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South Riding
Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Winifred Holtby's greatest novel was published posthumously
Winifred Holtby's masterpiece is a rich evocation of the lives and relationships of the characters of South Riding. Sarah Burton, the fiery young headmistress of the local girls' school; Mrs Beddows, the district's first alderwoman—based on Holtby's own mother; and Robert Carne, the conservative gentleman-farmer locked in a disastrous marriage—with whom the radical Sarah Burton falls in love. Showing how public decisions can mold the individual, this story offers a panoramic and unforgettable view of Yorkshire life.
Winifred Holtby's masterpiece is a rich evocation of the lives and relationships of the characters of South Riding. Sarah Burton, the fiery young headmistress of the local girls' school; Mrs Beddows, the district's first alderwoman—based on Holtby's own mother; and Robert Carne, the conservative gentleman-farmer locked in a disastrous marriage—with whom the radical Sarah Burton falls in love. Showing how public decisions can mold the individual, this story offers a panoramic and unforgettable view of Yorkshire life.
492 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1936
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About the author
Winifred Holtby
55 books77 followersWinifred Holtby was a committed socialist and feminist who wrote the classic South Riding as a warm yet sharp social critique of the well-to-do farming community she was born into.
She was a good friend of Vera Brittain, possibly portraying her as Delia in The Crowded Street.
She died at the age of 37.
She was a good friend of Vera Brittain, possibly portraying her as Delia in The Crowded Street.
She died at the age of 37.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 447 reviews
June 20, 2022
I can't express just how joyous my experience of reacquainting myself with Winifred Holtby's extraordinary novel was, with its echoes of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, set in Yorkshire, I first read this many years ago. This time I listened to the audio, narrated by Carole Boyd, and over 19 hours long. There is a huge cast of characters, complex and flawed, such as Alderman Emma Beddows, it illustrates the repercussions of the enormous loss of men in WW1, and covers local government politics. It features the return of 40 year old Sarah Burton as the new headmistress of the local girls school, single, daughter of a blacksmith, she is a socialist and feminist with a backbone of pure steel, determined to do the best for her girls, as shown by her fight for her brightest girl, Lydia Holly. She falls in love with school governor, traditional conservative gentleman farmer, the opposite of everything she stands for politically, Robert Carne, his wife in a expensive asylum, his financial fortunes and health set on a downward spiral.
This is a novel of hope amidst the numerous challenges faced by many of the characters, and the obstacles that lie in Sarah Burton's path. I cannot recommend this exquisite and insightful novel highly enough to all readers.
This is a novel of hope amidst the numerous challenges faced by many of the characters, and the obstacles that lie in Sarah Burton's path. I cannot recommend this exquisite and insightful novel highly enough to all readers.
February 22, 2022
An extraordinary book.
Please, please consider putting this on your to-be-read list! 🙂 🙃 🙂 🙃
I don’t know where to begin and what to put down about this book. I will say that about a third of the way through I was comparing it to Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio, which I loved. And thinking to myself “This is going to be a 5-star book...a book I would give 7 stars to if I could”.
What is good to know is that I am not the only one who feels this way:
• Sarah Waters, a well-respected UK author, who said, ‘I can’t say enough good things about this book.’
• It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1936.
• The BBC in 2011 made it into a 3-part series, and PBS in the US picked it up later that year.
• The book has never been out of print since it was originally published in 1936
• The book I read from was Virago Modern Classic and of course that is a portent that it is a fine book.
How in the world would I give a book 5 stars to a book that had these titles for the 8 parts of it (49 chapters in all)?
• BOOK I: EDUCATION
• BOOK II: HIGHWAYS AND BRIDGES
• BOOK III: AGRICULTURE AND SMALL-HOLDINGS
• BOOK IV: PUBLIC HEALTH
• BOOK V: PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
• BOOK VI: MENTAL DEFICIENCY
• BOOK VII: FINANCE
• BOOK VIII: HOUSING AND TOWN PLANNING
A novel about local government in the fictional area of Yorkshire, South Riding, being interesting? Yes, indeed. The characters are so interesting and so realistic...Sarah Burton, headmistress of the school for girls, approaching 40 years old, her nemesis Robert Carne, a farmer who was once rich but is growing increasingly poorer every day because his wife is in an insane asylum, Lydia Holly a teenage girl who is gifted in Sarah Burton’s school but is forced to leave it because her mother who she loved fiercely died and she has to take care of her many brothers and sisters...Alderman Snaith who seems to be a plotter and schemer and one of the bad guys in the book.....
In this book, nobody is as good as you would initially think them to be, and nobody is as bad as you would initially think them to be. I think that is no small feat — usually an author shows somebody initially in one way and gradually throughout the book they morph more and more into that persona. Not always in this novel. So, given there is some shift to the middle in terms of likability what do you end up with after 515 pages? You end up somewhat liking almost everybody in the book. Sort of like “there but for the grace of God go I”. Or what Jesus said: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. And what happened after he said that? Nobody threw a stone. We’re all not what we’re cracked up to be, and we’re not all that bad, either.
There are so many characters in this book Winifred Holtby at the beginning had a list of their names and how they figured into the book (maybe they were a student at the school or the tom-cat owned by Alderman Snaith). The list was 5 pages long! (But I was able to keep track of most of them in the book...)
I have read some reviews and a number of them picked up on something the main character said.... for whatever reason I thought it was clever at the time, when I was growing to really like Sarah Burton, the headmistress of the school for girls in South Riding: I was born to be a spinster, and by God, I’m going to spin. (I did not know that there was a surplus of unmarried women, aka spinsters, in the UK after World War One because so many men had died in the war. 🙁)
This was a book of meta-fiction. Her mother wouldn’t read the book and tried to stop its publication.
The author had scarlet fever as a girl and as a result, her kidneys unbeknownst to her were damaged. She was diagnosed as having Bright’s Disease (sclerosis of the kidneys or neuritis) in her early 30s and died of the disease at age 37, months before her book was published. She was determined to finish the book before dying and accomplished that. One of the symptoms of Bright’s Disease is crippling back pain, and she suffered from that and fatigue while writing this book. At least one character in the book had crippling chronic pain from cancer...it was hard to read because it seemed so real. And to Winifred Holtby, it was.
Vera Brittain was a very close friend of hers...Holtby lived with Brittain and her husband for a while and Brittain’s husband was jealous of their friendship. Brittain wrote an epitaph on the last three pages of the book.
Here is a link to a Wikipedia page chronicling her remarkable life. She did so much in those 37 years! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifre...
Reviews:
• She nails how I felt!!! https://bookssnob.wordpress.com/2011/...
• https://katiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019...
•
Please put this on your TBR list!!! And let me know what you think of it after you read it!
Please, please consider putting this on your to-be-read list! 🙂 🙃 🙂 🙃
I don’t know where to begin and what to put down about this book. I will say that about a third of the way through I was comparing it to Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio, which I loved. And thinking to myself “This is going to be a 5-star book...a book I would give 7 stars to if I could”.
What is good to know is that I am not the only one who feels this way:
• Sarah Waters, a well-respected UK author, who said, ‘I can’t say enough good things about this book.’
• It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1936.
• The BBC in 2011 made it into a 3-part series, and PBS in the US picked it up later that year.
• The book has never been out of print since it was originally published in 1936
• The book I read from was Virago Modern Classic and of course that is a portent that it is a fine book.
How in the world would I give a book 5 stars to a book that had these titles for the 8 parts of it (49 chapters in all)?
