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Riceyman Steps: Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett / the writer Arnold Bennett / Fiction Literary book / Fiction Literary book story / English books
The story takes place in 1919-1920 and deals with the final year in the life of its main character, Henry Earlforward, a miser, who keeps a second-hand bookshop in the Clerkenwell area of London. Henry marries Violet Arb, a widow who keeps a neighbouring shop, and who sees in Henry a financially secure future. Henry's parsimony drives them into an increasingly wretched existence. Their lives are contrasted to that of their maid servant Elsie Sprickett and it is she, despite her extreme poverty, who brings life and a future to the bittersweet tale.
292 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1923
34 people are currently reading
605 people want to read
About the author
Arnold Bennett
983 books312 followersEnoch Arnold Bennett was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboration with other writers), and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information during the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. Sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France.
Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people and he deplored literary cliques and élites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913).
Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France.
Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people and he deplored literary cliques and élites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913).
Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.
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April 20, 2020
Middle-aged love in a slightly down-at-heel area of London, just after The Great War may not sound like an original, amusing, or enticing premise for a novel. But the central character is a bookseller, and Arnold Bennett conjures an atmospheric, surprising, and poignant tale that even includes a short-lived tabloid frenzy. A century doesn’t feel so very long ago.
Quietly fizzing with the novelty of the new
Bennett delights in detailed descriptions of the latest tech, even if some of his characters are less enamoured: piped gas, running hot water, electric light, underground railway, telephone, typewriter, thermos flask, trams, an expensive double saucepan, and most memorably, a two-man vacuum cleaner truck.
Image: Edwardian vacuum cleaner truck (Source.)
There’s also the huge postal depot that Henry Earlforward prefers to walk to, rather than using the nearby post box:
“The mighty Mount Pleasant organism, with its terrific night-movement of vans and flung mailbags.”
I once stayed in a hotel overlooking it and the description still fits!
Nevertheless, the main novelty is the marriage between a widow and a confirmed bachelor: “He blossomed slowly, late, but he blossomed.” This is not a marriage of convenience or mere companionship; there are clear sexual tremours. There’s nothing explicit, but even “an implied criticism… proved that they were getting intimate”, and there’s plenty of symbolism (an umbrella (broken, then replaced), wedding cake, an old slipper on silk ribbon, two safes, potted bulbs, and a tattered love letter). Their love, irritation, and passion are touching, insightful, and realistic, with the balance of influence fluctuating with the circumstances. Love is tempered, spiced, and sweetened by a dash of fear or dread (but never hate, as in DH Lawrence).
There is nuanced, convincing, and endearing development of all the characters, especially loyal, imperfect, hungry Elsie. She is a char (cleaner) for both before their marriage, but becomes a live-in maid after. The effect of shifting knowledge, health, and power is deftly done.
Miser(y)?
“It was a new pound note. The paper was white and substantial; not a crease in it. The dim water-marks whispered genuineness. The green and brown of the design were more beautiful than any picture… The thing was as lovely and touching as a young virgin daughter.”
The word “miser” is irredeemably pejorative, and has the same etymological root as “misery”. Henry and Violet Earlforward both acknowledge he’s a miser. But not only does Violet love him in spite of some shocking and unnecessary economies, Bennett makes her love believable: Henry is a (mostly) likeable miser. Infuriating as well, but not a typical nasty, grasping, miserable miser.
Love ofmoney books?
“It depends on me having lots of books lying about as if they weren't anything at all. That's just what book-collectors like… Whenever they see a pile of books in the dark they think there must be bargains.”
Henry is very different personality from Aziraphale in Good Omens (see my review HERE), but his bookshop is delightfully similar:
"The effect was of mysterious and vast populations of books imprisoned for ever in everlasting shade, chained, deprived of air and sun and movement, hopeless, resigned, martyrized."
Image: Bookshop interior (Source.)
Even unsatisfied customers know they will return:
“Because the shop had the goods he wanted, and didn't care whether he bought them or not. If he could have ruined the shop by never coming into it again he would perhaps have ruined the shop. But it was the shop's cursed indifference that spiritually beat him and ensured the triumph of the astonishing system.”
Violet has no interest in reading, which she regards as “a refuge from either idleness or life”, and “She was never idle, and she loved life”. And although Elsie has “the magic gift to decipher their rather arbitrary signs and so induce perplexing ideas in her own head, she would not have dreamed of doing so”.
But Henry never demonstrates pleasure in reading either, so maybe it is all about their value?
Descriptive triplets
Bennett often uses adjectives and adverbs in trios (there are more than a few in this review). Often, one of the three is slightly unexpected. Sometimes they’re in consecutive sentences:
“The scheme became absurd, impossible, inconceivable. Elsie was utterly defeated by the child's affection, ardour, and sorrow.”
Real Riceyman Steps
Image: Riceyman Steps, with church visible in the gap at the top (Source.)
The steps are in Clerkenwell, just off King’s Cross Road, still with “outworn shabbiness, grime and decay”, as described. You can find them on Google Street View, though Riceyman Square is now called Granville Square.
Unfortunately, the church Bennett describes so memorably (actually St Philip’s) was demolished in 1936:
“St Andrew's, of a considerably mixed Gothic character, had architecturally nothing whatever to recommend it. Its general proportions, its arched windows, its mullions, its finials, its crosses, its spire, and its buttresses, were all and in every detail utterly silly and offensive. The eye could not rest anywhere upon its surface without pain. And time, which is supposed to soften and dignify all things, had been content in malice to cover St. Andrew's with filth and ridicule.”
Image: St Philip’s church, seen from below Riceyman Steps, dated c1860, but it doesn’t show all the houses built around it in “the hungry ‘forties”. (Source.)
Quotes
* “A man interested in a strange woman acquires one equine attribute - he can look in two directions at once.”
* “Cheap cookery-books that professed to teach rationed house-wives how to make substance out of shadow.”
* “There's no bounce to this business [confectioner’s shop]... It's like hitting a cushion.”
* “Making love as honest love is made by lovers whose sole drawing-rooms and sofas are the street.”
* “The dreadful den expressed intolerably to Mrs Arb the pathos of the existence of a man who is determined to look after himself.”
* “They embraced sleep passionately, voraciously, voluptuously.”
Quietly fizzing with the novelty of the new
Bennett delights in detailed descriptions of the latest tech, even if some of his characters are less enamoured: piped gas, running hot water, electric light, underground railway, telephone, typewriter, thermos flask, trams, an expensive double saucepan, and most memorably, a two-man vacuum cleaner truck.
Image: Edwardian vacuum cleaner truck (Source.)
There’s also the huge postal depot that Henry Earlforward prefers to walk to, rather than using the nearby post box:
“The mighty Mount Pleasant organism, with its terrific night-movement of vans and flung mailbags.”
I once stayed in a hotel overlooking it and the description still fits!
Nevertheless, the main novelty is the marriage between a widow and a confirmed bachelor: “He blossomed slowly, late, but he blossomed.” This is not a marriage of convenience or mere companionship; there are clear sexual tremours. There’s nothing explicit, but even “an implied criticism… proved that they were getting intimate”, and there’s plenty of symbolism (an umbrella (broken, then replaced), wedding cake, an old slipper on silk ribbon, two safes, potted bulbs, and a tattered love letter). Their love, irritation, and passion are touching, insightful, and realistic, with the balance of influence fluctuating with the circumstances. Love is tempered, spiced, and sweetened by a dash of fear or dread (but never hate, as in DH Lawrence).
There is nuanced, convincing, and endearing development of all the characters, especially loyal, imperfect, hungry Elsie. She is a char (cleaner) for both before their marriage, but becomes a live-in maid after. The effect of shifting knowledge, health, and power is deftly done.
