Elizabeth Gaskell, Winifred Holtby, and more – welcome to episode 113!
In the first half of this episode, we look at literary retellings – by which we mean authors using fairy tales or Greek mythology or basically whatever we fancy including in this very loose definition. It feels like a topic we’ve done before, but apparently we haven’t?
In the second half, we compare two doorstoppers – South Riding by Winifred Holtby and Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell.
Do get in touch at teaorbooks@gmail.com – you can also support the podcast on Patreon, and listen to it above or wherever you listen to podcasts.
The books and authors we discuss in this episode:
Mad, Bad And Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors by Lisa Appignanesi
The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge
Circe by Madeline Miller
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
Ulysses by James Joyce
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
Introduction to Sally by Elizabeth von Arnim
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The True Heart by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Longbourn by Jo Baker
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns
A Wild Swan and other stories by Michael Cunningham
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Anthony Trollope
Lady Audley’s Secret by M.E. Braddon
Winter in the Air by Sylvia Townsend Warner
A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen
I have to be honest and say that the success of a retelling for me is who it’s done by and how well it’s done. For example, I love Wide Sargasso Sea and also The Penelopiad – but I don’t know that I’ve read that widely when it comes to this kind of writing, so I’ll reserve further judgement! 🤣
It was hard to think of retellings – though I’m sure there are millions of Austen retellings, I just haven’t read many.
I don’t mind a retelling. Particularly successful for me are Seren Books’ modern retellings of stories from The Mabinogion. 10 individual stories from The Mabinogion rewritten by Welsh authors. They continue the tradition of Welsh storytelling, but in a modern setting.
Oh interesting, thanks so much for mentioning it, Sonia
Thank you for your interesting discussion of South Riding and Ruth, novels which I would not have necessary linked. I must say that I agree with Rachel: I choose South Riding (and its most recent adaptation), and the feisty character of Sarah Burton, over Ruth which I found quite boring and depressing (if you can’t tell, I am not a fan of the fallen woman trope…). It is one of my least favorite Gaskell novels. I am not sure that Trollope would have inserted more humour in the story, because I recently read his Vicar of Bullhampton, which includes a fallen woman, and her story is told very seriously. Perhaps both writers did not dare infuse some humour in such a sensitive topic at the time.
Thank you Sarah – Rachel will be pleased for a vote for her! Interesting point about Trollope – I’ve not read Vicar of Bullhampton yet, and I think perhaps I’ve not encountered fallen women in the ones I have read. He is usually so good at having a dry wit to his sentences, a shame it was missing there.
Just finished listening to this wonderfully animated and interesting discussion – well worth my reading the two long books beforehand. Well, I’m on team Simon on this one! South Riding had been sitting on my shelf for a while and I felt I should read it but somehow never felt quite ready. I acknowledge Rachel’s comments and can see that there are many things to appreciate. However, I was very glad to reach the end as I did not like it very much; the cast of characters list in my version helped to keep track but there seemed so many people and I did not really engage with any of them. My prediction in my reading journal was that Rachel would like it more than Simon!
Despite the sad story, I enjoyed Ruth a lot more (and I now want to read Wives and Daughters too). I cared more about the characters. I thought the writing was beautiful and I liked the plentiful scriptural references. When I finished I found I kept thinking whether the ending was satisfying or not and how it might have been if it had concluded differently.
I enjoyed the first part of the episode too. I feel even less inclined to read The Penelopeaid which I was given as a gift years ago. I agree with Rachel that literature retellings would appeal more and with Simon that I am more drawn to contemporary settings.
I loved An introduction to Sally but totally missed the underlying theme Simon mentioned!
Finally (at last you say!), I have thought of a couple of suggestions for the first half question for the future:
Do we prefer a male of female main character?
Linear of non-linear time-lines in novels
I see the library has the books for next time so will hopefully read them in preparation.
Thanks for a lovely podcast.
Thanks Sarah! As you heard in the episode, I was waiting for your thoughts :D And I’m glad you sided with me! I meant to talk more about how good the vicar was, and his relationship with his sister. I think it is much more nuanced than many morality novels of the time would have been.
I think, with An Introduction to Sally, it isn’t explicit – or possibly even implicit, it might just be something I brought to my interpretation of the book!
Thanks for the suggestions. I thought we’d done linear/non-linear, but maybe that was at my book group instead. We did do men-written-by-women and women-written-by-men, but I daresay there is more to say if we go a little more straightforward. A lot to think about, anyway!
Thanks again for your comment.
Wonder what you’d think of Barbara Kingsolver’s recent retelling of David Copperfield: Demian Copperhead. I really liked it.
Oh yes, we should have mentioned that! My friend was reading it on holiday. I do like BK, so should try.
Rather than enter the fray of the discussion — I just want to excitedly comment that I just finished reading Zuleika Dobson! I must be the only reader who had not heard of it. I bought my copy, a pocket paperback, at a used-books store mainly because it had fabulous cover art – a scene at the boat races with a swooning woman in one of the boats. I liked it — though I wish the men had come to their senses before they came to their end.
Oh lovely! Yes, they were all rather stupid…
Thanks for answering my question about where you buy your books from – Rachel’s buying habits are very similar to mine. I do have a slightly cheeky follow-up question – do you keep all the books you buy and, if not, what are your ‘rules’ for deciding which to cull and which to keep?
Oo we actually did an episode on this – episode 23. And we have quite different points of view!
I’ve just collected Winter in The Air in preparation for episode 114. Were you thinking you would discuss all of the stories in the collection or just the first one?
Excellent! We’ll be discussing the whole collection – we might not get to talk about every story, but definitely more than just one :)
Thanks for the prompt reply. I would have wanted to read them all anyway but will prioritise ready for the discussion.