• BOOK I: EDUCATION
• BOOK II: HIGHWAYS AND BRIDGES
• BOOK III: AGRICULTURE AND SMALL-HOLDINGS
• BOOK IV: PUBLIC HEALTH
• BOOK V: PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
• BOOK VI: MENTAL DEFICIENCY
• BOOK VII: FINANCE
• BOOK VIII: HOUSING AND TOWN PLANNING
A novel about local government in the fictional area of Yorkshire, South Riding, being interesting? Yes, indeed. The characters are so interesting and so realistic...Sarah Burton, headmistress of the school for girls, approaching 40 years old, her nemesis Robert Carne, a farmer who was once rich but is growing increasingly poorer every day because his wife is in an insane asylum, Lydia Holly a teenage girl who is gifted in Sarah Burton’s school but is forced to leave it because her mother who she loved fiercely died and she has to take care of her many brothers and sisters...Alderman Snaith who seems to be a plotter and schemer and one of the bad guys in the book.....
In this book, nobody is as good as you would initially think them to be, and nobody is as bad as you would initially think them to be. I think that is no small feat — usually an author shows somebody initially in one way and gradually throughout the book they morph more and more into that persona. Not always in this novel. So, given there is some shift to the middle in terms of likability what do you end up with after 515 pages? You end up somewhat liking almost everybody in the book. Sort of like “there but for the grace of God go I”. Or what Jesus said: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. And what happened after he said that? Nobody threw a stone. We’re all not what we’re cracked up to be, and we’re not all that bad, either.
There are so many characters in this book Winifred Holtby at the beginning had a list of their names and how they figured into the book (maybe they were a student at the school or the tom-cat owned by Alderman Snaith). The list was 5 pages long! (But I was able to keep track of most of them in the book...)
I have read some reviews and a number of them picked up on something the main character said.... for whatever reason I thought it was clever at the time, when I was growing to really like Sarah Burton, the headmistress of the school for girls in South Riding: I was born to be a spinster, and by God, I’m going to spin. (I did not know that there was a surplus of unmarried women, aka spinsters, in the UK after World War One because so many men had died in the war. 🙁)
This was a book of meta-fiction. Her mother wouldn’t read the book and tried to stop its publication.
The author had scarlet fever as a girl and as a result, her kidneys unbeknownst to her were damaged. She was diagnosed as having Bright’s Disease (sclerosis of the kidneys or neuritis) in her early 30s and died of the disease at age 37, months before her book was published. She was determined to finish the book before dying and accomplished that. One of the symptoms of Bright’s Disease is crippling back pain, and she suffered from that and fatigue while writing this book. At least one character in the book had crippling chronic pain from cancer...it was hard to read because it seemed so real. And to Winifred Holtby, it was.
Vera Brittain was a very close friend of hers...Holtby lived with Brittain and her husband for a while and Brittain’s husband was jealous of their friendship. Brittain wrote an epitaph on the last three pages of the book.
Here is a link to a Wikipedia page chronicling her remarkable life. She did so much in those 37 years! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifre...
Reviews:
• She nails how I felt!!! https://bookssnob.wordpress.com/2011/...
• https://katiesbookblog.blogspot.com/2...
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
• https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019...
•
Please put this on your TBR list!!! And let me know what you think of it after you read it!
August 8, 2020
This is Winifred Holtby’s last novel and she wrote knowing of her own imminent death. It is both vast and narrow in its scope at the same time. Its length and the varied and large array of characters reminded me of Victorian novelists like Eliot and Dickens. There are over 160 characters in the character list. It is set in Yorkshire in a fictional South Riding. The geographical area is the one Holtby grew up in and is in actuality the East Riding of Yorkshire, the area just north of the Humber centred on the city of Hull (Kingsport in the book); an area I know well. Holtby captures the area well, the people and its geography.
Holtby was a committed pacifist, socialist and feminist, a close friend of Vera Brittain. She has thrown everything into this novel; as you would if you knew your time was limited. The novel looks at change; old and new ways of doing things and the tensions attendant with that. It is partly based on Holtby’s mothers experience as an alderman and on her experience of local government (her mother opposed her writing the novel). The main protagonist of the novel is Sarah Burton, newly appointed headmistress of a girl’s school, moving back to the area of her birth; she is 40, single, a socialist and committed to the education of women. Robert Carne is a gentleman-farmer, struggling to make ends meet because his wife is in an asylum (an expensive one) and trying to bring up his daughter alone. He is conservative, reactionary, enamoured of the old ways of farming, a keen hunter and essentially patriarchal. There are a large number of significant characters and the main characters don’t appear in large portions of the novel. All of the characters are well drawn; they all have significant faults and failings. The alert amongst you will have noticed something about the two main characters; a touch of the Jane Eyre’s perhaps. I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence and among the many strands in the novel is a reworking of the Jane Eyre/Rochester relationship.
The complexities and frustrations of English local government are writ large;
“Without emotion, without haste, without even, so far as Lovell could discern, any noticeable interest, the South Riding County Council ploughed through its agenda. The General mumbled; the clerk shuffled papers, the chairman of committees answered desultory questions”
This enables Holtby to deal with the issues she felt were important; education, public health and the eradication of treatable diseases, ignorance, poverty and unemployment. It also allows Holtby to explore the irritations and corruptions inherent in the system and she does so with a good deal of relish. The secondary characters are also well drawn and not there to make up numbers. Holtby illustrates one of her primary beliefs “We are all member of one another” and writes it large here.
Holtby provides no neatly tied ends and happy endings and her characters sometimes have a difficult time of it, but there is still running through a sense of the need for the struggle to improve the lot of people especially through socialism and feminism; it isn’t a depressing book.
Holtby deals with difficult subjects. The history of Robert Carne’s wife and her internment in an asylum is very much the way the middle classes dealt with mental ill health. Holtby makes even her less savoury characters human with likeable qualities, but she leaves the reader to judge; the other characters not knowing all the picture make their own mistakes. In this context with Carne there is one piece of information, a marital rape, which the reader knows (eventually), but no one else does. It’s a telling piece of writing and makes the reader thoroughly uncomfortable; one knows a secret and nothing can be done with it. Holtby is perceptive in her understanding of male sexuality.
This is a tour de force and a great novel.
Holtby was a committed pacifist, socialist and feminist, a close friend of Vera Brittain. She has thrown everything into this novel; as you would if you knew your time was limited. The novel looks at change; old and new ways of doing things and the tensions attendant with that. It is partly based on Holtby’s mothers experience as an alderman and on her experience of local government (her mother opposed her writing the novel). The main protagonist of the novel is Sarah Burton, newly appointed headmistress of a girl’s school, moving back to the area of her birth; she is 40, single, a socialist and committed to the education of women. Robert Carne is a gentleman-farmer, struggling to make ends meet because his wife is in an asylum (an expensive one) and trying to bring up his daughter alone. He is conservative, reactionary, enamoured of the old ways of farming, a keen hunter and essentially patriarchal. There are a large number of significant characters and the main characters don’t appear in large portions of the novel. All of the characters are well drawn; they all have significant faults and failings. The alert amongst you will have noticed something about the two main characters; a touch of the Jane Eyre’s perhaps. I’m sure this isn’t a coincidence and among the many strands in the novel is a reworking of the Jane Eyre/Rochester relationship.
The complexities and frustrations of English local government are writ large;
“Without emotion, without haste, without even, so far as Lovell could discern, any noticeable interest, the South Riding County Council ploughed through its agenda. The General mumbled; the clerk shuffled papers, the chairman of committees answered desultory questions”
This enables Holtby to deal with the issues she felt were important; education, public health and the eradication of treatable diseases, ignorance, poverty and unemployment. It also allows Holtby to explore the irritations and corruptions inherent in the system and she does so with a good deal of relish. The secondary characters are also well drawn and not there to make up numbers. Holtby illustrates one of her primary beliefs “We are all member of one another” and writes it large here.
Holtby provides no neatly tied ends and happy endings and her characters sometimes have a difficult time of it, but there is still running through a sense of the need for the struggle to improve the lot of people especially through socialism and feminism; it isn’t a depressing book.
