldn't be achieved on a small screen.
There were all sorts of things about this novel which I would ordinarly tear to shreds but overall I found it a compulsive read although, for me, I think 'The Crowded Street' a better book.

[Lyndsey]

I'm really looking forward to this. I've been reading a lot about/by Vera Brittain, and Holtby comes across as such a strong, vivid woman. Have been resisting the TV programme until I can find a copy - it keeps selling out at the local bookshop and the library!

[Susie Vereker]

South Riding
Pleased to have read it, though found it long winded. Easy to put down, not a page turner, so suitable for reading at night. Perhaps too many main
characters not sufficiently developed. Am sure it's a very worthy book, despite the melodramatic incidents.

Hate to admit that I am enjoying the dramatisation more than the novel.

[Sandy]

South Riding seemed a lot of reading somehow. On the good side, it had a fine sense of time and place but the the plot took a long time to engage my attention.

For me, there was too much explanation of the characters and their motivations - I agree with Teresa that 'they jumped off the page fully formed' but I prefer to work a bit harder to comprehend the personalities by means of their dialogue and actions. As an example I will mention the two or three pages where are introduced to Sarah which contain a large amount of back history and details of her personality.

Thanks for including the book Cornflower. It was ok. (!)

[B R Wombat]

I seem to have been a much more enthusiastic reader of South Riding than most people here and I've never thought of myself as being easily pleased. I absolutely loved the book and have been busy recommending it to friends and steering very clear of the television version which amazed me by its crudeness from the trailers alone! One of the things I particularly liked, which hasn't been mentioned yet, was having a woman in her seventies as one of the main characters and such a sympathetic one. Not something that happens often and something which is obviously being missed in the TV adaptation which uses the glamorous Penelope Wilton as Mrs Beddows.

Does Carne's horse stumble on the same bit of cliff that Huggins has scrambled up? Or am I finding significance where there is none?

I'm afraid I found the doomed romance really moving. I must be a very sentimental old person.

Not only is the Mr Rochester connection specifically mentioned in the book itself, I felt that Daphne du Maurier must have read South Riding as Sarah's return to the ruined house prefigures Mrs de Winter and her dream of Manderley, I felt.

Anyway, it's a book I'm sure I would never have read without Cornflower. I would just have watched the TV version and probably dismissed the book as crude and melodramatic instead of a really good read. Thank you, Cornflower.

[Barbara]

My contribution is over on Live Journal. It's not a proper review and has lots of pictures.

[Sarah]

I’m joining your discussions for the first time and very much enjoying everyone’s comments and thoughts.

On the whole I enjoyed South Riding, though agree with others on the 'patness' of how some of the plot points were resolved. I felt there was a lot of depth to the novel, which I appreciate having an understanding of as it will help flesh out the BBC adaptation.

I found Sarah a very believable and human character, both in her professional life and her relationship with Carne, and thought her ideas around what one achieves being at the cost of others an interesting alternate take on the more usual interpretation of ‘owing’ others for their contributions and help towards an individual’s achievement.

Some of the small details of the period were great – the horse v. car manifestation of Carne’s hanging on to traditional ways in the face of progress, which tangentially brought with it the fact that some pubs still employed ostlers in the 1930s – I’m familiar with ostlers from Georgette Heyer and while intellectually I could have worked out that there would still be a need for them whilst horses were still used for transportation, I’d obviously never really thought of the role still existing in this period! The context of the inter-war period, with the shadow of the First World War very much in evidence, was fascinating.

All in all I’m glad to have read it, and appreciated it, but I don’t see it as a book I’ll return to.

[Barbara MacLeod]

I tried to read it and ended up putting it aside. I wish I could scan a book or like Elizabeth "skip long and obviously boring passages" but I cannot. (I know they give courses in this but I never achieved the knack!)

And ... as Elizabeth says "it's of its time". I felt, "Yes, my mother would have enjoyed reading this." But not me. The subject of local politics with its committees and factions operating is a subject in which I have a very short rope.

In my faltering attempt to keep going it struck me that the material would be good for a film. I did not realise that there was a TV version which started last week and made an effort to watch the first episode. So thanks for altering me to this!

[Anne]

I enjoyed South Riding very much, but was keen to finish reading the book before the television adaptation. I was a bit put off at the beginning of the book by the list of characters but did not find this a problem when reading. I remember hearing my mother and grandmother discussing this book many years ago and they both enjoyed it very much. I had forgotten about this until I picked up South Riding. I actually found it very easy to read.
So sad that the author died at such a young age. I want to read Testament of Youth now.

