Reading, Thinking, & Domesticity #5

Sometimes it's helpful having your birthday at the end of the year. It acts like a 'pause and reflect' moment before heading into a new year. On my birthday in December, my husband gave me a card with a list of things that happened in 2018:

*  Our third child got married
*  Our second grandchild (a boy this time) was born
*  Our first grandchild turned 1 & we started looking after her one day a week
*  One of our sons completed his plumbing apprenticeship
*  Another son had a major job change
*  Moozle, our youngest, became a teenager & had her Grade 7 Cello exam which she passed with honours
*  We did some home renovations and slept on camp mattresses on a tiled floor for 10 weeks. I ended up with a compressed nerve in my neck and had to have a few weeks of physio.
*  Moozle and I did a 1,600 km (1000 mile) round road trip together

He didn't write it on the card but this happened just before Christmas:

*  After having worked as a contractor for over two years with a company they decided to put my husband 'officially in the system.' This required a police check.
Said police check came back and he was called into the HR office and told to leave immediately as the police check showed a list of serious criminal offences dating back about 7 years, including time spent in prison.
My husband asked for details, said he'd never been to court (except to serve on a jury!) let alone prison, but they refused to give him any information.
He was told he could only appeal via the third party company who conducted the police check. This company sent him emails, which he didn't get because the company he works for locked him out of their system.
Eventually he received a copy of the report and it showed he was working at his present employment while supposedly serving a prison term! Mmmm. Knee jerk reaction from HR who didn't bother reading the report properly.
Ten days later, with no pay during that time, after much to-ing and fro-ing with his employer and the third party who had conducted the police check, he received word that he didn't have a criminal  record after all. No apology or acknowledgement from the third party that he had been falsely accused.

And, yes, he was compensated - well, his company paid him for the time he had off, humbly apologised etc. Most of his fellow workers were appalled and angry and a couple of them knew of others in similar circumstances & they weren't surprised.

This was a very interesting experience in light of our current climate here with the Government's latest Encryption Laws and privacy. We were privy to the details of another man's criminal record, and my husband was automatically deemed to be guilty and had no right to offer a defence to his employer.
It also made us realise how difficult it must be for anyone trying to find work after serving time in gaol.
Francis Schaeffer wrote these words in 1976 and I think they are relevant even more today:

'I believe the majority of the silent majority, young and old will sustain the loss of liberties without raising their voices as long as their own life-styles are not threatened. And since personal peace and affluence are so often the only values that count with the majority, politicians know that to be elected they must promise these things. Politics has largely become not a matter of ideals - increasingly men and women are not stirred by the values of liberty and truth - but of supplying a constituency with a frosting of personal peace and affluence. They know that voices will not be raised as long as people have these things, or at least an illusion of them.' 

World Watch List - a list of the 50 most dangerous countries for Christians. India has recently made it into the top ten on this list.

Children & dumbed down reading:

'50 years ago, parents read things to children that children could not read themselves, that were not directed primarily at the senses, and that contained deep formal and material lessons for the children...But it has never been a good thing to indulge the senses as an end in themselves. The senses have always tried to dominate the intellect and to distract us from what matters more.'

A Culture of Reading has some excellent reading suggestions.

An newspaper article I read last month:

Listening

Nicholas Clifford, Professor Emeritus at Middlebury Liberal Arts College in Vermont, USA, is a Librivox narrator I've listened to and I've enjoyed everything he's done. Fortunately, he has 79 solo recordings, many of them classics.  

The Vanishing Man by R. Austin Freeman (1862-1943) is an interesting mystery/crime novel with a focus on Ancient Egyptian artifacts and practices.

Many of Freeman's books feature the medical/legal forensic investigator, Dr John Thorndyke.  The Vanishing Man was published in 1911 and was also published as The Eye of Osiris.

My ongoing Hexie Quilt project that's taking me forever. Making progress, though.