Holtby deals with difficult subjects. The history of Robert Carne’s wife and her internment in an asylum is very much the way the middle classes dealt with mental ill health. Holtby makes even her less savoury characters human with likeable qualities, but she leaves the reader to judge; the other characters not knowing all the picture make their own mistakes. In this context with Carne there is one piece of information, a marital rape, which the reader knows (eventually), but no one else does. It’s a telling piece of writing and makes the reader thoroughly uncomfortable; one knows a secret and nothing can be done with it. Holtby is perceptive in her understanding of male sexuality.
This is a tour de force and a great novel.
March 24, 2013
So this is one of Those Books. For me, there are two categories of books. Those that change your life, those which you started in a certain way and ended up changed when closing them. Such books are rare and precious. And then there are the ones that make you feel as if the author had extended a hand and held yours, that for the duration of your reading, you found a mirror so perfect it validated everything you'd been and everything you wished to be. This is such a book. It's about the value of education, the value of change. How in order to inspire, you need to be inspired. It's about happiness and fulfillment and about responsibility and choices. It's also about Sarah Burton who's probably the best character I've ever encountered in all of literature. I don't even know where to begin except that I hope I'm her and I want to be her when becoming myself. That is all. I realise I haven't talked about the book much so here's a quote. This is why this book is special, because it's about this:
'We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage, to take our future into our hands. If the law is oppressive, we must change the law. If tradition is obstructive, we must break tradition. If the system is unjust, we must reform the system.'
Suffice it to say I've probably been looking for this book my whole life. Well here it is. Finally.
'We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage, to take our future into our hands. If the law is oppressive, we must change the law. If tradition is obstructive, we must break tradition. If the system is unjust, we must reform the system.'
Suffice it to say I've probably been looking for this book my whole life. Well here it is. Finally.
July 30, 2021
South Riding is an ambitious novel about the lives and politics of a town in Yorkshire. It is set in that particularly anxious time between the two world wars. We, who are so removed from it, can never understand the horror of living with the young men lost and trembling at the thought of another war. Holtby is like a modern day Dickens, filling her story with over 160 individuals. And at over 500 pages, she does fill the reader up to the brim. Only a handful of characters are fleshed out, but they are all human and complicated with good, as well as bad qualities.
I just finished Thrush Green, which is similar only in that it is about a country town in England. Here, there is heartache and the sordid doings of real people; whereas, Thrush Green is almost a fantasy. The worst people in Thrush Green are a cranky old woman and a petty thief. Here we find an alderman twisted by sexual abuse as a child, mothers who overburdened with children and work, die before their time and every sort of misery that can be imagined.
With all of that it is not a depressing novel, because the characters live and learn, and find solace in work and going forward, especially when you don't feel like it. This is a feminist novel, quite startling for the time period, I bet. It was published in 1935. The main character, Sarah Burton is a dynamic, headstrong schoolteacher with refreshing ideas about girls getting ahead through education. Her main foe in this endeavor is a handsome local farmer, Mr. Carne who while a good and decent man is very traditional and conservative.
I just finished Thrush Green, which is similar only in that it is about a country town in England. Here, there is heartache and the sordid doings of real people; whereas, Thrush Green is almost a fantasy. The worst people in Thrush Green are a cranky old woman and a petty thief. Here we find an alderman twisted by sexual abuse as a child, mothers who overburdened with children and work, die before their time and every sort of misery that can be imagined.
With all of that it is not a depressing novel, because the characters live and learn, and find solace in work and going forward, especially when you don't feel like it. This is a feminist novel, quite startling for the time period, I bet. It was published in 1935. The main character, Sarah Burton is a dynamic, headstrong schoolteacher with refreshing ideas about girls getting ahead through education. Her main foe in this endeavor is a handsome local farmer, Mr. Carne who while a good and decent man is very traditional and conservative.
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October 4, 2021Describing a book as the great novel of 1930s English local government and regional newspapers, is not the most ringing of endorsements. Another way to approach this mosaic novel is to, with slight misdirection, describe it as another modern Jane Eyre, or properly speaking Holtby plays with some tropes of Romantic fiction and it occurred to me (particularly given my vast, rich knowledge of romantic fiction) that the trail ran quickly to Miss Eyre and her not so demonic lover Mr Rochester.
In place of Eyre and Rochester we have Miss Sarah Burton MA & the tall, dark and handsome (presumably with his own teeth) Robert Carne. Representing the eternal battle between Sarah Burton and the spiritual ideals of progress, education, leading forth into a world of Enlightenment versus Carne representing the fleshly principles of paying less tax, the natural rhythms of the agricultural world, the fleeting earthly pleasures of wielding sharp agricultural implements to get the harvest in and Angina Pectoris. Both Carne and Rochester have mad first wives, Carne in this book has outsourced her care to a nursing home, rather than using the more traditional attic and gin sozzled nurse, both have daughters, both of whom are treacherously inclined to foreign countries - one to France, the other to Shropshire (which for non-Britons is certainly not Yorkshire, and this is a fairly out and proud YORKSHIRE FIRST novel). Both books shared a notion of hereditary and particularly of decay, in Jane this comes from race or nation, here instead it is vested in social status, it is the titled aristocracy who are polluted and polluting, nothing apparently can be done for them, apart from to keep them eventually in care homes, they are essentially too high-strung, over sensitive, incapable probably of truly appreciating a proper cup of tea.
Even though the relationship between Burton and Carne plays with some classic tropes: they start as enemies, then grow to hate each other before their eyes met across a pregnant heifer, before she in her glad rags, help him to deliver the calf (like I said this is a Yorkshire novel with proper no nonsense Yorkshire women, her father was a blacksmith and her mum a midwife so naturally she can deliver calves while not sober and on her way home from a party).
But swiftly one has to admit to Holtby's subversive drive, once the hopeless science teacher Miss Agnes Sigglesthwaite BSc has resigned and finds alternative employment as a ladies companion reading romantic fiction to her chair bound employer, Miss Burton MA, Headmistress extraordinaire amuses herself with the thought of Sigglesthwaite stumbling in her reading over unfamiliar words for varieties of Ladies underwear not within the vocabulary of a 1930s maiden school teacher. However Miss Burton's underwear will be likewise appraised and appreciated but not by a lover but by an awestruck pupil, and when she does win a night with the saturnine and manly Carne, they have a few pages together brilliant to the reader but not so for them. Carne represents both the temptations of the flesh, and the way of all flesh, Miss Burton true to her calling to be a reforming and energetic headmistress of a girl's senior school, represents the spirit, though admittedly a spiritual being who nonetheless requires underwear and appropriate overwear. Her long term reaction to a night of dancing and seduction somehow goes beyond subversion to both reject the conventions of a romantic novel but embracing the role of love in a human heart in a more fundamental way.
This is a big fat, life affirming book, but also one that is full of death. The shadow of the first world war falls over most of the pages and the shadow of the next war falls over many of the others. There is the continual sense of the men left in France, then the survivors men altered in body and soul by their experience, and the women who have to deal with them or do without out them (there is a sense of how the unmarried order of schoolmistresses is one that is entered into as much as a practical response to there not being men to marry as in response to a vocation to a higher calling.
Subversion is also there in other ways, one of the charms of the book are the relationships between women, particularly between Sarah Burton and elderly Alderman Emma Beddows. Sarah buttonholes Emma to try and rescue one of her school girls Lydia Holly. Sarah thinks she is is a brilliant child full of promise but which will be wasted as since her mother has died she will be dragged from school to become principal carer for her younger siblings (the father is a charming rascal who can barely hold down a job let alone run a household). Sarah has a plan which she persuades Emma to help deliver, but here subversion intervenes on the part of the author. The women work together to rescue the girl and give her a chance at life, but in the end she is saved from the housework by the most traditional method possible - her Father deploys his charm and finds a new wife. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Holtby seems to say. One woman's opportunity may come at another woman's cost, but life is not a simple matter of bookkeeping.