Miser(y)?
“It was a new pound note. The paper was white and substantial; not a crease in it. The dim water-marks whispered genuineness. The green and brown of the design were more beautiful than any picture… The thing was as lovely and touching as a young virgin daughter.”
The word “miser” is irredeemably pejorative, and has the same etymological root as “misery”. Henry and Violet Earlforward both acknowledge he’s a miser. But not only does Violet love him in spite of some shocking and unnecessary economies, Bennett makes her love believable: Henry is a (mostly) likeable miser. Infuriating as well, but not a typical nasty, grasping, miserable miser.
Love of
“It depends on me having lots of books lying about as if they weren't anything at all. That's just what book-collectors like… Whenever they see a pile of books in the dark they think there must be bargains.”
Henry is very different personality from Aziraphale in Good Omens (see my review HERE), but his bookshop is delightfully similar:
"The effect was of mysterious and vast populations of books imprisoned for ever in everlasting shade, chained, deprived of air and sun and movement, hopeless, resigned, martyrized."
Image: Bookshop interior (Source.)
Even unsatisfied customers know they will return:
“Because the shop had the goods he wanted, and didn't care whether he bought them or not. If he could have ruined the shop by never coming into it again he would perhaps have ruined the shop. But it was the shop's cursed indifference that spiritually beat him and ensured the triumph of the astonishing system.”
Violet has no interest in reading, which she regards as “a refuge from either idleness or life”, and “She was never idle, and she loved life”. And although Elsie has “the magic gift to decipher their rather arbitrary signs and so induce perplexing ideas in her own head, she would not have dreamed of doing so”.
But Henry never demonstrates pleasure in reading either, so maybe it is all about their value?
Descriptive triplets
Bennett often uses adjectives and adverbs in trios (there are more than a few in this review). Often, one of the three is slightly unexpected. Sometimes they’re in consecutive sentences:
“The scheme became absurd, impossible, inconceivable. Elsie was utterly defeated by the child's affection, ardour, and sorrow.”
Real Riceyman Steps
Image: Riceyman Steps, with church visible in the gap at the top (Source.)
The steps are in Clerkenwell, just off King’s Cross Road, still with “outworn shabbiness, grime and decay”, as described. You can find them on Google Street View, though Riceyman Square is now called Granville Square.
Unfortunately, the church Bennett describes so memorably (actually St Philip’s) was demolished in 1936:
“St Andrew's, of a considerably mixed Gothic character, had architecturally nothing whatever to recommend it. Its general proportions, its arched windows, its mullions, its finials, its crosses, its spire, and its buttresses, were all and in every detail utterly silly and offensive. The eye could not rest anywhere upon its surface without pain. And time, which is supposed to soften and dignify all things, had been content in malice to cover St. Andrew's with filth and ridicule.”
Image: St Philip’s church, seen from below Riceyman Steps, dated c1860, but it doesn’t show all the houses built around it in “the hungry ‘forties”. (Source.)
Quotes
* “A man interested in a strange woman acquires one equine attribute - he can look in two directions at once.”
* “Cheap cookery-books that professed to teach rationed house-wives how to make substance out of shadow.”
* “There's no bounce to this business [confectioner’s shop]... It's like hitting a cushion.”
* “Making love as honest love is made by lovers whose sole drawing-rooms and sofas are the street.”
* “The dreadful den expressed intolerably to Mrs Arb the pathos of the existence of a man who is determined to look after himself.”
* “They embraced sleep passionately, voraciously, voluptuously.”
June 1, 2020
I was so so pleasantly surprised by this book! It once again confirms what many of us know on this site…there are a million books out there that we would probably love but we are not aware of 99% of them. So it takes a site like this with book lovers who post reviews…and one can read a review and then depending on the reviewer’s enthusiasm and one’s best guestimate if this is something one might be interested in, one can then go about procuring the book. Which I did. And I entered upon reading this book with some expectation that I might like it…but had no idea this would be a 5-star book for me. 😊 Thank you, my GR reviewer/friend. I highly recommend this book—an extremely enjoyable read.
So here’s the synopsis: setting is London in an area called Clerkenwell in 1920. Protagonists are 1) a man in his 40s, Henry Earlforward, a book seller who owns a second-hand bookstore/shop, 2) a neighbor, Violet Arb, who owned a small confectionary shop across from him but who recently sold it, 3) a charwoman, Elsie, 23 years of age, who works for the bookseller and, by coincidence, Violet, 4) Elsie’s boyfriend, Joe, who comes home from the war shell-shocked, and a doctor who takes care of him, Dr. Raste, who by the end of the book has also paid doctor’s visits to Henry and Violet. Henry has been a bachelor his whole life, and Violet is a recent widow, her husband having died 2 year previously.
At the beginning of the novel Edward is interested in Violet as a potential mate, and indeed they do get married in the course of the novel. At the core of the novel is the fact that Edward has been and is a miser. Elsie moves in with them to become their maid (a step up from being a charwoman). Elsie’s character is prominent in this novel. She is uneducated but is street-wise. Throughout she tries to please both Henry and Violet and treat them with respect…but they can be hard taskmasters at times. Henry can’t help it…I guess once a miser always a miser.
How miserly is he?
• When he proposes to Violet he says to her that wedding rings are not that big a deal and so he takes a ring cutter and cuts her wedding ring from her first husband off of her finger (She can’t slip it off, won’t get past her joint) and gets a gold band at a pawnshop and has the diamond from the wedding ring of Violet’s mounted on the new band, and voila he presents his wedding ring to Violet. I think some alarm bells go off in her head, but she is impressed by his mature and practical ways and lets it slide.
• They go to the registrar’s to get married and they have one day to honeymoon (remember he is a miser…she’s lucky to get that from him) and they go to Madame Tussaud’s waxworks. Well while they are there, she has hired several men to come in and give his bookstore and living quarters in the back a thorough cleaning. Because there are books piled up all over the place in the bookstore and in the living quarters (I think there are books in the bathtub) and the place is extremely dusty. Violet sorts of sees it as a wedding present to Henry plus she doesn’t want to live in a pigsty. When they get home from the Waxworks to the bookshop is Henry pleasantly surprised? Well he is surprised but not pleasantly. He takes a look at the men who are still vacuuming out the shop/residence and nearly has a coronary when he finds out what it is costing them. He asks them “What do you do with the dirt?” One man says “Oh, we take it away, sir. We shan’t leave any mess about.” Henry: “Do you sell it? Do you get anything for it?” That made me laugh out loud. Wasn’t expecting that. That was the end of a chapter. The beginning of the next chapter opens with “While Henry was enquiring into the market value of the dirt which he himself had amassed, …” This guy is on the same level as Ebenezer Scrooge.
• Living like a pauper finally gets too much for Violet and she blows up at Henry…their first fight is a good one…she spares no punches to Henry. But what is going through his head while she is lambasting him? She makes a reference to Elsie their maid and “giving her up.” And Henry is thinking this…Here Henry had an absurd wild glimmer of hope that she meant to give Elsie up, do without a servant, and so save wages and food.
It takes a lot for me to rate a book as 5 stars. I read this in two days. If I had been able to stay awake last night I would have finished it in one sitting. And this is one of those books, rare indeed, where I did not want it to end. This is not a humorous book although I found some passages to be laugh-out-loud funny—it is described by one scholar, Evelyn A. Flory, below in an excerpt from her article “Riceyman Steps: The Role of Violet and Elsie” published in the journal ‘English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920’, Volume 14, Number 2, 1971, pp. 93-102. But I will place a spoiler alert around the description, because I found part of the unmitigated joy of reading this was to not have a great deal of background information on the book – all I knew was that 6 weeks ago or so a GR friend reviewed it, I read the review and was impressed, and ordered it. And then read it, and loved it. 😊
A few notes:
• This novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1923 (in 1924 the prize went to E. M. Forster for A Passage to India).