Sisters

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (1848)

19th Century Manchester

Subtitled A Tale of Manchester Life, Mary Barton is the story of working class poverty in the industrial city of Manchester during the early to mid 1800’s. It was Elizabeth Gaskell’s first novel and in the preface she writes:

'Three years ago I became anxious (from circumstances that need not be more fully alluded to) to employ myself in writing a work of fiction.'

The circumstances she referred to was the death of her infant son from Scarlet Fever and her husband's encouragement to turn to writing to distract her from her grief as she’d previously had some work published in a magazine. And so out of her own grief comes this powerful first-hand account of the poverty-striken inhabitants of Manchester, the first Industrial City.

'I had always felt a deep sympathy with the care-worn men, who looked as if doomed to struggle through their lives in strange alternations between work and want; tossed to and fro by circumstances, apparently in even a greater degree than other men...
I saw that they were sore and irritable against the rich, the even tenor of whose seemingly happy lives appeared to increase the anguish caused by the lottery-like nature of their own.'

There are some similarities to North and South which was published about six years later: the agitations between the factory workers and the mill owners, the setting of industrial Manchester where she herself lived, and a romance, but Mary Barton is much bleaker and focuses on the plight of the working class during the depressed times of the ‘hungry forties.’
Mary’s life starts off quite well, with her father, John, in work and the family reasonably provided for, but tragedy enters their lives when Aunt Esther, her mother’s sister, disappears. The shock contributes to the death of Mary’s mother and with her death, John Barton’s life takes a downward turn.

'One of the good influences over John Barton’s life had departed that night. One of the ties which bound him down to the gentle humanities of earth was loosened, and henceforward the neighbours all remarked he was a changed man. His gloom and his sternness became habitual instead of occasional.'

'He would bear it all, he said to himself. And he did bear it, but not meekly; that was too much to expect. Real meekness of character is called out by experience of kindness. And few had been kind to him.'

Mary, who is a real beauty, catches the eye of the son of a rich mill owner and he pursues her. She is so caught up with the idea of a better life and becoming a lady that she spurns her childhood friend, Jem, who has his heart set on marrying her. The rich young man is infatuated with Mary but he has no plans for marriage. This situation echoes that of her Aunt Esther, although Mary does not yet know the circumstances of her Aunt's disappearance.

'Herself, a day, an hour ago; and herself now. For we have every one of us felt how a very few minutes of the months and years called life, will sometimes suffice to place all time past and future in an entirely new light; will make us see the vanity or the criminality of the bye-gone, and so change the aspect of the coming time, that we look with loathing on the very thing we have most desired. A few moments may change our character for life, by giving a totally different direction to our aims and energies.' 

John Barton becomes a Chartist and spokesman for the trade union and becomes more bitter as time goes on and he witnesses the suffering of his fellow workers and their families.

'So class distrusted class, and their want of mutual confidence wrought sorrow to both. The masters would not be bullied, and compelled to reveal why they felt it wisest and best to offer only such low wages; they would not be made to tell that they were even sacrificing capital to obtain a decisive victory over the continental manufacturers. And the workmen sat silent and stern with folded hands, refusing to work for such pay. There was a strike in Manchester.'

Mrs Gaskell was a contemporary of Charles Dickens and tackled many of the same issues that he did, but her characters were portrayed unsentimentally with balance, realism, sympathy, and without satire.
She was also a contemporary of Friedrich Engels (the co-author of The Communist Manifesto) who also wrote about the conditions of the working class during his 1842-1844 stay in Manchester.
The two authors had very different responses to the situation as may be seen in the story of Mary Barton.

As I mentioned earlier, Mary Barton is a bleak story. There are multiple deaths due to poverty, poor choices which lead to dire consequences, a murder mystery and a court-room scene. I was beginning to think everything was going to finish tragically, but it ended well. I thoroughly enjoyed this story and it kept me hooked throughout. Do yourself a favour and listen to the superb and authentic rendering by Tony Foster at Librivox. 
This is part of the summary I found at LibriVox:

'Tony Foster is a resident of Manchester and a near-neighbour of Mrs Gaskell (allowing for their separation in time). His superb narration renders the native speech of her characters with an authenticity which ideally conveys the spirit of this book. A truly moving experience awaits everyone who gives ear to this 'Tale of Manchester Life'.