[kenneth]

A book with a hugh number of characters,I thought the character of Lydia was the strongest,and held the book together for many pages.It was interesting reading about the coming of the second world war.There was the same problems of some elected officials using the council position for their own personal gain, as we have today.The big society,and community,sounds familiar.

[Mr Cornflower]

A great book by accident. What I mean is that its very weaknesses can plausibly be seen as true to life, which is (more often than we care to admit) a mix of trite melodrama, frustration and boredom. Had it received the ruthless editing that has been suggested it would have been technically a much better book but a less genuinely representative one.

Lionel Trilling, in his book 'The Liberal Imagination', coined the phrase 'the buzz of implication', the hardly ever formulated but ever present context of manners and customs and habits which 'for good or bad draw the people of a culture together and that separate them from the people of another culture.' 'South Riding' is one of the rare examples of a formal, permanent cultural expression which is heavily enriched by an awareness of these less explicit things, 'what never gets fully stated, coming in the tone of greetings and the tone of quarrels, in slang and humour and popular songs, in the way children play, in the gesture the waiter makes when he puts down the plate, in the very food they prepare'.

It is because South Riding catches more of this 'buzz' that it is, as many others have already pointed out, so much 'of its time', and none the worse for it.

One final, pedantic point. The cover of the edition we have has a nice picture of the rugged hills of the West Riding, but as Holtby makes absolutely clear the novel is set in the south-east corner of Yorkshire, which is mostly dead flat and within fifty feet of sea level. It couldn't be more inappropriate if it featured volcanoes and pterodactyls.

[litlove]

Alas, I didn't finish this one, although I felt the fault was entirely my own. I thought the book well-written, vivid and dramatic, and astonishing that a woman at that time dared to write about politics, even if at a local level. That must surely have still been very rare. No, my only problem was that it didn't chime with my mood. By a 100 pages in, I knew Lydia's mother would die, and that the nice woman at the pub with her untreated cancer was clearly doomed, and Carne's young daughter was bound to have yet more tragedy to deal with, and the catastrophic tone got to me. I'm currently in the middle of Marghanita Laski's novel The Village, which is similarly broad in scope and cast, but all its tricky situations are softened by the support and understanding or sometimes sheer grace that the characters encounter. Some writers 'hold' their readers while obliging them to witness upsetting situations, others, like Holtby, ask the reader to plunge into the catharsis of tragedy. I happened to be in the mood for holding and so had to set Holtby aside - as I say, entirely my fault as I felt it was basically a very good book.

[m]

I so longed to slash through great swathes of this with a red pencil, Dark Puss ... she really needed some quite severe editing. I agree that it works much better as television. Although the original series with Dorothy Tutin was probably truer to the 1930s. I know Miss Burton is supposed to be red-haired and a breath of fresh air ... but would her clothes really have been quite as flamboyantly-red as in last week's episode!
Carne's death, of course, is an awful cop-out but no doubt WH would have lost readers if she hadn't finished him off ... she could hardly have had the headteacher carrying on an affair with a married man. What a wonderful hotel scene for Andrew Davies, though! I thought WH was quite brave to have given Miss Burton a sexual past ... 'a habit, inconvenient in head mistresses, of falling in love misguidedly and often.'

[Dark Puss]

Very erudite, but you don't convince me at all that this is a great book! A very good story struggling to escape from less than excellent execution and a too extensive cast of "characters" and over-egged situations. I agree however about the cover of your copy. The one I borrowed (1940) was uniform blue cloth, reminiscent of those epansive skies and the sea beyond perhaps?

[Dark Puss]

Perhaps the rather obvious predictability got to you too as it did to me?

[m]

Litlove, I do think that Marghanita Laski was a far better writer than Winifred Holtby!

[m]

You certainly couldn't imagine The Shacks in the landscape of that cover, could you?

[jodi]

I liked that the Holly's had a happy ending, that Mrs. Beddows was jealous of Sarah Burton. The subtle comparison of Lydia Holly to Miss Sigglesthwaite was brilliant. The foreshadowing of Carnes death by talking about the condition of the cliffs - I loved the way that the tales intertwined. No story was an island. Small town living is messy and I thought that Ms. Holtby captured it perfectly.