• The book makes mention of a common practice at least in the 19th century in England of mothers using an opium cocktail, laudanum, to make their babies sleep: “The other three children had been doped—or, as the advertisements phrased it, “soothed”—so that while remaining in their beds they should not disturb the adults.
• The name “Riceyman Steps” comes from the name of the street that I believe in the novel ran parallel to King’s Cross Road…Henry’s shop and that of Valerie’s shop entranceways open up to Riceyman Steps. The Street is named after Henry’s uncle T.T. Riceyman who owned the bookshop but had a stroke and died, and bequeathed the whole thing to Henry.
• This edition I read had an Introduction written by Anita Miller (died at age 92 in 2018). She had a doctorate in English Literature, and her dissertation was an annotated bibliography of Arnold Bennett’s works from 1887 to 1932. She was also co-founder with her husband of Academy Chicago Publishers, an independent Chicago publisher established long before indie presses were trendy, and the publisher of this edition.
• Brief synopsis of Arnold Bennett: Enoch Arnold Bennett (always known as Arnold Bennett) was one of the most remarkable literary figures of his time, a product of the English Potteries that he made famous as the Five Towns. Yet he could hardly wait to escape his home town, and he did so by the sheer force of his ambition to succeed as an author. In his time he turned his hand to every kind of writing, but he will be remembered for such novels as The Old Wives' Tale, the Clayhanger trilogy (Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain), and The Card. He also wrote such intriguing self-improvement books as Literary Taste, How To Live on 24 Hours a Day, The Human Machine, etc.
Review:
Has many photographs of then-versus-now of the area in which the novel takes place: https://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com...
So here’s the synopsis: setting is London in an area called Clerkenwell in 1920. Protagonists are 1) a man in his 40s, Henry Earlforward, a book seller who owns a second-hand bookstore/shop, 2) a neighbor, Violet Arb, who owned a small confectionary shop across from him but who recently sold it, 3) a charwoman, Elsie, 23 years of age, who works for the bookseller and, by coincidence, Violet, 4) Elsie’s boyfriend, Joe, who comes home from the war shell-shocked, and a doctor who takes care of him, Dr. Raste, who by the end of the book has also paid doctor’s visits to Henry and Violet. Henry has been a bachelor his whole life, and Violet is a recent widow, her husband having died 2 year previously.
At the beginning of the novel Edward is interested in Violet as a potential mate, and indeed they do get married in the course of the novel. At the core of the novel is the fact that Edward has been and is a miser. Elsie moves in with them to become their maid (a step up from being a charwoman). Elsie’s character is prominent in this novel. She is uneducated but is street-wise. Throughout she tries to please both Henry and Violet and treat them with respect…but they can be hard taskmasters at times. Henry can’t help it…I guess once a miser always a miser.
How miserly is he?
• When he proposes to Violet he says to her that wedding rings are not that big a deal and so he takes a ring cutter and cuts her wedding ring from her first husband off of her finger (She can’t slip it off, won’t get past her joint) and gets a gold band at a pawnshop and has the diamond from the wedding ring of Violet’s mounted on the new band, and voila he presents his wedding ring to Violet. I think some alarm bells go off in her head, but she is impressed by his mature and practical ways and lets it slide.
• They go to the registrar’s to get married and they have one day to honeymoon (remember he is a miser…she’s lucky to get that from him) and they go to Madame Tussaud’s waxworks. Well while they are there, she has hired several men to come in and give his bookstore and living quarters in the back a thorough cleaning. Because there are books piled up all over the place in the bookstore and in the living quarters (I think there are books in the bathtub) and the place is extremely dusty. Violet sorts of sees it as a wedding present to Henry plus she doesn’t want to live in a pigsty. When they get home from the Waxworks to the bookshop is Henry pleasantly surprised? Well he is surprised but not pleasantly. He takes a look at the men who are still vacuuming out the shop/residence and nearly has a coronary when he finds out what it is costing them. He asks them “What do you do with the dirt?” One man says “Oh, we take it away, sir. We shan’t leave any mess about.” Henry: “Do you sell it? Do you get anything for it?” That made me laugh out loud. Wasn’t expecting that. That was the end of a chapter. The beginning of the next chapter opens with “While Henry was enquiring into the market value of the dirt which he himself had amassed, …” This guy is on the same level as Ebenezer Scrooge.
• Living like a pauper finally gets too much for Violet and she blows up at Henry…their first fight is a good one…she spares no punches to Henry. But what is going through his head while she is lambasting him? She makes a reference to Elsie their maid and “giving her up.” And Henry is thinking this…Here Henry had an absurd wild glimmer of hope that she meant to give Elsie up, do without a servant, and so save wages and food.
It takes a lot for me to rate a book as 5 stars. I read this in two days. If I had been able to stay awake last night I would have finished it in one sitting. And this is one of those books, rare indeed, where I did not want it to end. This is not a humorous book although I found some passages to be laugh-out-loud funny—it is described by one scholar, Evelyn A. Flory, below in an excerpt from her article “Riceyman Steps: The Role of Violet and Elsie” published in the journal ‘English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920’, Volume 14, Number 2, 1971, pp. 93-102. But I will place a spoiler alert around the description, because I found part of the unmitigated joy of reading this was to not have a great deal of background information on the book – all I knew was that 6 weeks ago or so a GR friend reviewed it, I read the review and was impressed, and ordered it. And then read it, and loved it. 😊
A few notes:
• This novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1923 (in 1924 the prize went to E. M. Forster for A Passage to India).
• The book makes mention of a common practice at least in the 19th century in England of mothers using an opium cocktail, laudanum, to make their babies sleep: “The other three children had been doped—or, as the advertisements phrased it, “soothed”—so that while remaining in their beds they should not disturb the adults.
• The name “Riceyman Steps” comes from the name of the street that I believe in the novel ran parallel to King’s Cross Road…Henry’s shop and that of Valerie’s shop entranceways open up to Riceyman Steps. The Street is named after Henry’s uncle T.T. Riceyman who owned the bookshop but had a stroke and died, and bequeathed the whole thing to Henry.
• This edition I read had an Introduction written by Anita Miller (died at age 92 in 2018). She had a doctorate in English Literature, and her dissertation was an annotated bibliography of Arnold Bennett’s works from 1887 to 1932. She was also co-founder with her husband of Academy Chicago Publishers, an independent Chicago publisher established long before indie presses were trendy, and the publisher of this edition.
• Brief synopsis of Arnold Bennett: Enoch Arnold Bennett (always known as Arnold Bennett) was one of the most remarkable literary figures of his time, a product of the English Potteries that he made famous as the Five Towns. Yet he could hardly wait to escape his home town, and he did so by the sheer force of his ambition to succeed as an author. In his time he turned his hand to every kind of writing, but he will be remembered for such novels as The Old Wives' Tale, the Clayhanger trilogy (Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, and These Twain), and The Card. He also wrote such intriguing self-improvement books as Literary Taste, How To Live on 24 Hours a Day, The Human Machine, etc.
Review:
Has many photographs of then-versus-now of the area in which the novel takes place: https://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com...
August 2, 2020
ETA: This book is being discussed here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... Not everyone likes it as much as I do.
**************************
In this novel Arnold Bennett writes of the lives of working class people living in London immediately after the First World War. Don’t expect a fairy tale.