Aside from subversion the novel is about Public service and vocation, perhaps I might better say service as self actualisation, or maybe the other way round. This isn't a conventional novel, but a mosaic, you could plot it out on paper, drawing Venn diagrams - it would be interesting to see the many many characters who don't come into direct contact with other other, instead Holtby presents with dozens, maybe even a gross of situations, certain of which overlap or interlock like cogs and give an impression of life in her fictional South Riding of Yorkshire, you could grab two copies of the book and attack them with scissors and a pot of glue and recreate the novel as a set of short stories in a common setting instead, there are so many situations and hub characters that in a five hundred (give or take) page novel, no one story would actual be that long, even those of Sarah Burton (idealistic headteacher returning to her home country) or Emma Beddows (long standing Alderman on the local council) or Robert Carne (slowly failing gentleman farmer). Because of this pattern we are pushed away from identifying with any one character and obliged to look for their connections instead and we have to accept that some things are happening off the page for characters that might be alluded to in some narratives, but not shown directly to the reader. It is plainly far more sophisticated and ambitious than say The Citadel and not a monotone like Keep the Aspidistra Flying, the effect is ambiguous and complex. The other book to compare it with I feel is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie which takes a similar them - the superfluous woman of the inter-war years devoting herself to the education of girls in an ideal direction, but interprets it from a much darker viewpoint, as one might expect from Muriel Spark. Nothing in South Riding though is completely straightforward either. The nearest thing to wickedness in the book are the shenanigans of Alderman Snaith, a strange businessman, apparently sexual abused as a boy by a group of men who is adapt at manipulation particularly of Councillor Huggins, skirt-chaser and Methodist Lay preacher. Snaith's scheme to push for the building of a road through a tract of wetland to allow for a housing development (and subsequent and not irrelevant changes in land values) provides the momentum for a unifying theme and movement in the novel as a whole. The scheming is self-serving, but will also provide positive opportunities for others, including heroic Miss Sarah Burton MA, but we also see that Snaith and Huggins are not just greedy or evil, Huggins is sexually frustrated by his wife's hairnet while Snaith has false teeth and we see him gasping and overwhelmed by emotion, he plainly is a damaged and complex individual, his sybaritic indulgences of softened water and scented soap suggest an unyorkshireness amusing to behold.
A few passages pointed towards some of the ideas that Holtby was playing with in her book:"we need courage, not so much to endure as to act. All this resignation stunts us. We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable, that we don't even ask if it is inevitable" (p.197), here the idea of the pursuit of fulfilment of personal capacity in the form of education (Sarah Burton) versus the higher Providence (Emma Beddows) is connected with the central thought of does one work to transform systems radically (like Snaith building his road and housing estate, and in the process maybe enriching speculators and corrupt politicians) or does one work within existing systems and attempt to ameliorate and soft the edges of great human suffering as Alderman Astell on the public Assistance committee wonders"He should be up, away, fighting to change the system, not content to render first aid to its victims" (p.293 ), the problem Holtby suggests is of the whole of society as Emma Beddows prepares for Christmas the narrative voice interjects: "The indictment of a social system lay in those drawers if they but knew it - a system which overworks eight-tenths of its female population, & gives the remaining two-tenths so little to do that they must clutter the world with useless objects." (p.380) (knitted bed jackets, imitation fruits, lampshades, painted vases etc), the diverted passions of Sarah Burton into education or of Alderman Beddows into the local council suggest a way forward, social change eventually leading towards a society that if not good for all is at least better.
Although a maid is described as being trilingual - speaking BBC English to her employer, cinema American with her friends and dialect to the milkman. The language of the novel is almost entirely standard British English.
Remarkably this novel was completely shortly before Holtby's own death, she imagines vividly the lives and potentials of characters far older and worn than she would ever be herself.
In place of Eyre and Rochester we have Miss Sarah Burton MA & the tall, dark and handsome (presumably with his own teeth) Robert Carne. Representing the eternal battle between Sarah Burton and the spiritual ideals of progress, education, leading forth into a world of Enlightenment versus Carne representing the fleshly principles of paying less tax, the natural rhythms of the agricultural world, the fleeting earthly pleasures of wielding sharp agricultural implements to get the harvest in and Angina Pectoris. Both Carne and Rochester have mad first wives, Carne in this book has outsourced her care to a nursing home, rather than using the more traditional attic and gin sozzled nurse, both have daughters, both of whom are treacherously inclined to foreign countries - one to France, the other to Shropshire (which for non-Britons is certainly not Yorkshire, and this is a fairly out and proud YORKSHIRE FIRST novel). Both books shared a notion of hereditary and particularly of decay, in Jane this comes from race or nation, here instead it is vested in social status, it is the titled aristocracy who are polluted and polluting, nothing apparently can be done for them, apart from to keep them eventually in care homes, they are essentially too high-strung, over sensitive, incapable probably of truly appreciating a proper cup of tea.
Even though the relationship between Burton and Carne plays with some classic tropes: they start as enemies, then grow to hate each other before their eyes met across a pregnant heifer, before she in her glad rags, help him to deliver the calf (like I said this is a Yorkshire novel with proper no nonsense Yorkshire women, her father was a blacksmith and her mum a midwife so naturally she can deliver calves while not sober and on her way home from a party).
But swiftly one has to admit to Holtby's subversive drive, once the hopeless science teacher Miss Agnes Sigglesthwaite BSc has resigned and finds alternative employment as a ladies companion reading romantic fiction to her chair bound employer, Miss Burton MA, Headmistress extraordinaire amuses herself with the thought of Sigglesthwaite stumbling in her reading over unfamiliar words for varieties of Ladies underwear not within the vocabulary of a 1930s maiden school teacher. However Miss Burton's underwear will be likewise appraised and appreciated but not by a lover but by an awestruck pupil, and when she does win a night with the saturnine and manly Carne, they have a few pages together brilliant to the reader but not so for them. Carne represents both the temptations of the flesh, and the way of all flesh, Miss Burton true to her calling to be a reforming and energetic headmistress of a girl's senior school, represents the spirit, though admittedly a spiritual being who nonetheless requires underwear and appropriate overwear. Her long term reaction to a night of dancing and seduction somehow goes beyond subversion to both reject the conventions of a romantic novel but embracing the role of love in a human heart in a more fundamental way.
This is a big fat, life affirming book, but also one that is full of death. The shadow of the first world war falls over most of the pages and the shadow of the next war falls over many of the others. There is the continual sense of the men left in France, then the survivors men altered in body and soul by their experience, and the women who have to deal with them or do without out them (there is a sense of how the unmarried order of schoolmistresses is one that is entered into as much as a practical response to there not being men to marry as in response to a vocation to a higher calling.
Subversion is also there in other ways, one of the charms of the book are the relationships between women, particularly between Sarah Burton and elderly Alderman Emma Beddows. Sarah buttonholes Emma to try and rescue one of her school girls Lydia Holly. Sarah thinks she is is a brilliant child full of promise but which will be wasted as since her mother has died she will be dragged from school to become principal carer for her younger siblings (the father is a charming rascal who can barely hold down a job let alone run a household). Sarah has a plan which she persuades Emma to help deliver, but here subversion intervenes on the part of the author. The women work together to rescue the girl and give her a chance at life, but in the end she is saved from the housework by the most traditional method possible - her Father deploys his charm and finds a new wife. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Holtby seems to say. One woman's opportunity may come at another woman's cost, but life is not a simple matter of bookkeeping.