[Barbara MacLeod]

I was most interested to read of your reference to the "buzz of implication" coined by Lionel Trilling. This concept is new to me but I know exactly what he means! A quick look on the web showed one particular expanded definition:

"that part of a culture which is made up of half-uttered or unuttered or unutterable expressions of value. They are hinted at by small actions, sometimes by the arts of dress or decoration, sometimes by tone, gesture, emphasis, or rhythm, sometimes by the words that are used with a special frequency or a special meaning.*

*Source: http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/jane-austen-anti-jacobin-1201

[Audrey]

I haven't gotten as far along as I had hoped (Sarah has just encountered, and been dressed down, by Carne over the girls tramping through his fields (do they ever find the lost shepherd?)) and I don't want to rush it. In a way, it's easy to see why this would make a perfect BBC/Masterpiece period drama. And maybe this is a function of the very well-done audiobook version I'm listening to, but there's a wonderful rhythm to the writing too. Thank you for the suggestion to read it!

[Anji]

I was pleased with the book choice. I knew of Winifred Holtby's friendship with Vera Brittain and had never had the opportunity to have read anything written by her. I am glad that I did. I too, took a deep breath when I saw the list of characters but I soon got swept up in the story and yes, it could have done with an edit.

W.H. was able to catch the melancholia that was part of the age, the depression that always comes with the end of a war, she was part of that generation, who survived the Great Slaughter that was WW1 and was able to go to university. The period she has set her novel in, is for me, the pause before the re-tool and onset of another major war.

Robert Carne was doomed from the start, like the Great Empires, his way of life and what he represented, the five hundred years of heritage was going out with a whimper. He was an honourable man and you wanted something better for him. Perhaps W.H. killing him off, was a little too neat, but I got the sense that the change to his way of life would have been too much for him. I couldn't see him living in a house in the village after being Lord of the Manor. I am glad that I wasn't the only one who thought of Mr Rochester in his romance with Sarah.

Sarah too, was a reflection of that change. She was an educated career woman. It was an upbeat ending embracing the future with the opening of the new school for the girls. It certainly was a book of it's time. I doubt I shall see the serial unless it comes on PBS and it will be ages before that happens.

[Susan in TX]

Well, I'm laughing at myself now. I bought the same edition pictured above FOR THE COVER. The fact that it is not realistic in the least would've never crossed my American mind. ;) (I was also avoiding the movie tie-in cover.)

[Litlove]

Well, yes, that too!

[Litlove]

How interesting you should say that! I am very much enjoying the Laski right now.

[Bernie]

I enjoyed the book for its depiction of women and how their roles were changing as a result of the first world war. The Mrs Beddows/Carne love story was interesting especially as Mrs Beddows was allegedly based on WH's own mother who didn't want the novel published. Did WH have lots of stories to tell but not much time to write them because of her illness resulting in many different characters, their individual tales but little editing. I also intend to read Testament of Youth now as I wouldn't have read South Riding without the book group but am glad I did.

[Cornflower]

Glad to have you with us, Sarah.

[Cornflower]

I'm so enjoying reading everyone's thoughts and impressions and I wanted to pick up one or two points raised at random.
If anyone is thinking of reading Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth or Marghanita Laski's The Village - do (I haven't read either Testament of Experience or T. of Friendship so can't comment).
The lack of editing - could that have anything to do with Winifred Holtby's death before publication? I read that Vera Brittain as literary executor hurried the uncorrected typescript through probate to allow it to make the Spring list in 1936 (and this against the wishes of Mrs. Holtby - on whom Mrs. Beddows was based - who didn't want the book published at all and resigned her council seat when it came out).
I found the relationship between Mrs. Beddows and Robert Carne a very unusual and touching one, and much more interesting than the 'non-romance' with Miss Burton. It was Mrs. B. who got my sympathy when her friend died.
B.R. Wombat mentions the cliff where Carne's horse fell - I, too, wondered if it was the same cliff that Huggins had climbed, and if so, how cruel that the better man was lost! I hadn't thought of the Rebecca/Manderley similarity, but that's quite possible.
As to the cover, yes, Mr. C. is right, but I do like the new Virago one shown here, even if it's geographically wrong; it will match many people's mental picture of Yorkshire generally, if not the precise setting.

[efi]

so skipping passages and editing i did too.i thought it was because i am not English but i am really happy that others did it also.i enjoyed certain characters and mr.C reminded me also of mr Rochester.i dont regret having read the book,however it is not a book to revisit for me.

[Simon (Savidge Reads)]

A huge thank you for choosing this as one of your book group choices because without this (and the BBC adaptation and wanting to read it before watching it) I wouldn't have gone and read this for quite some time and I would have been missing out.

Ok so its not the most thrilling of reads in terms of massive plot and there are some parts of the novel that seem to be a little more stilted but I really enjoyed it. I was expecting something slightly more salacious along the lines of the incredible 'Peyton Place' but this sort of won me over in its more gentle approach.