Henry Earlforward is the proprietor of a dilapidated, over-stuffed second-hand bookstore at Riceyman Steps. The steps do exist still today. They lead up from Kings Cross Road to Gwynne Place in Clerkenwell, London. The book follows one year in the life of Henry. Henry is a miser, through and through. He is middle-aged. The proprietress of the confectionery shop across the square, a widow by the name of Violet Arp, has caught his fancy. They discover they share the same charwoman, Elsie Sprikett. She works for Henry in the morning and Violet in the afternoon. Two other characters fill out the story, Dr. Raste and Joe, Elsie’s beau.
Bennett is known for his realism. He expertly draws the five central characters. I find them all believable. What each one does feels very real to me. The book has excellent character portrayal.
There is humor in this book, but do not be fooled; it is not a sweet happy story that is delivered.
At the beginning I didn’t have the slightest idea of where the book was leading. I was curious. Then, in the flurry of Henry’s and Violet’s newly discovered love, Bennett’s lines become funny. I began laughing. I wondered if the book was just going to be funny. Slowly, hints are dropped—something else is going on. The tone of the book becomes decidedly more serious. Not knowing where the story was going, it kept my interest from start to finish.
What is Bennett saying about love relationships? I think he accurately draws how couples can both love and hate at the same time. It is indifference that leaves a person unperturbed. That a person wants to feel they have control over their own life is another theme focused upon. A third is how one class looks down on another. A fourth is to what extent one’s job should dictate all in one’s life. Should you, do you trust doctors? Are you scared of hospitals? I certainly understand those who fear them! Conversely, what is it like to be a doctor? I mean, would you want to be in their shoes? Miserliness pushed to an extreme is of course wrong, but can one not understand the need for security in a world filled with peril. Where do you set the limit? These were the things I thought about as I read this book!
Peter Joyce narrates the audiobook very well. He speaks at a measured pace that gives the listener time to think about both the serious questions asked and to enjoy the humor in the lines. He doesn’t just read, he does dramatize, but not excessively. The only times I disliked the dramatization was when there were screaming arguments, sobs and tears. I find this difficult to listen to. The narration as a whole is very good. I have given it four stars.
I appreciate that Bennett’s stories are not all the same. I like the mix of humor and seriousness. I like realism in a book. The way things are expressed often makes me smile. A second later he has me thinking. I like this book a lot.
**************************
*Anna of the Five Towns 4 stars
*Riceyman Steps 4 stars
*Helen with the High Hand - An Idyllic Diversion 4 stars
*The Old Wives' Tale 4 stars
*The Card: A Story of Adventure in the Five Towns 4 stars
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In this novel Arnold Bennett writes of the lives of working class people living in London immediately after the First World War. Don’t expect a fairy tale.
Henry Earlforward is the proprietor of a dilapidated, over-stuffed second-hand bookstore at Riceyman Steps. The steps do exist still today. They lead up from Kings Cross Road to Gwynne Place in Clerkenwell, London. The book follows one year in the life of Henry. Henry is a miser, through and through. He is middle-aged. The proprietress of the confectionery shop across the square, a widow by the name of Violet Arp, has caught his fancy. They discover they share the same charwoman, Elsie Sprikett. She works for Henry in the morning and Violet in the afternoon. Two other characters fill out the story, Dr. Raste and Joe, Elsie’s beau.
Bennett is known for his realism. He expertly draws the five central characters. I find them all believable. What each one does feels very real to me. The book has excellent character portrayal.
There is humor in this book, but do not be fooled; it is not a sweet happy story that is delivered.
At the beginning I didn’t have the slightest idea of where the book was leading. I was curious. Then, in the flurry of Henry’s and Violet’s newly discovered love, Bennett’s lines become funny. I began laughing. I wondered if the book was just going to be funny. Slowly, hints are dropped—something else is going on. The tone of the book becomes decidedly more serious. Not knowing where the story was going, it kept my interest from start to finish.
What is Bennett saying about love relationships? I think he accurately draws how couples can both love and hate at the same time. It is indifference that leaves a person unperturbed. That a person wants to feel they have control over their own life is another theme focused upon. A third is how one class looks down on another. A fourth is to what extent one’s job should dictate all in one’s life. Should you, do you trust doctors? Are you scared of hospitals? I certainly understand those who fear them! Conversely, what is it like to be a doctor? I mean, would you want to be in their shoes? Miserliness pushed to an extreme is of course wrong, but can one not understand the need for security in a world filled with peril. Where do you set the limit? These were the things I thought about as I read this book!
Peter Joyce narrates the audiobook very well. He speaks at a measured pace that gives the listener time to think about both the serious questions asked and to enjoy the humor in the lines. He doesn’t just read, he does dramatize, but not excessively. The only times I disliked the dramatization was when there were screaming arguments, sobs and tears. I find this difficult to listen to. The narration as a whole is very good. I have given it four stars.
I appreciate that Bennett’s stories are not all the same. I like the mix of humor and seriousness. I like realism in a book. The way things are expressed often makes me smile. A second later he has me thinking. I like this book a lot.
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*Anna of the Five Towns 4 stars
*Riceyman Steps 4 stars
*Helen with the High Hand - An Idyllic Diversion 4 stars
*The Old Wives' Tale 4 stars
*The Card: A Story of Adventure in the Five Towns 4 stars
June 15, 2020
I can understand why many people considered this novel Arnold Bennett’s masterpiece. He wrote it in five months. I was surprised at the descriptions and how the plot was so mesmerizing.
Henry Eastforward a confirmed bachelor who owns a bookshop and a miser when he suddenly finds love. Violet has a confectionary shop opposite his shop and he meets her, woos her and marries her. She is also frugal and they suit each other well in their frugality.
The story is set in 1919, at Riceyman Steps and the story proceeds with the destructive effect of miserliness on a husband and wife, while their servant Elsie struggles to make do. Elsie also has to deal with her boyfriend Joe suffering from shell shock and bouts of violence. This is the same theme that Virginia Woolf takes up in Mrs Dalloway with the shell-shocked Septimus Warren Smith.
The couple are set in their ways and economize in everything. Henry even uses Violets first husbands wedding ring to finance the one he gives her. There honeymoon is a day out to Madame Tussaud’s. Penny pinching is taken to new heights with these misers. They literally starve themselves and poor Elsie also suffers.
Both the misers get sick. Violet dies n the hospital and Henry at home after twice refusing to go to the hospital. His death scene in a new suit in front of his open safe reaching for his gold is powerful. It’s amazing that Henry cannot recognize he is dying and deludes himself he is getting better.
The add on about Elsie and the Child I found interesting. Elsie and Joe are hired by the Doctor who tended the misers as his daughter Eva is taken with Elsie.
Henry Eastforward a confirmed bachelor who owns a bookshop and a miser when he suddenly finds love. Violet has a confectionary shop opposite his shop and he meets her, woos her and marries her. She is also frugal and they suit each other well in their frugality.
The story is set in 1919, at Riceyman Steps and the story proceeds with the destructive effect of miserliness on a husband and wife, while their servant Elsie struggles to make do. Elsie also has to deal with her boyfriend Joe suffering from shell shock and bouts of violence. This is the same theme that Virginia Woolf takes up in Mrs Dalloway with the shell-shocked Septimus Warren Smith.
The couple are set in their ways and economize in everything. Henry even uses Violets first husbands wedding ring to finance the one he gives her. There honeymoon is a day out to Madame Tussaud’s. Penny pinching is taken to new heights with these misers. They literally starve themselves and poor Elsie also suffers.
Both the misers get sick. Violet dies n the hospital and Henry at home after twice refusing to go to the hospital. His death scene in a new suit in front of his open safe reaching for his gold is powerful. It’s amazing that Henry cannot recognize he is dying and deludes himself he is getting better.