Mary Barton is available for Kindle and the book can be found here.

For information on Elizabeth Gaskell see the Timeline of her life and other areas of interest.

This is my choice for the Classic by a Woman in the 2019 Back to the Classics Challenge.

Christian Greats Challenge Book Reviews Page

Link up your book reviews for each of the ten categories below and leave a comment to let everyone know you’ve linked.🙂

Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers (1927)

An elderly lady suffering from cancer dies suddenly but her young doctor is suspicious. His patient was a tough old lady and he had given her another six months to live and here she is, dead, only days after his prognosis. He refuses to sign the death certificate with but no evidence of foul play after an autopsy, he is left looking like a fool.
Three years later, the doctor chances to overhear Lord Peter Wimsey and his good friend, Detective-Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard,  discussing a similar case as they sat at an adjacent table in a restaurant. The doctor interrupts their conversation to introduce himself and tell them of his own experience.
Lord Peter, of course, is immediately interested.

‘Do you know,’ he said, suddenly, ‘I’m feeling rather interested by this case. I have a sensation of internal gloating which assures me that there is something to be investigated. That feeling has never failed me yet - I trust it never will.’

And so Wimsey gets involved in the affair, enlisting the reluctant Parker of whom he says,
‘He’s the one who really does the work. I make imbecile suggestions and he does the work of elaborately disproving them.’

Evidence of foul play begins to show itself once Wimsey gets involved with the death of the old lady's maid and then an attempt is made on Wimsey's life. However, although there is a suspect, there doesn't appear to be a motive.

The banter between Wimsey and Parker, who later marries Wimsey’s sister Mary, is very entertaining. Parker is conservative and formulaic whereas Wimsey is as his name implies - whimsical.

Wimsey wants to introduce Parker to ‘a friend of his,’ ‘- rather an experiment...quite comfortably fixed in a little flat in Pimlico...’
Much to Parker’s surprise, Miss Climpson was not a love interest but a middle-aged single lady with Edwardian-styled iron-grey hair, covered by a net, who would have made a very good lawyer but had never had the education or the opportunity.
She was a kind of ‘inquiry agent’ for Wimsey: his ears and his tongue. Wimsey believed Miss Climpson to be ‘a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run,’ and that women like her who are ‘providentially fitted’ for work carried out by 'ill-equipped policemen’ are allowed to go to waste.

So far I’ve read seven out of fifteen of Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey books. Unnatural Death is the third in the series and although it’s not her best it’s still a jolly good read.
Sayers doesn’t write down to her readers. Her characters and plots are rich and full of detail with frequent allusions to literature and sundry interests leaving the reader with a knowledge of such diverse topics as advertising, bell-ringing, Shakespeare, and architecture.

I chose this book for No. 9 of my Christian Greats Challenge: A Good Old Detective or Mystery Novel Mystery. J.I Packer called this type of novel, 'stories of a kind that would never have existed without the Christian gospel. Culturally, they are Christian fairy tales, with savior heroes.'

Towards the end of this book, Wimsey is looking for Miss Climpson and stops at the church she attends during the week to see if she is there. Not finding her, on impulse he asks the priest, Mr Tregold, for advice on a moral problem, a ‘hypothetical case,’ that involved killing a person who was going to die, who was in awful pain, kept under morphia etc.

‘I know you’d call it a sin, of course, but why is it so very dreadful? It doesn't do the person any harm, does it?'

‘I think,’ said Mr Tredgold, ‘that the sin - I won’t use that word - the damage to Society, the wrongness of the thing lies much more in the harm it does the killer than in anything it can do to the person who is killed. Especially, of course, if the killing is to the killer’s own advantage...’

The Lord Peter Wimsey crime series are in print and available here.