Aside from subversion the novel is about Public service and vocation, perhaps I might better say service as self actualisation, or maybe the other way round. This isn't a conventional novel, but a mosaic, you could plot it out on paper, drawing Venn diagrams - it would be interesting to see the many many characters who don't come into direct contact with other other, instead Holtby presents with dozens, maybe even a gross of situations, certain of which overlap or interlock like cogs and give an impression of life in her fictional South Riding of Yorkshire, you could grab two copies of the book and attack them with scissors and a pot of glue and recreate the novel as a set of short stories in a common setting instead, there are so many situations and hub characters that in a five hundred (give or take) page novel, no one story would actual be that long, even those of Sarah Burton (idealistic headteacher returning to her home country) or Emma Beddows (long standing Alderman on the local council) or Robert Carne (slowly failing gentleman farmer). Because of this pattern we are pushed away from identifying with any one character and obliged to look for their connections instead and we have to accept that some things are happening off the page for characters that might be alluded to in some narratives, but not shown directly to the reader. It is plainly far more sophisticated and ambitious than say The Citadel and not a monotone like Keep the Aspidistra Flying, the effect is ambiguous and complex. The other book to compare it with I feel is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie which takes a similar them - the superfluous woman of the inter-war years devoting herself to the education of girls in an ideal direction, but interprets it from a much darker viewpoint, as one might expect from Muriel Spark. Nothing in South Riding though is completely straightforward either. The nearest thing to wickedness in the book are the shenanigans of Alderman Snaith, a strange businessman, apparently sexual abused as a boy by a group of men who is adapt at manipulation particularly of Councillor Huggins, skirt-chaser and Methodist Lay preacher. Snaith's scheme to push for the building of a road through a tract of wetland to allow for a housing development (and subsequent and not irrelevant changes in land values) provides the momentum for a unifying theme and movement in the novel as a whole. The scheming is self-serving, but will also provide positive opportunities for others, including heroic Miss Sarah Burton MA, but we also see that Snaith and Huggins are not just greedy or evil, Huggins is sexually frustrated by his wife's hairnet while Snaith has false teeth and we see him gasping and overwhelmed by emotion, he plainly is a damaged and complex individual, his sybaritic indulgences of softened water and scented soap suggest an unyorkshireness amusing to behold.
A few passages pointed towards some of the ideas that Holtby was playing with in her book:"we need courage, not so much to endure as to act. All this resignation stunts us. We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable, that we don't even ask if it is inevitable" (p.197), here the idea of the pursuit of fulfilment of personal capacity in the form of education (Sarah Burton) versus the higher Providence (Emma Beddows) is connected with the central thought of does one work to transform systems radically (like Snaith building his road and housing estate, and in the process maybe enriching speculators and corrupt politicians) or does one work within existing systems and attempt to ameliorate and soft the edges of great human suffering as Alderman Astell on the public Assistance committee wonders"He should be up, away, fighting to change the system, not content to render first aid to its victims" (p.293 ), the problem Holtby suggests is of the whole of society as Emma Beddows prepares for Christmas the narrative voice interjects: "The indictment of a social system lay in those drawers if they but knew it - a system which overworks eight-tenths of its female population, & gives the remaining two-tenths so little to do that they must clutter the world with useless objects." (p.380) (knitted bed jackets, imitation fruits, lampshades, painted vases etc), the diverted passions of Sarah Burton into education or of Alderman Beddows into the local council suggest a way forward, social change eventually leading towards a society that if not good for all is at least better.
Although a maid is described as being trilingual - speaking BBC English to her employer, cinema American with her friends and dialect to the milkman. The language of the novel is almost entirely standard British English.
Remarkably this novel was completely shortly before Holtby's own death, she imagines vividly the lives and potentials of characters far older and worn than she would ever be herself.
April 1, 2024
This thought provoking book earned an easy 5★ from me.
My edition had a Characters' List & I thought I would be referring to all the time, but all the cast in this book were so well drawn, so vivid, that I had no problems remembering them all all.
Set in the fictional area of South Riding in Yorkshire in the background and we know what the writer only intuits (that WW2 will happen) For me Sarah the brash new headmistress is the central character, but the sly & evil Snaith & the doings of the local council are also important - & recent experiences in New Zealand regarding councils have me thinking that Holtby knew a lot about human nature!
Two things that interested me. (well, a lot of themes & ideas in this book interested me, but I'll just pick out these two.)
1.
A brilliant book (just when I thought one solution was a bit too pat, Holtby rescued it with some more of the less attractive sides of human nature) & it is sad that Holtby (who died when only 37) didn't live to see it published.
My edition had a Characters' List & I thought I would be referring to all the time, but all the cast in this book were so well drawn, so vivid, that I had no problems remembering them all all.
Set in the fictional area of South Riding in Yorkshire in the background and we know what the writer only intuits (that WW2 will happen) For me Sarah the brash new headmistress is the central character, but the sly & evil Snaith & the doings of the local council are also important - & recent experiences in New Zealand regarding councils have me thinking that Holtby knew a lot about human nature!
Two things that interested me. (well, a lot of themes & ideas in this book interested me, but I'll just pick out these two.)
1.
A brilliant book (just when I thought one solution was a bit too pat, Holtby rescued it with some more of the less attractive sides of human nature) & it is sad that Holtby (who died when only 37) didn't live to see it published.
June 5, 2022
Free for Audible-UK-Plus members!
This book surprised me.
First of all, it is not just about a girls school in Yorkshire, England, during the 1930s. It is in fact more about the workings of a rural county council--those seeking to make private gain, those interested in attaining a high social position and those truly interested in providing a service for the benefit of the community. There are those that put themselves out on a limb, those who play safe and those who go brazenly, headfirst, out in battle. Some focus on ideological principles. Others prioritize the welfare of community inhabitants. What comes through loud and clear is the importance of civic duty.
Secondly, despite the large cast of characters. it is easier than you’d think to remember who is who. The author gives us events to hang up on each character. She also comes with a hint or a reminder occasionally. This is done unobtrusively. Moreover, the further one reads, the easier it becomes to immediately recognize who is speaking or being referred to. This is because each character begins to stand out as a unique individual with an identity all their own. Each has their own peculiarities. You simply can no longer mix them up!
You are sure to find a character or two that you empathize with, feel for and / or admire. There are all different ages to choose from.
Something new is always happening. The story moves along at a rapid clip. It never drags.
As you reach the end, the author ties the characters together again. You realize that each character and each event has had a purpose, a role to fill. None are superfluous. I like this.
Taste the writing with this one quote:
“We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage, to take our future into our hands. If the law is oppressive, we must change the law. If tradition is obstructive, we must break tradition. If the system is unjust, we must reform the system.”
The tale has a clear message, and I like what it is saying.
Carole Boyd reads the audiobook. Most people like dramatization by voice-over artists. I am the exception. I just want to be able to hear very clearly the words the author has written. The narration dove me batty. Why? Because the volume and strength of Boyd’s voice goes up and down, up and down, up and down. One minute she was screaming and the next minute whispering. This is done in an effort to dramatize the different parts. I could never set the volume at a good level. All the time I had to be futzing with the damn button! Maybe this is a fault in the recording. I don’t know, but it drove me nuts. It was impossible for me to enjoy the narration. One star for the narration. The fluctuating volume made it difficult at the start to hear the names. The dialect was harder to follow. Much I had to listen to several times in order to decipher the words of the text! I have given the narration one star; it is not to my liking.
This book surprised me.
First of all, it is not just about a girls school in Yorkshire, England, during the 1930s. It is in fact more about the workings of a rural county council--those seeking to make private gain, those interested in attaining a high social position and those truly interested in providing a service for the benefit of the community. There are those that put themselves out on a limb, those who play safe and those who go brazenly, headfirst, out in battle. Some focus on ideological principles. Others prioritize the welfare of community inhabitants. What comes through loud and clear is the importance of civic duty.