The add on about Elsie and the Child I found interesting. Elsie and Joe are hired by the Doctor who tended the misers as his daughter Eva is taken with Elsie.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 3, 2020
I heard about Arnold Bennett's Riceyman Steps (1923) via an episode of the Backlisted podcast. By the end of the discussion I was completely sold on Arnold Bennett.
Arnold Bennett was hugely popular in the early 1900s in England. He wrote realistically about the working class and their struggles with poverty. His straightforward writing and natural storytelling skill was mercilessly pilloried by Virginia Woolf and sadly his reputation has never fully recovered. Despite alienating one of the leading modernists Riceyman Steps won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction having appeared a year after Woolf’s Jacob's Room and is closer to modernism than you might expect.
Arnold Bennett was neglected for much of the second half of the twentieth century until, in 1992, the critic John Carey led a reappraisal of his work, praising his realism and focus on the lives of ordinary people, and rating him as one of the twentieth century’s most enjoyable writers. In his 1992 book The Intellectuals and The Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 he cast Arnold Bennett as his hero, portraying Bennett as the champion of the masses against the intelligentsia such as Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group.
Riceyman Steps is a strange, beguiling and compelling book. It's the story of a Clerkenwell shopkeeper, Henry Earlforward, a miser who successfully woos the widowed Mrs Arb. Incredibly the book manages to shine a light on all manner of emotions and drama within the confines of a household. This powerful focus on a small cast provides a moving and fascinating window on ordinary London life just after World War 1. The star of the show is the maid, Elsie Sprickett, who is devoted, steadfast, dignified and loyal.
Riceyman Steps also has a powerful sense of place. It's set in the Lloyd Baker estate, a specific part of Clerkenwell. Arnold Bennett must have known the area intimately, as the streets and houses he describes are real ones, some of which survive unchanged to this day. The real Riceyman Steps is now called Gwynne Place and leads up from King’s Cross Road to Granville Square (Riceyman Square in the book). Here's a tour that follows in the footsteps of the book.
If the rest of Arnold Bennett's books are a patch on Riceyman Steps then this is just the start of a beautiful journey.
4/5
Arnold Bennett was hugely popular in the early 1900s in England. He wrote realistically about the working class and their struggles with poverty. His straightforward writing and natural storytelling skill was mercilessly pilloried by Virginia Woolf and sadly his reputation has never fully recovered. Despite alienating one of the leading modernists Riceyman Steps won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction having appeared a year after Woolf’s Jacob's Room and is closer to modernism than you might expect.
Arnold Bennett was neglected for much of the second half of the twentieth century until, in 1992, the critic John Carey led a reappraisal of his work, praising his realism and focus on the lives of ordinary people, and rating him as one of the twentieth century’s most enjoyable writers. In his 1992 book The Intellectuals and The Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880-1939 he cast Arnold Bennett as his hero, portraying Bennett as the champion of the masses against the intelligentsia such as Woolf’s Bloomsbury Group.
Riceyman Steps is a strange, beguiling and compelling book. It's the story of a Clerkenwell shopkeeper, Henry Earlforward, a miser who successfully woos the widowed Mrs Arb. Incredibly the book manages to shine a light on all manner of emotions and drama within the confines of a household. This powerful focus on a small cast provides a moving and fascinating window on ordinary London life just after World War 1. The star of the show is the maid, Elsie Sprickett, who is devoted, steadfast, dignified and loyal.
Riceyman Steps also has a powerful sense of place. It's set in the Lloyd Baker estate, a specific part of Clerkenwell. Arnold Bennett must have known the area intimately, as the streets and houses he describes are real ones, some of which survive unchanged to this day. The real Riceyman Steps is now called Gwynne Place and leads up from King’s Cross Road to Granville Square (Riceyman Square in the book). Here's a tour that follows in the footsteps of the book.
If the rest of Arnold Bennett's books are a patch on Riceyman Steps then this is just the start of a beautiful journey.
4/5
July 23, 2021
One of Bennett’s later novels, when compared to the shiny wonderment of Anna of the Five Towns or The Old Wives’ Tale, is rather peely-wally. Mr. Earlforward is a sexless version of Gordon Comstock (from Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying), a miserly bookshop owner (is there any other sort?) comfy living among thick cakes of grot. When he weds Violet from the shop o’er t’road, and takes the flighty servant Elsie into his shop, this carefully constructed life of Calvinist forfeiture is plunged into minor upset. The novel suffers mainly from having a rather plodding story with exceptionally bland characters, and from an arch attitude towards Elsie from the narrator (she is frequently maligned as lowly thief, poor dear), though as the novel pulls its characters toward the abyss, the story is more exciting and the prospect of unpleasant ends for unpleasant people becomes a tantalising hook.
March 14, 2020
I came here planning to say I'd never read a book I was so anxious to finish. But then I realized there are a couple of others I actually hated, and this one I only extremely disliked. It was at about 50 pages that I thought about setting it aside. But of course this is another in a 10-book challenge. I probably could have found a replacement, but it is also one for a group discussion. So I persevered.
I didn't warm to the writing style. I must admit it isn't awful. For me, it interfered, rather than enhanced, what story there was. It is the awful characterizations that are my prime objection. They were flat for the most part, and I felt too stereotyped: a greedy employer, a dishonest employee, a scheming wife, a doctor who never sleeps. There were two love interests, one of which I thought added nothing to the story. At least one person has remarked this has an excellent sense of place. I did not find this so and, in fact, found the setting so foreign to me that I had no way to visualize it.
I seem to recall now that there was another book or two I wanted to "award" the basement rating of 1-star. But I finished those and upped it to 2-stars, and so I'll do the same here. I'm not sure it deserves the extra star, though.
I didn't warm to the writing style. I must admit it isn't awful. For me, it interfered, rather than enhanced, what story there was. It is the awful characterizations that are my prime objection. They were flat for the most part, and I felt too stereotyped: a greedy employer, a dishonest employee, a scheming wife, a doctor who never sleeps. There were two love interests, one of which I thought added nothing to the story. At least one person has remarked this has an excellent sense of place. I did not find this so and, in fact, found the setting so foreign to me that I had no way to visualize it.
I seem to recall now that there was another book or two I wanted to "award" the basement rating of 1-star. But I finished those and upped it to 2-stars, and so I'll do the same here. I'm not sure it deserves the extra star, though.
December 9, 2015
Henry Earlforward, a shabby Clerkenwell bookseller,has retired from life to devote himself and his wife Violet to a consuming passion for money.
He is so miserly that they have to do with candles and not much food.
This bleak story is rather chilling as they both become ill due to being very careful and saving up their money.
Their maid Elsie is quite a contrast in that she has a zest for life and the hope that Joe her boyfriend will come back.
He was damaged by the war.
A psychological force of love and death.
Very compelling despite the sombre tone of the book.
I loved the bit where they were describing the premises.
There were books everywhere, stacked up on the floor, in cupboards and even in the bath!
He is so miserly that they have to do with candles and not much food.
This bleak story is rather chilling as they both become ill due to being very careful and saving up their money.
Their maid Elsie is quite a contrast in that she has a zest for life and the hope that Joe her boyfriend will come back.
He was damaged by the war.
A psychological force of love and death.
Very compelling despite the sombre tone of the book.
I loved the bit where they were describing the premises.
There were books everywhere, stacked up on the floor, in cupboards and even in the bath!
September 2, 2013
As a former bookstore owner, I loved this book when I first read it a dozen or more years ago. This time around, maybe not so much. There's not as much bookstore stuff as I remember, other than the fact that the owner deliberately kept his store partially in disarray in hopes that customers would think they were getting bargains. Trouble is, all the owner's books were bargains.