I too saw the themes of Jane Eyre along with a slight feeling of P&P which I wasnt expecting. Its a book that you almost cant do justice because so much happens and so much doesnt. Or maybe thats just me?

I have decided i am quite a fan of what i am now calling 'curtain twitching fiction' so thanks for making me give this a whirl.

[Margaret Powling]

I think it has all been said, and I should just like to add how very much I enjoyed this book. Of course, it was obvious that there would not be a happy ending, this was no light romance. Indeed, the light at the end of Sarah Burton's tunnel was the on-coming train of Robert Carne's death. But what characters! Far too many, of course, I muddled a lot of them up and kept referring to the list of characters in the front of the book. Also, I simply couldn't get an angle on Midge - was she really a horror, or just pathetic?
Overall, and having seen only the first part of the current BBC drama, I think Andrew Davies has done a good job, and the casting director, too, has chosen sympathetic actors for the various roles. How could anyone else play the brooding Carne quite like David Morrissey? Like the Hollywood actor, Robert Mitchum, he just needs to stand there to look impressive!
So glad this book was chosen, and this is my first input to any discussion, Cornflower, not that I've been able to add anything signficant.
Re the Virago Modern Classic, I have the one with the painting entitled Jillian by Gerald Brockhurst on the cover - much better than the sanitised landscape so unlike the town in the novel, which is actually on the coast and not nestling deep in the dales.

[jodi]

I think that Midge was a product of her environment and the expectations of the people around her.

[Sarah Bussy]

I remember reading this with enjoyment when it was published by Virago in the late 1980s and I was interested to see what I would think of it now.

I don't think I would have discovered Winifred Holtby had it not been for Vera Brittain's 'Testament of Friendship' and 'Testament of Youth'. Does anyone recall the TV dramatisation of Vera Brittain's youth based on her memoirs? It was rather good I seem to remember, as was the dramatisation of 'South Riding' starring Dorothy Tutin. [I thought the actor who played Carne in that production was better cast than the chap chosen by Andrew Davies and whose name I can't remember.] think 'South Riding' is a very solid novel in the best sense. The reader is drawn swiftly into the world created by Winifred Holtby; and the people with whom she animates it are entirely believable. These feel like real people living in a real place with genuine complexities and difficulties to cope with.

With regard to the evocation of place, was anyone else reminded of the way Penelope Fitzgerald handled the Suffolk coast in 'The Bookshop'? It felt surprisingly similar. And so, as others have pointed out, not remotely like the landscape depicted on the cover.

Marion Shaw's Introduction is so comprehensive in its appreciation of the book that I don't think there is much one can usefully add to what she has to say. If Winifred was (as she described herself) 50% politician then I think it's particularly impressive she wrote with such understanding and compassion about people whose political opinions she did not share.

Also, I found it impossible not to be surprised that in a novel written in 1935 she speaks of matters such as father/daughter incest in the local slums, the sexual abuse suffered by Snaith in his childhood and the presence of a birth control clinic.

I wonder if Mrs Holtby was as upset by her daughter's portrayal of local politics as she was by the fact that Sarah Burton's sexual desires are so clearly delineated? Did she confuse Winifred with Sarah Burton? One could hardly blame her if she did and don't we find ourselves wondering how far Sarah Burton is Winifred herself? Well I do anyway.(Not that it's any of my business.)

The only criticism I would make of this novel is that it was horribly unnecessary to have Lydia Holly find the remains of Carne's body. The poor girl has already had quite enough traumatic incident in her life and she's just begun to feel new hope stirring within her when she makes her gruesome discovery.

Carne's body would surely have been searched for and found. Local people would have known where time and tide would have deposited him.

[Zoe]

I really struggled with this book - the audio CD was the complete and unabridged version, too. I almost gave up before I was half way through the 16 CDs. I hated the bit where the poor dog was put to sleep but perhaps that was because, on that particular day of listening, I had had such a bad day at work!! Then when I watched last Sunday's tv adaptation, the characters became more real. I am looking forward to watching tonight.

[Cornflower]

'Curtain twitching fiction' - great, Simon!

[Cornflower]

Sarah, you've reminded me that I forgot to read the introduction! I always leave it until after the book, and this time - perhaps because the novel itself is so long - it slipped my mind.

[Dark Puss]

The 1940 edition doesn't have an introduction sadly so I have no idea if we collectively had added in any way to Marion Shaw's appreciation of the book. Perhaps you could give us a coda commenting upon that when you have read it. Do all the more recent editions have the quotation from The Land by Vita Sackville West that the one I borrowed does?