Secondly, despite the large cast of characters. it is easier than you’d think to remember who is who. The author gives us events to hang up on each character. She also comes with a hint or a reminder occasionally. This is done unobtrusively. Moreover, the further one reads, the easier it becomes to immediately recognize who is speaking or being referred to. This is because each character begins to stand out as a unique individual with an identity all their own. Each has their own peculiarities. You simply can no longer mix them up!
You are sure to find a character or two that you empathize with, feel for and / or admire. There are all different ages to choose from.
Something new is always happening. The story moves along at a rapid clip. It never drags.
As you reach the end, the author ties the characters together again. You realize that each character and each event has had a purpose, a role to fill. None are superfluous. I like this.
Taste the writing with this one quote:
“We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage, to take our future into our hands. If the law is oppressive, we must change the law. If tradition is obstructive, we must break tradition. If the system is unjust, we must reform the system.”
The tale has a clear message, and I like what it is saying.
Carole Boyd reads the audiobook. Most people like dramatization by voice-over artists. I am the exception. I just want to be able to hear very clearly the words the author has written. The narration dove me batty. Why? Because the volume and strength of Boyd’s voice goes up and down, up and down, up and down. One minute she was screaming and the next minute whispering. This is done in an effort to dramatize the different parts. I could never set the volume at a good level. All the time I had to be futzing with the damn button! Maybe this is a fault in the recording. I don’t know, but it drove me nuts. It was impossible for me to enjoy the narration. One star for the narration. The fluctuating volume made it difficult at the start to hear the names. The dialect was harder to follow. Much I had to listen to several times in order to decipher the words of the text! I have given the narration one star; it is not to my liking.
April 10, 2022
I was inspired by the recent Backlisted podcast to re-read this one, and it's just as good as I remember. https://www.backlisted.fm
April 25, 2015
I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is the best classic novel you’ve never heard of. Correct me if I’m wrong.
This book is set in the early 1930s in the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire. It’s an ensemble piece, structured around the activities of local government and the ways they intersect with the characters’ lives. Most versions of the cover feature Sarah Burton, the fiery, progressive new headmistress at the local girls’ school, and she’s one of the most important characters, but there are others: the elderly alderwoman, Mrs. Beddows; the gentleman farmer, Robert Carne, and his troubled daughter, Midge; the bright but impoverished teenager, Lydia Holly; the hedonistic but devout preacher, Councillor Huggins. South Riding follows these characters (and more*--it’s a story about an entire community) over two years, with chapters alternating among various characters.
There’s a lot going on in this book, and Holtby has a clean style that keeps the story moving and focused on the most interesting moments in the characters’ lives. I’ve seen this book criticized for the space devoted to mundane aspects of adult life--the book focuses as much on the characters’ working lives as their personal ones--but that’s one of the reasons I loved it. It avoids well-trodden novelistic paths: most of the characters are middle-aged or older, and first love doesn’t appear even as a subplot. In large part it’s a novel about work and why it matters; anyone who hopes to make a difference with their career will empathize with Sarah Burton’s struggle to make a difference in her school and her occasional doubts about whether her work is important enough in the scheme of things.
But there are many poignant and relatable stories that come out of the characters’ relationships with their work, from the sad case of Agnes Sigglesthwaite, who meant to be a researcher but wound up a miserable science teacher, to the fervent socialist Joe Astell, who takes a cushy job on the county council due to illness and sometimes has trouble relating to the very people he’s trying to help. On the whole it’s a positive and hopeful book, but there is a lot of illness and dying here; the author was terminally ill when she wrote it, and it’s hard not to imagine something of Holtby in Astell, who is desperate to accomplish his work before illness keeps him from it. On the other hand, one of the saddest subplots deals with Lily Sawdon: she is one of the few characters with no real occupation, and perhaps as a consequence, decides her duty as a wife is to hide her sickness from her husband, even at the expense of getting treatment.
South Riding is a character-driven book, and works brilliantly, because the characterization is brilliant. Holtby has the gift of creating fully-formed, memorable characters within just a few pages, characters with all the complexities and foibles of real human beings, and at the same time, people who are easy to sympathize with and like. Sarah Burton is especially memorable: she’s a spinster in her late 30s, but she’s not a damaged or pitiable figure; she’s energetic and optimistic, sociable and engaged with other people. Also a standout is Mrs. Beddows: as the South Riding’s first female alderman, she’s expected to be colorful and allows people to believe outlandish stories about her, but in reality she’s more conventional than that, a worldly-wise grandmother who finds happiness through community involvement--and through the attention of Robert Carne, whom she views as a combination of attractive male friend and spiritual son-in-law. I could go on to describe most of the cast, because they are all excellently-realized characters drawn with exceptional psychological insight, but nothing I say will do Holtby’s writing justice.
Another amazing thing about this book is just how modern it feels, despite being published in 1936. By virtue of its focus on interesting, varied female characters--as well as interactions among them--it’s one of the most feminist novels I’ve read, and indeed Sarah’s feminism would need little updating for the 21st century. An author writing this story today would no doubt be condemned as anachronistic, but since it really is an old book, I’m happy to praise it for being just as relevant now as when it was written. The same goes for the politics. This isn’t a book about politicking, but it is a story involving local government during a time of economic depression, and Holtby’s progressive beliefs do shine through in the way the characters think about their world and the effects of their decisions. For me that’s a plus; literature should deal with big ideas, and the structure of society and purpose of government are certainly that. The fact that these topics are controversial means authors should engage with them, not ignore them.
I do have one issue with the book that bears mentioning. The plot doesn’t fit together quite as well as most ensemble pieces; Holtby perhaps got a little carried away with her ability to write great characters, and spent disproportionate time on some secondary players. Alfred Huggins is the chief offender here (I’ve called him a protagonist above, because of the number of chapters starring him, but he has little interaction with or impact on any of the others), followed by the Sawdons. Also, I doubt many people will read South Riding for its language alone: Holtby has the good journalist’s ability to get to the heart of the matter without excess verbiage, but her use of words is rarely memorable.
In sum, an excellent book, and one that spoke to me much more than classics usually do. I’ll be keeping a copy on my shelf, and I hope some of you will give it a try too!
*Please don’t be intimidated by the character list at the beginning of the BBC edition. It includes everybody who’s ever mentioned in the book, but you won’t have to remember all of them.
This book is set in the early 1930s in the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire. It’s an ensemble piece, structured around the activities of local government and the ways they intersect with the characters’ lives. Most versions of the cover feature Sarah Burton, the fiery, progressive new headmistress at the local girls’ school, and she’s one of the most important characters, but there are others: the elderly alderwoman, Mrs. Beddows; the gentleman farmer, Robert Carne, and his troubled daughter, Midge; the bright but impoverished teenager, Lydia Holly; the hedonistic but devout preacher, Councillor Huggins. South Riding follows these characters (and more*--it’s a story about an entire community) over two years, with chapters alternating among various characters.
There’s a lot going on in this book, and Holtby has a clean style that keeps the story moving and focused on the most interesting moments in the characters’ lives. I’ve seen this book criticized for the space devoted to mundane aspects of adult life--the book focuses as much on the characters’ working lives as their personal ones--but that’s one of the reasons I loved it. It avoids well-trodden novelistic paths: most of the characters are middle-aged or older, and first love doesn’t appear even as a subplot. In large part it’s a novel about work and why it matters; anyone who hopes to make a difference with their career will empathize with Sarah Burton’s struggle to make a difference in her school and her occasional doubts about whether her work is important enough in the scheme of things.