In fact, this book is not so much about bookstores and bookselling as it it about a romantic relationship between two people in their late forties and the miserliness that ruins everything. Bennett, in this case at least, doesn't need to have any real likable characters: There are only three prominent characters in the book and none are particularly sympathetic. And, although prolific as hell, it's hard to give Bennett's prose credit for being much more than only- slightly stiff. He may have wanted to be Dickens, but fell short, every time. Yet he was ahead of his time in talking (although circumspectly) about sex.
I prefer his Five Towns series of books, particularly The Old Wive's Tale, which I read in college. Another I recommend is his book on hotels, Imperial Palace. Give this one, which is, despite its slow pace and unexceptional characters, enjoyable, a 3.4 or 3.5.
In fact, this book is not so much about bookstores and bookselling as it it about a romantic relationship between two people in their late forties and the miserliness that ruins everything. Bennett, in this case at least, doesn't need to have any real likable characters: There are only three prominent characters in the book and none are particularly sympathetic. And, although prolific as hell, it's hard to give Bennett's prose credit for being much more than only- slightly stiff. He may have wanted to be Dickens, but fell short, every time. Yet he was ahead of his time in talking (although circumspectly) about sex.
I prefer his Five Towns series of books, particularly The Old Wive's Tale, which I read in college. Another I recommend is his book on hotels, Imperial Palace. Give this one, which is, despite its slow pace and unexceptional characters, enjoyable, a 3.4 or 3.5.
February 17, 2016
Robert Powell reads from the 1923 novel by Arnold Bennett about the poignant struggles of everyday London life.
Blurb - It is a year since the end of the First World War, and Londoners are struggling to return to normal life. But on Riceyman Steps a secondhand bookseller is already contemplating a significant change to his circumstances.
A dark and eccentric tale
January 31, 2012
Published in 1923, this richly layered novel is set in Clerkenwell. Riceyman steps "lead from King's Cross Road up to Riceyman Square". Telling details evoke time, place and atmosphere. The vividly realised central characters are second-hand bookshop proprietor, Henry Earlforward, Violet Arb, neighbouring shop owner, and their servant, the magnificent Elsie.
Earlforward inherited the bookshop from his uncle, who died suddenly after giving Henry an excitable account of Clerkenwell's history. They key episode in this history is the arrival of the underground railway. At first, the railway was greatly desired. As perilous construction work shook foundations and endangered lives, it became feared and loathed. "All Clerkenwell was mad for the line. But when the construction began all Clerkenwell trembled. The earth opened in the most unexpected and undesirable places."
Bennett sets up the idea that something as powerful and deep as the railway will shake his charcters' lives. The evocation of Clerkenwell, its architecture, history, and the shop itself, induces feelings of claustrophobia. Miser Henry is as securely locked into his world as his coins and notes are locked in his safe. Deeply attracted, Henry and Violet marry. The couple spend their 'honeymoon' visiting Madam Tussaud's and its Chamber of Horrors. They economise on the return tram fare. This strikes a warning note!
Henry's truly 'grand passion,' his miserliness, creeps up slowly. For pages, I expected some horror, perhaps a fire in the poorly-lit labyrinthine bookshop. When tragedy comes, it is not because of the dodgy electricity supply but something much deeper, arising from his inability to be anything but rationally devoted to his love of money. The once bright and cheerful Violet is caught in the web of his obstinacy. After only a year, tragedy looms - as both stark reality and metaphor.
Their servant, widowed Elsie, age 24, had surprised her employers on their marriage by throwing rice, tying a shoe to the bed and providing a cake. Elsie yearns for the return of her shell-shocked lover, Joe. Only when the Clerkenwell newspaper vendors trumpet "Love and Death" will Elsie and Joe's story resume. Bennett touches the nerve ends with this brilliant novel.
Earlforward inherited the bookshop from his uncle, who died suddenly after giving Henry an excitable account of Clerkenwell's history. They key episode in this history is the arrival of the underground railway. At first, the railway was greatly desired. As perilous construction work shook foundations and endangered lives, it became feared and loathed. "All Clerkenwell was mad for the line. But when the construction began all Clerkenwell trembled. The earth opened in the most unexpected and undesirable places."
Bennett sets up the idea that something as powerful and deep as the railway will shake his charcters' lives. The evocation of Clerkenwell, its architecture, history, and the shop itself, induces feelings of claustrophobia. Miser Henry is as securely locked into his world as his coins and notes are locked in his safe. Deeply attracted, Henry and Violet marry. The couple spend their 'honeymoon' visiting Madam Tussaud's and its Chamber of Horrors. They economise on the return tram fare. This strikes a warning note!
Henry's truly 'grand passion,' his miserliness, creeps up slowly. For pages, I expected some horror, perhaps a fire in the poorly-lit labyrinthine bookshop. When tragedy comes, it is not because of the dodgy electricity supply but something much deeper, arising from his inability to be anything but rationally devoted to his love of money. The once bright and cheerful Violet is caught in the web of his obstinacy. After only a year, tragedy looms - as both stark reality and metaphor.
Their servant, widowed Elsie, age 24, had surprised her employers on their marriage by throwing rice, tying a shoe to the bed and providing a cake. Elsie yearns for the return of her shell-shocked lover, Joe. Only when the Clerkenwell newspaper vendors trumpet "Love and Death" will Elsie and Joe's story resume. Bennett touches the nerve ends with this brilliant novel.
January 18, 2020
While I'm no spendthrift, there’s nothing I hate more than a miser. It's, therefore, a testament to Bennett’s breathless, enthusiastic, sometimes mocking prose style that I finished this book, the year in the life of literature’s greatest miser - bookseller Henry Earlforward. Bennett’s opinions on women haven't aged well (but, you know, of the time) and his views on class is rigid, but this is a fascinating portrait of a truly masochistic human being. The descriptions of the dusty bookstore, bursting with books, is heaven, it’s worth reading the novel just for those.
May 28, 2020
Bennett loved the Clerkenwell district of London which with its unpretentious working class life reminded him of his own origins in the Potteries. The location Riceyman Steps was modeled on Granville Place (now Gwynne Place) the steps of which lead up from the Kings Cross Road to Granville Square. Bennett's steps are "twenty in number, ... divided by a half-landing into two series of ten", whereas the steps of Granville Place number (from the bottom) fifteen, with eleven more from the half-landing. Granville Square, now a residential square containing a small park, was in 1923 dominated by St Philip's Church, which was demolished in 1936. The novel is set in a bookshop. That it is the story of a bookseller is all you need to know about this book. Written by the author of The Old Wives' Tale and Clayhanger, this is about the passions of Henry Earlforward, bookseller, for money and a widow. Add a live-in maid and you have the setting for characters whose relationships are developed and molded into a story of not some little interest. Bennett, always good with detail, executes a simple story of love and death, perhaps profound, eminently readable.
April 17, 2020
This was a strange, interesting reading experience. I generally like Bennett’s writing and storytelling style but often found myself not enjoying this read. There was something gloomy and unappealing in the characters and settings in this story. Yet I don’t dislike a story merely because it’s gloomy – Thomas Hardy is my favorite author – but there was something I didn’t warm to here. There wasn’t a problem with this being set in London rather than five towns since Bennett portrayed the Riceyman Steps/Square area in Clerkenwell as if it were a small town. Still, I was prepared to give it 3 stars because of the gloomy feeling and atmosphere of the story.
However, as I read the ending chapters I felt a warming melancholy that had me both sad and smiling. I realized that I did have a feel for the characters and setting and, if I wouldn’t exactly miss the characters or like them, I was touched by their stories. That’s what I get with Bennett – simple stories of really well-drawn characters. He was effective again. I have raised my rating to a 3.7 rounded up to 4 stars.