[Dark Puss]

Simon, if I failed to do justice to it it was probably because I don't have the reviewing skills that you, Cornflower and so many other commentators do. I still stand by view that it is a good (maybe great) idea which has had a seriously flawed execution. As some have suggested that may be because we are reading an underedited/revised version due to the untimely death of the author.

[Susie Vereker]

Testament of Youth is brilliantly written and so moving. I might read Testament of Friendship now, thanks to Cornflower. But apparently Vera Brittain was an extremely scary immaculately-coiffed somewhat over-maquillaged (if there is such a word) woman, so said someone who met her in her old age.

[Cornflower]

Ours does have that quotation.
Re. editing again, I've just glanced at Shirley Williams's preface, and in it she says her mother edited the novel.

[Mr Cornflower]

With apologies for being flippant, am I the only one who found the Snaith/Huggins combination curiously suggestive of Peter Mandelson and John Prescott?

[Dark Puss]

I don't think your comment is in the slightest bit flippant. It is, as usual, a pertinant observation.

[Rose Harding]

I thoroughly enjoyed South Riding. I agree with Jodi's comment re: the jealousy between Sarah Burton and Mrs Beddows. It was an unusual device- not often found and very neatly drawn. I agree with Sarah Bussy re: The Bookshop however I had thought that it had been a canny move and deliberate one on Cornflower's part to lead us onwards from that book and on to the larger canvass of South Riding. Anyone out there thinking Snaith - a James Bond baddie with cats tails furling and unfurling around his ankles - I can't remember the name of the 007 film!? There were parts of sheer brilliance and those moments tended to be towards the end of the book - it galloped in to brilliance really. The chapter The Three Revellers have a Night Out was a real joy to read, superb stuff, 'poignant' sounds trite but I can't think of another word ......'Just listen to them!' cooed the lady in the box . She could not see the ghosts marching through their minds.....
Snaith's final flashes of internal dialogue 'He might himself, be nothing, unloved, unfulfilled, unhappy; but he would identify himself with the happy and triumphant development of his county' and indeed Carne's 'final moments' (his own thoughts particularly not necessarily the fall) were well written. One of my favourite lines: (Carne's sister-in-law) 'his lean rapacious wife, trained like a greyhound for the vigorous athletics of social climbing......'
I have been watching the TV series and of course those final scenes of the most recent episode of Carne and Sarah at the hotel didn't really capture how 'crazy in love' Sarah was with Carne and the loving and excitable way in which Sarah invited Carne up to her room was beautifully done in the book only met by my two daughters running screaming upstairs to me (having watched it on another a telly downstairs) 'did you see the end of THAT (horror of horrors!) - Sarah Burton is being a bit free and easy!!?!?!?!?' Shock, shock, shock from two young women!
I did cry in the book, I cried for a lost England I think and I cried that Sarah and Carne never go together - the Epilogue spoilt my mood and broke in with jarring twaddle with the aeroplane scene. Great choice and I wouldn't have come across it without Cornflower.

[Cornflower]

Ah, Rose, giving me credit for a deliberate move on from The Bookshop to South Riding when the choice was pure chance (prompted by an exchange on Twitter between Edinburgh novelist Harriet Smart and historian Amanda Vickery, in fact!).
Snaith and the cats - brilliantly done - and I agree the hotel scene on the television was not as powerful as that in the book. I felt as you did about the epilogue, too.

[Tui]

I reread South Riding last year after not having read it since the 80s - and before knowing that it would be a tv series (it won't be aired in Canada until late May). I was more aware of the politics in it this time around than I had been in the first reading, where the love story held centre stage. This time I saw more clearly Holtby showing how the gentry's grip on the land was slipping, that women were steadily joining the workforce, how technology was exerting its inexorable change on every facet of English life. Like John Barleycorn, did Carne have to die so the land could be reborn? I think Holtby is expressing a wistful sadness that this old way of life is going, that Carne's day is done but in having Sarah love him, across social and political barriers, she allows that there is much in this past to treasure.

True, the book would have benefitted from tighter editing but I liked its rawness, its mad rush at times, its measured pace at others. It stood up to a second reading some 30 years later, holding its own as a ripping good story with some truly fine writing in it.

And the Vera Brittain book, "Testament of Youth" is a wonderful read.

[Cornflower]

Re. the politics, Tui, I was amused to see that in her preface, Shirley Williams, famous British politician and daughter of Vera Brittain, says the book is "the great epic of local government...". Of course it is, and she goes on to pay tribute to all who serve in that sphere, but can you imagine those words as a strapline on the cover!