But there are many poignant and relatable stories that come out of the characters’ relationships with their work, from the sad case of Agnes Sigglesthwaite, who meant to be a researcher but wound up a miserable science teacher, to the fervent socialist Joe Astell, who takes a cushy job on the county council due to illness and sometimes has trouble relating to the very people he’s trying to help. On the whole it’s a positive and hopeful book, but there is a lot of illness and dying here; the author was terminally ill when she wrote it, and it’s hard not to imagine something of Holtby in Astell, who is desperate to accomplish his work before illness keeps him from it. On the other hand, one of the saddest subplots deals with Lily Sawdon: she is one of the few characters with no real occupation, and perhaps as a consequence, decides her duty as a wife is to hide her sickness from her husband, even at the expense of getting treatment.
South Riding is a character-driven book, and works brilliantly, because the characterization is brilliant. Holtby has the gift of creating fully-formed, memorable characters within just a few pages, characters with all the complexities and foibles of real human beings, and at the same time, people who are easy to sympathize with and like. Sarah Burton is especially memorable: she’s a spinster in her late 30s, but she’s not a damaged or pitiable figure; she’s energetic and optimistic, sociable and engaged with other people. Also a standout is Mrs. Beddows: as the South Riding’s first female alderman, she’s expected to be colorful and allows people to believe outlandish stories about her, but in reality she’s more conventional than that, a worldly-wise grandmother who finds happiness through community involvement--and through the attention of Robert Carne, whom she views as a combination of attractive male friend and spiritual son-in-law. I could go on to describe most of the cast, because they are all excellently-realized characters drawn with exceptional psychological insight, but nothing I say will do Holtby’s writing justice.
Another amazing thing about this book is just how modern it feels, despite being published in 1936. By virtue of its focus on interesting, varied female characters--as well as interactions among them--it’s one of the most feminist novels I’ve read, and indeed Sarah’s feminism would need little updating for the 21st century. An author writing this story today would no doubt be condemned as anachronistic, but since it really is an old book, I’m happy to praise it for being just as relevant now as when it was written. The same goes for the politics. This isn’t a book about politicking, but it is a story involving local government during a time of economic depression, and Holtby’s progressive beliefs do shine through in the way the characters think about their world and the effects of their decisions. For me that’s a plus; literature should deal with big ideas, and the structure of society and purpose of government are certainly that. The fact that these topics are controversial means authors should engage with them, not ignore them.
I do have one issue with the book that bears mentioning. The plot doesn’t fit together quite as well as most ensemble pieces; Holtby perhaps got a little carried away with her ability to write great characters, and spent disproportionate time on some secondary players. Alfred Huggins is the chief offender here (I’ve called him a protagonist above, because of the number of chapters starring him, but he has little interaction with or impact on any of the others), followed by the Sawdons. Also, I doubt many people will read South Riding for its language alone: Holtby has the good journalist’s ability to get to the heart of the matter without excess verbiage, but her use of words is rarely memorable.
In sum, an excellent book, and one that spoke to me much more than classics usually do. I’ll be keeping a copy on my shelf, and I hope some of you will give it a try too!
*Please don’t be intimidated by the character list at the beginning of the BBC edition. It includes everybody who’s ever mentioned in the book, but you won’t have to remember all of them.
December 6, 2015
It is 1932 and Sarah Burton returns to Yorkshire as a newly appointed headmistress with a gift to teach and a desire to awaken interest in her young pupils. She brings courage and optimism along with a feisty and impetuous nature. Sarah finds her new role in the small town challenging as she encounters town politics and staff problems. Her set plans are disrupted and she becomes uncertain of her future.
Holtby writes wonderfully on local government issues and town hierarchy. Her characters are sensitive and well-rounded. They cover a wide social range, but share a common love for their rural community. Ambitions, hypocrisy, triumphs and failures are shared amongst the people of South Riding and their moments of passion, tragedy and hope strengthen their bonds as they face a world that is on the brink of change.
Holtby writes wonderfully on local government issues and town hierarchy. Her characters are sensitive and well-rounded. They cover a wide social range, but share a common love for their rural community. Ambitions, hypocrisy, triumphs and failures are shared amongst the people of South Riding and their moments of passion, tragedy and hope strengthen their bonds as they face a world that is on the brink of change.
March 25, 2024
This was an absorbing and mostly splendid novel from 1930s England. Its approach is one that would get the author drummed out of any writers workshop today—each chapter is told from inside a different character’s head—but I think that strategy is underrated by those who like to boil down fiction writing into a series of rules. The reason it works in this case is that the book is a composite portrait of a particular time and place more than it is focused on the storyline of a single character. There are thematic continuities among the different storylines, and they intersect frequently, resulting in a complex weave I found satisfying.
That said, there is one character more central to the narrative (if not to the community) than any other—Sarah Burton, a bright, not pretty but vivid single woman approaching her forties. The daughter of a blacksmith from the part of Yorkshire that is the focus of the narrative (fictionally labeled the South Riding, there is no such area), she has used her brains to get a good education and has risen in the teaching profession to become the headmistress of the girls’ high school.
In a book full of characters who leap off the page, Sarah is especially full of life, iconoclastic, down-to-earth, not easily fooled. It is a pleasure to read how she handles her students and the school’s governing board. A thoroughly modern woman, she takes an especial dislike to one of the governors, a hidebound gentleman farmer with a tragic backstory who is struggling not to lose everything in a time of widespread economic turmoil. He is a throwback to a different age, riding horses instead of driving a car, living in a feudal society all his own with his tenants and employees. To Sarah he stands for everything that obstructs progress, and she loathes him until she doesn’t.
The story is shaped by the agendas of local government officials (the author’s mother was the first female alderman in her community), and it paints a clear portrait of the ways that local government projects shape the lives and possibilities of members of a community. If that sounds dry, it isn’t. People in the story live or die, thrive or fail, based on the decisions made in those meetings, and attempts to manipulate the proceedings for personal benefit have mixed results. I loved the way the local government decisions played into the plot.
The book is rich in natural description, and I was struck by how the same landscapes were described in such wildly different terms by different characters—a subtle clue to the reader not to take any character’s subjective perceptions too literally. These are landscapes of the emotions as much as they are fields and gardens and shores.
A novel with so many elements could easily become diffuse, but to me South Riding is held together by the arcs of the characters’ journeys to greater understanding. All of them have unrealistic self-images that come into conflict with the realities of life, and how they respond to disillusioning and tragic events is how their characters (in the ethical sense) are forged. Nobody emerges entirely unscathed, but those who survive are stronger for the experience. It’s quite a remarkable achievement.
Two elements disappointed me—one villainous character who didn’t ring true emotionally, and some portrayals of characters with mental illness. I read a lot of British fiction written between the 1930s and the 1950s, and every time they include people with mental illness, I cringe. They’re always catatonic or oversexed or subject to lightning descents into hysterical irrationality—basically cartoon versions of the mentally ill. Fortunately, there weren’t too many of such scenes in the book.
This book is republished under the Virago Modern Classics imprint, and it’s one that lives up to the name.
That said, there is one character more central to the narrative (if not to the community) than any other—Sarah Burton, a bright, not pretty but vivid single woman approaching her forties. The daughter of a blacksmith from the part of Yorkshire that is the focus of the narrative (fictionally labeled the South Riding, there is no such area), she has used her brains to get a good education and has risen in the teaching profession to become the headmistress of the girls’ high school.
In a book full of characters who leap off the page, Sarah is especially full of life, iconoclastic, down-to-earth, not easily fooled. It is a pleasure to read how she handles her students and the school’s governing board. A thoroughly modern woman, she takes an especial dislike to one of the governors, a hidebound gentleman farmer with a tragic backstory who is struggling not to lose everything in a time of widespread economic turmoil. He is a throwback to a different age, riding horses instead of driving a car, living in a feudal society all his own with his tenants and employees. To Sarah he stands for everything that obstructs progress, and she loathes him until she doesn’t.