However, as I read the ending chapters I felt a warming melancholy that had me both sad and smiling. I realized that I did have a feel for the characters and setting and, if I wouldn’t exactly miss the characters or like them, I was touched by their stories. That’s what I get with Bennett – simple stories of really well-drawn characters. He was effective again. I have raised my rating to a 3.7 rounded up to 4 stars.
April 29, 2012
What an engaging novel. Bennett is a superb stylist and he's actually able to present three narrowed and stifled characters in a way that's satirical but never caricatured, and tragic but never bleak. There's a convincing love story in here surprisingly enough, and somewhere around the two thirds point it became a page turner for me, filling me with dread and anticipation, but never exasperating me or letting me down. I think Bennett is at his best here, and shows hints of the kind of novelist he could have been had he been painting on a larger Dickensian canvas. But no regrets. A terrific novel and the most sympathetic view of a miser (and the miserly woman who loves him) that i've ever seen.
August 26, 2021
Not too many people read the novels of Arnold Bennett these days, but a hundred years ago, he was the cat's pajamas. Even Virginia Woolf considered him a major author, though most of our contemporaries might not concur. Riceyman Steps is considered one of his best novels.
It tells the story of a bookseller named Henry Earlforward who marries Violet, the owner of a confectionery shop across the way from his used book emporium. It turns out that Henry is a terrible miser who skimps on food and coal. They are joined by a young charwoman named Elsie who continues in good health as Henry and Violet begin to develop illnesses based on not taking good care of themselves.
This is a well-crafted novel that looks at the shopkeeping class instead of the upper classes. Although Henry and Violet are themselves relatively well off, Violet plays along with Henry's miserliness, which rebounds badly against both of them.
It tells the story of a bookseller named Henry Earlforward who marries Violet, the owner of a confectionery shop across the way from his used book emporium. It turns out that Henry is a terrible miser who skimps on food and coal. They are joined by a young charwoman named Elsie who continues in good health as Henry and Violet begin to develop illnesses based on not taking good care of themselves.
This is a well-crafted novel that looks at the shopkeeping class instead of the upper classes. Although Henry and Violet are themselves relatively well off, Violet plays along with Henry's miserliness, which rebounds badly against both of them.
August 29, 2022
This was one of Bennett’s own favorites. Also praised by Borges. Indeed a great book, but unfortunately also a little bit on the boring side. It is the story of a miser, and that is really not that exciting. (But I felt completely comfortable being bored in this way.) It is also the story of a second-hand bookstore owner. And everything Bennett has to say about books, great collector that he was himself, is rather wonderful. I also really enjoyed his encounter with the woman he eventually marries. How Bennett tells us about the way they like each others character although they are ultimately strange to each other is quite fascinating. The charwoman Elsie turns out to be the most important character in the novel. She does not do much except being loyal and to suffer. She got rid of her cruel boyfriend but wants him desperately to return. Well, he does.
Miser dies in the end but only after his wife. What a wasted life.
Miser dies in the end but only after his wife. What a wasted life.
February 9, 2015
A rating from a fellow GoodReader reminded me that somewhere in the ancient past I read this book, as well as a few other Bennett titles. I don't remember that much about the story, so probably shouldn't have rated it, but I do remember the intriguing title, the London setting and the fact that it involved a bookstore. A used bookstore, I think.
I think what strikes me now is that once upon a time I had the time to read the lesser known works of an author not in fashion, and I feel a bit nostalgic for the reader that I was back then.
I think what strikes me now is that once upon a time I had the time to read the lesser known works of an author not in fashion, and I feel a bit nostalgic for the reader that I was back then.
February 2, 2018
Some reviews complain of a lack of action.. The genius of this novel is that moments of great drama happen when, objectively, the scene is completely still. It has a minimalism which, coming from an older writer of the previous generation, must have driven the hip Bloomsbury era writers mad. This novel is from the high watermark of novel writing: fully aware of itself but before the rot of self-consciousness set in.
October 11, 2008
1923 book about a bookstore-owning miser in London. Can't quite remember how I lucked into reading this now-obscure book, it must have been one of those things stemming from my delving into that period through the door of Knopf's Blue Jade Library opened by Brian Bouldrey's essay.
October 11, 2020
Arnold Bennett has a gift for writing about absolutely ordinary people and events, and making their lives fascinating. I enjoyed this one almost as much as The Old Wives' Tale. The bookshop descriptions, and just picture of how life worked at the time were perfect. I listened to Anthony Ogus read it on Librivox, and his soothing voice found all the nuances for a great reading. This took me a long time, listening piecemeal during a busy work time, and somehow that seemed to make it even better. Elsie, the young servant woman of the Earlforwards, was a very memorable character, with a big heart and some minor flaws.
November 9, 2021
Another great masterpiece was written by this incredible writer.
Free download available at Project Gutenberg
4* Anna of the Five Towns (The Five Towns #2)
3* The Grand Babylon Hotel
3* The Strange Vanguard
5* The Old Wives' Tale (The Five Towns #5)
4* Clayhanger (The Five Towns #6)
4* Riceyman Steps
4* The truth about and author
TR The Card (The Five Towns #7)
TR A Great Man
TR The Lion's Share
TR Hilda Lessways (The Five Towns #8)
Free download available at Project Gutenberg
4* Anna of the Five Towns (The Five Towns #2)
3* The Grand Babylon Hotel
3* The Strange Vanguard
5* The Old Wives' Tale (The Five Towns #5)
4* Clayhanger (The Five Towns #6)
4* Riceyman Steps
4* The truth about and author
TR The Card (The Five Towns #7)
TR A Great Man
TR The Lion's Share
TR Hilda Lessways (The Five Towns #8)
March 18, 2021
A very popular author in his lifetime, Arnold Bennett has been seriously underrated ever since. I consider The Old Wives’ Tale to be one of the best novels of the 20th century and should stand alongside Dickens. While Riceyman Steps is not quite up to that standard, it’s still a fascinating novel. Here he abandons his beloved Potteries for 1920s down-at-heel Clerkenwell in London. It is a story of late blossoming romance between a miserly bookseller, Henry Earlforward and the owner of the sweatshop across the square, Violet Arb.
The chaotic bookshop is virtually a character in its own right. The story starts as a comically tender romance but then spirals into tragedy with their servant, Elsie, providing a fulcrum of loyalty and tenderness. Bennett also, in passing, gives the reader a moving picture of post First World War life and the political struggles going on at the time.
The chaotic bookshop is virtually a character in its own right. The story starts as a comically tender romance but then spirals into tragedy with their servant, Elsie, providing a fulcrum of loyalty and tenderness. Bennett also, in passing, gives the reader a moving picture of post First World War life and the political struggles going on at the time.
January 25, 2012
(btw, don't buy this book; download it!) [return][return]Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett. The novel, Riceyman Steps, though nowhere as successful as his best work Old Wives Tale, nonetheless deserves plaudits for ambition and its tight focus on three expertly-drawn characters. The sentences are beautiful and give profound insights into characters, but lack of incident and forward action leave us with little desire to proceed. Characters don’t really make choices to change their fate; instead, they live on and on, with the occasional traumatic episode thrown in for good measure. The best thing about the work is how it avoids stereotypes about character types; for example, a miser may have real qualms about spending money, but can be persuaded in the right context to spend lavishly (though later he will resent doing so). I had trouble with the ending (which I’ll spell out only obliquely, although there isn’t much suspense); first, why did the novel give so much prominence to Joe (the housekeeper’s boyfriend) near the ending? It seemed out of place. Second, the death doesn’t really have any meaning except to confirm the narrator’s view that people ultimately get what they deserve. Okay, fine, but did the characters really choose their fates (or were they merely burdened by their ill habits?) Bennett doesn’t really present any alternatives; are any people in his world capable of living salutary lifestyles? That, I think, is a flaw of the novel; it fails to give us a glimpse into people who are avoiding the pitfalls of the protagonists. Conspicuously absent are children in this novel; there are literally no opportunities in this novel for the characters to display generosity or affection towards the outside world. How much of this penury is simply a result of the couple’s being childless? Bennett seems convinced that these people are not particularly sinister and even deserving of sympathy; still, the book’s ultimate purpose is moralistic; it exhort us to examine our hearts to see if we possess the same myopic shortcomings.
