Gaskells Ruth

[Niamh]

I read this book a couple of years ago and it has haunted me since. It is the book that made me truely appriciate the writer that Elizabeth Gaskell is. It was an amazing book to read and heartbreaking. Has anyone else here read it and what did you think of it?

[wessexgirl]

I read this book a couple of years ago and it has haunted me since. It is the book that made me truely appriciate the writer that Elizabeth Gaskell is. It was an amazing book to read and heartbreaking. Has anyone else here read it and what did you think of it?

I have it on my TBR pile Niamh, and have had it some time. I keep meaning to get around to it, (you know how it is ), but I haven't got there yet. I think I heard a radio adaptation a while ago, but I may be wrong. It sounds very good. One day I will get around to my mountain.........!

[L.M. The Third]

Hm. Maybe I should read this one next month, rather than "Cranford", which I was planning on reading.

[Niamh]

Cranfords a lovable book, but Ruth is amazing! I'm surprised there has never been an adaptation of it.

[L.M. The Third]

Cranfords a lovable book, but Ruth is amazing! I'm surprised there has never been an adaptation of it.

Well, then I will have to read Ruth soon. But I'm going to read Cranford next month, because I want to read it before I watch the miniseries, which I already have in at the library.

[Niamh]

let me know what you thought when you are done!

[L.M. The Third]

let me know what you thought when you are done!

Which book do you mean? It may be some months before I get to Ruth. I'm sure you, like all avid readers, know how big the Must Read list can be. But I'm always glad to talk about the book I've read.

[BookBuff]

I just read that book and hope there is someone who I can talk to about it. It is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. I cried through the book and absolutely sobbed when I finished it. It is truly tragic, yet profoundly beautiful. I'll post more later with my thoughts about the book.

In that book, I so desperately wanted Ruth and Henry to have a happy ending together, for their sakes and the sake of their son. However, one of the themes in the book is that money does not buy happiness, and even that money only brings corruption and compromise. Although Ruth wanted the best for her son, that "best" would not be gotten by the things money could buy. Good values were more important to her than riches. Perhaps she was all the more adament about this because of what had befallen her in her naivete. To be continued...

Some of my big questions about this book are:
WHY didn't Ruth marry Henry when he finally proposed?
Did she actually regret it?
Did he think that she would change her mind and come back to him, after in her anger she told him to get out of her life?
Who spread around the gossip about Ruth true past, the dress maker or Henry?
Did Henry really love Ruth?
Did Ruth really love Henry?
Why couldn't Ruth have married Henry and been in a sense elevated and rescued in that way?
Was Henry as bad as he seemed?
If Ruth had married Henry, could she have helped him to be a better man, and could she have used her influence to improve society?

To be continued...

These are some of my thoughts...

I think that if Ruth had married Henry, she would have been rescued from her lowly position and shame, but it would have been on his merits and not hers. I think the author wanted Ruth to attain virtual sainthood on her own merits and through her true character.

I think that Henry was a weak person, but that he really did love Ruth. He was too afraid of displeasing his mother and losing his wealth to do the right thing at the right time, after doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. But once he realized that he had a son, he wanted to set things right, not just for his son's sake, but for Ruth's as well (in my opinion). Ruth, though, thought it was only because of his son that he wanted to marry her. The fact that a rumor had spread that Henry (was that his name?) was going to marry some unknown woman - and this rumor spread AFTER she rejected him - leads me to believe that he expected her to change her mind.

I think that after she didn't change her mind and his other proposal to someone else fell through, he still wanted to marry Ruth. I half suspect that he told the truth about her to her employer so that she would have no other option than to come groveling back to him to ask him to take care of her and her son. She was too proud to do such a thing, and suffered too much from what he did to her, to stoop that low.

Henry tried in many incorrect ways to get her back. He didn't really have principles, although I think he sincerely loved her. Every wrong way he tried to get her back only drove her further on to her sainthood. Every flawed move he made only caused her to take another step toward redeeming herself from her past.

to be continued...

It would have been so easy to have him redeem her by marrying her, but I think the author wanted to show that she had it within herself to make up for the innocent mistake of her youth - a mistake that she was almost forced into by her circumstances. She ended up hated and blamed, but she even gives the excuse of having been "young." She never gives the excuse of being alone, even though she was utterly alone with no other friend in the world who could help her besides Henry at the time. He helped her, but took advantage of her at the same time. If she had refused him, who would be there for her? The hunchback came to the rescue only after she was abandonned.

To be continued...

I will try to wrap this up...at least for now.

There were strong religious themes in the book. If evil is responded to in an upright and Godly manner, good will always result. The worse the evil, the better the good that will come out of it, if the right thing is done in response.

If I have more time, I will write more. I have more comments, but would also like to hear what other people think. My observations may not be correct, so please enlighten me if you think otherwise!

More questions:

If the seamstress told all after she figured it out, what would her motive have been, especially after she was entreated by the daughter (I forgot her name) not to say anything to anyone?

Was Henry actually a bad person, or was he responding in each situation only in the way he had been used to (programmed by his social class) and had seen everyone else of his class do? Did he really not know or have the guts to do anything else than toss around his money and influence?

Was Ruth able to forgive herself for her sin, and what might she have done as a result of either being able to or not being able to?

Observation:
Both of his illnesses killed her, the first emotionally (when his mother came to get him and forced him to abandon her), the second physically. If a son was the result of the first (emotional) death, consider the eternal result of the second (physical) death. That could be nothing less than the most glorious welcome into the Heavenly realm and the revelation of the Heavenly Son that had been formed in her, created by her choices to overcome evil with good and to commit her way to God.

If she had married him when he proposed, she would not have gone on to become a nurse, which in a sense became his salvation when she took care of him. He killed her while she saved him. She is certainly a type of a Christ character, giving her life and dying for the very one who killed her.

We are only left to wonder what ever became of him. We can hope that her sacrificial life had a positive effect on him eventually, after such a dramatic series of events. I am looking for some way for this story to have a happy ending!!!!

[kev67]

I have nearly finished it, only three more chapters to go. I had some reservations about it to begin with. It reminded me of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, although that was written later. Then it went off in a direction I was not really expecting. There is a lot about religion in it, especially of non-conformist Christian sort. I actually found all that quite interesting. I thought Elizabeth Gaskell rendered her characters' speech patterns very skilfully, in particular Thurston Benson's. Listening to his lay-preacher style was like being in the same room.