February 4, 2017
One of the reasons I love early 20th Century English novelist Arnold Bennett is that he is so intuitive about women. His best known novel is "The Old Wives Tale," but I liked all the books.
This one is a caution to everyone not to try too hard to accomodate a loved one who is controlled by an obsession. It can't end well.
Henry Earlforward is a bookseller and miser who in his 50s decides it's time to get married. He is attracted to a lively widow who strikes him as extremely thrifty -- a gal after his own heart. Violet Arb responds to his attentions but doesn't know he is a miser.
Elsie, a salt-of-the-earth charwoman, takes a job in their new household. She has challenges of her own but boatloads of kindness and common sense.
The story transpires in a humble part of London called Clerkenwell. The reader gets to watch what the miserly obsession does to the couple while rooting for life to work out well for Elsie.
This was the only one of Bennett's novels to come close to being a best seller, and it won a literary prize. It's hard to explain why I liked it except to say that all the characters are really powerfully drawn -- their essence, their contradictions, their wavering back and forth. And I'd love for readers in 2017 to start reading Bennett again. He offers lots of quiet wisdom.
This one is a caution to everyone not to try too hard to accomodate a loved one who is controlled by an obsession. It can't end well.
Henry Earlforward is a bookseller and miser who in his 50s decides it's time to get married. He is attracted to a lively widow who strikes him as extremely thrifty -- a gal after his own heart. Violet Arb responds to his attentions but doesn't know he is a miser.
Elsie, a salt-of-the-earth charwoman, takes a job in their new household. She has challenges of her own but boatloads of kindness and common sense.
The story transpires in a humble part of London called Clerkenwell. The reader gets to watch what the miserly obsession does to the couple while rooting for life to work out well for Elsie.
This was the only one of Bennett's novels to come close to being a best seller, and it won a literary prize. It's hard to explain why I liked it except to say that all the characters are really powerfully drawn -- their essence, their contradictions, their wavering back and forth. And I'd love for readers in 2017 to start reading Bennett again. He offers lots of quiet wisdom.
February 3, 2019
I think I may at long last have discovered a novelist of the Victorian, Edwardian and post-Edwardian eras whose writing style doesn’t turn me off. Having struggled with the often turgid and unreadable prose of George Eliot, Anthony Trollope and John Galsworthy, I am very grateful to the friend who nominated ‘Riceyman Steps’ by Arnold Bennett for discussion by the book group I belong to. It’s my first experience of Bennett’s work. And it’s a very good novel.
Published in 1923, ‘Riceyman Steps’ is a bleak but moving account of a man whose life is ruined by his obsessive miserliness. There aren’t many characters (only 3 principal ones, with a small supporting cast). Bennett’s writing style is simple and uncluttered. He does occasionally opt for long sentences. But when he does so, he constructs them in such a way that they are easy to follow. Bennett’s depiction of the King’s Cross and Clerkenwell areas of London at the time are vivid and seemingly authentic. Indeed, there’s something more than a little Dickensian about ‘Riceyman Steps’ (not least its ending, which reminded me of ‘Little Dorrit’). The characterisation is excellent. This is a story that will stay with you for a long time. I recommend it. 8/10.
Published in 1923, ‘Riceyman Steps’ is a bleak but moving account of a man whose life is ruined by his obsessive miserliness. There aren’t many characters (only 3 principal ones, with a small supporting cast). Bennett’s writing style is simple and uncluttered. He does occasionally opt for long sentences. But when he does so, he constructs them in such a way that they are easy to follow. Bennett’s depiction of the King’s Cross and Clerkenwell areas of London at the time are vivid and seemingly authentic. Indeed, there’s something more than a little Dickensian about ‘Riceyman Steps’ (not least its ending, which reminded me of ‘Little Dorrit’). The characterisation is excellent. This is a story that will stay with you for a long time. I recommend it. 8/10.
November 4, 2016
This book impressed me when I read it, but I am left only with some literary impressions, a decade or two later. The chapters are short, and I think that is a key to the success of a story that moves at a careful pace. It is a drily witty novel, not always funny, with an increasing sense of foreboding and sadness. In this, the author seems to capture a major element of life.
I have known misers. This is, arguably, a more realistic treatment of the vice than is the cheerier George Eliot classic, Silas Marner. I will have to re-read Riceyman Steps for a more coherent perspective, but I shall probably read Bennett's other major works, first. Still, my lack of ability to write coherently about it now doesn't diminish my memory of it as a major classic, a brilliant work of no small achievement.
I have known misers. This is, arguably, a more realistic treatment of the vice than is the cheerier George Eliot classic, Silas Marner. I will have to re-read Riceyman Steps for a more coherent perspective, but I shall probably read Bennett's other major works, first. Still, my lack of ability to write coherently about it now doesn't diminish my memory of it as a major classic, a brilliant work of no small achievement.
February 9, 2015
Een man die van middelbare leeftijd die nog gaat trouwen met een weduwe. Dat kan natuurlijk nooit goed gaan. Die man drijft nota bene een winkel in tweedehandsboeken. En hij is een ziekelijke vrek. Dat gaat dus ook niet goed.
Een interessante State of the Nation-novel, die toch nogal gedateerd aandoet. Ondanks de interessante inleiding en voetnoten van Edward Mendelson, die zich in zijn lof voor het boek ("even goed als, nee: béter dan Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence!") zozeer overschreeuwt dat je van de weeromstuit de neiging krijgt vooral Bennetts vele tekortkomingen te gaan opsommen, zoals zijn wat oubollige stijl.
Toch een aardig boek. Een sympathieke auteur.
Een interessante State of the Nation-novel, die toch nogal gedateerd aandoet. Ondanks de interessante inleiding en voetnoten van Edward Mendelson, die zich in zijn lof voor het boek ("even goed als, nee: béter dan Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence!") zozeer overschreeuwt dat je van de weeromstuit de neiging krijgt vooral Bennetts vele tekortkomingen te gaan opsommen, zoals zijn wat oubollige stijl.
Toch een aardig boek. Een sympathieke auteur.
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August 30, 2016This review was deleted following Amazon's purchase of GoodReads.
The review can still be viewed via LibraryThing, where my profile can be found here.
I'm also in the process of building a database at Booklikes, where I can be found here.
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The review can still be viewed via LibraryThing, where my profile can be found here.
I'm also in the process of building a database at Booklikes, where I can be found here.
If you read/liked/clicked through to see this review here on GR, many thanks.
May 17, 2013
The title of this novel still cracks me up.
A good "tail end Victorian" read.
There's a lot of everything you'd expect in a Victorian novel: servants, masters, status negotiations, dramatic deaths, deaths from sorrow, awkward scenes where women are "discovered" with men that aren't their husbands, and by the end of the novel virtually every character is slowly wasting away from a horrible disease. It's a product of its time.
It has some humor in it, which is odd, and fun.
A good "tail end Victorian" read.
There's a lot of everything you'd expect in a Victorian novel: servants, masters, status negotiations, dramatic deaths, deaths from sorrow, awkward scenes where women are "discovered" with men that aren't their husbands, and by the end of the novel virtually every character is slowly wasting away from a horrible disease. It's a product of its time.
It has some humor in it, which is odd, and fun.
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