The story is shaped by the agendas of local government officials (the author’s mother was the first female alderman in her community), and it paints a clear portrait of the ways that local government projects shape the lives and possibilities of members of a community. If that sounds dry, it isn’t. People in the story live or die, thrive or fail, based on the decisions made in those meetings, and attempts to manipulate the proceedings for personal benefit have mixed results. I loved the way the local government decisions played into the plot.
The book is rich in natural description, and I was struck by how the same landscapes were described in such wildly different terms by different characters—a subtle clue to the reader not to take any character’s subjective perceptions too literally. These are landscapes of the emotions as much as they are fields and gardens and shores.
A novel with so many elements could easily become diffuse, but to me South Riding is held together by the arcs of the characters’ journeys to greater understanding. All of them have unrealistic self-images that come into conflict with the realities of life, and how they respond to disillusioning and tragic events is how their characters (in the ethical sense) are forged. Nobody emerges entirely unscathed, but those who survive are stronger for the experience. It’s quite a remarkable achievement.
Two elements disappointed me—one villainous character who didn’t ring true emotionally, and some portrayals of characters with mental illness. I read a lot of British fiction written between the 1930s and the 1950s, and every time they include people with mental illness, I cringe. They’re always catatonic or oversexed or subject to lightning descents into hysterical irrationality—basically cartoon versions of the mentally ill. Fortunately, there weren’t too many of such scenes in the book.
This book is republished under the Virago Modern Classics imprint, and it’s one that lives up to the name.
August 19, 2025
3.5, rounded up.
I have at last read South Riding, a book that has been on my radar for quite a long time. Overall, I found it both interesting and captivating, particularly in light of its having been written when Winifred Holtby was in so much pain and literally dying. I’m convinced it was a labor of love for her.
There are parts of this book that soar, but there are also parts that bog down into politics and a kind of social lecturing. Holtby introduces a plethora of minor characters, some of which are essential to moving the plot forward and some of which seem to me superfluous. We are taken off the main track into lives and events which then seem to have no bearing at all upon the story at large. There is a sense that Holtby wants us to feel an intimate attachment to an entire community, but to some extent the side stories weaken her main tale. There is a lack of focus, or perhaps just a focus on the wrong elements for me, at the last quarter of the novel. The story seems, in fact, to end long before the book does.
Holtby is addressing, among other things, social inequity and the poverty of the depression era that affected the ordinary working man and plunged him into confusion and despair. By viewing so much of what happens through the lens of the local government committee, she illustrates how hard it is to strike a balance sometimes, how greed enters the picture, and how sometimes good prevails in spite of the crooked motivations.
Running throughout the novel is a threat of impending death and illness that shadows many of the characters' lives. Loss is central to the plot: loss through madness, loss through misunderstanding, loss through carelessness, loss through sickness and death. I could not help thinking most of these individuals would have well understood Marvell’s words, But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near. They must often feel that time is running out for them, and it does not escape this reader that the time is short in ways they do not yet understand, for it is 1935 and Hitler is already on the rise.
My favorite character, Robert Carne, is a man out of time and out of step. The irony is that he is the most genuine and decent person in the book, but he is often on the wrong side of issues if you take a modern view. There are others in the novel who profess a great care for their fellow man, but I think Carne is concerned with his fellow men, not as a type, but as individuals, and it shows in his thoughts and his actions. He wants to hang on to the traditions and the life that has been known in South Riding and at his estate of Maythorpe for the 500 years of its existence; but change is coming swiftly and his way of life is fatally endangered.
It seemed odd to him that he was so indifferent. Perhaps when everything was lost, one cared no longer.
Change has arrived in the person of Sarah Burton, the new head mistress of the high school and a woman with a firm opposition to the status quo. Their politics could not be more different, but they cannot help but recognize in one another sincerity and good character, and this draws them toward one another to Sarah's consternation. Much of what holds the reader is wondering how, or if, they can overcome their differences to find a common ground. Holtby makes a statement that, for me, rings true...I wish more 21st century inhabitants would take it to heart.
In the end–it’s not politics nor opinions–it’s those fundamental things that count–the things of the spirit.
Holtby was a beautifully skilled writer, she was quite young when she wrote the book and quite young when she died of a long, and apparently very painful, illness. I wonder what changes or edits she might have made had she lived to do so. I often feel books would profit from a good editor, and this is one of them; but there is a compelling element to this book that explains its enduring popularity. For me, despite its flaws, it was worth the journey.
A huge thank you to my reading partner, Megan.
I have at last read South Riding, a book that has been on my radar for quite a long time. Overall, I found it both interesting and captivating, particularly in light of its having been written when Winifred Holtby was in so much pain and literally dying. I’m convinced it was a labor of love for her.
There are parts of this book that soar, but there are also parts that bog down into politics and a kind of social lecturing. Holtby introduces a plethora of minor characters, some of which are essential to moving the plot forward and some of which seem to me superfluous. We are taken off the main track into lives and events which then seem to have no bearing at all upon the story at large. There is a sense that Holtby wants us to feel an intimate attachment to an entire community, but to some extent the side stories weaken her main tale. There is a lack of focus, or perhaps just a focus on the wrong elements for me, at the last quarter of the novel. The story seems, in fact, to end long before the book does.
Holtby is addressing, among other things, social inequity and the poverty of the depression era that affected the ordinary working man and plunged him into confusion and despair. By viewing so much of what happens through the lens of the local government committee, she illustrates how hard it is to strike a balance sometimes, how greed enters the picture, and how sometimes good prevails in spite of the crooked motivations.
Running throughout the novel is a threat of impending death and illness that shadows many of the characters' lives. Loss is central to the plot: loss through madness, loss through misunderstanding, loss through carelessness, loss through sickness and death. I could not help thinking most of these individuals would have well understood Marvell’s words, But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near. They must often feel that time is running out for them, and it does not escape this reader that the time is short in ways they do not yet understand, for it is 1935 and Hitler is already on the rise.
My favorite character, Robert Carne, is a man out of time and out of step. The irony is that he is the most genuine and decent person in the book, but he is often on the wrong side of issues if you take a modern view. There are others in the novel who profess a great care for their fellow man, but I think Carne is concerned with his fellow men, not as a type, but as individuals, and it shows in his thoughts and his actions. He wants to hang on to the traditions and the life that has been known in South Riding and at his estate of Maythorpe for the 500 years of its existence; but change is coming swiftly and his way of life is fatally endangered.
It seemed odd to him that he was so indifferent. Perhaps when everything was lost, one cared no longer.
Change has arrived in the person of Sarah Burton, the new head mistress of the high school and a woman with a firm opposition to the status quo. Their politics could not be more different, but they cannot help but recognize in one another sincerity and good character, and this draws them toward one another to Sarah's consternation. Much of what holds the reader is wondering how, or if, they can overcome their differences to find a common ground. Holtby makes a statement that, for me, rings true...I wish more 21st century inhabitants would take it to heart.
In the end–it’s not politics nor opinions–it’s those fundamental things that count–the things of the spirit.
Holtby was a beautifully skilled writer, she was quite young when she wrote the book and quite young when she died of a long, and apparently very painful, illness. I wonder what changes or edits she might have made had she lived to do so. I often feel books would profit from a good editor, and this is one of them; but there is a compelling element to this book that explains its enduring popularity. For me, despite its flaws, it was worth the journey.
A huge thank you to my reading partner, Megan.
March 13, 2022
South Riding is as an engrossing novel about the mundane workings of local government. Strange but true.
It’s a fascinating depiction of a time and place, and a celebration of civic duty.
Actually there's a lot more going on than just local government but that is one of the primary themes.
South Riding (1936) was Winifred Holtby’s last and best known novel and it’s a fascinating depiction of a time and place. Returning to the world of her Yorkshire upbringing, Winifred Holtby created a moving portrait of a rural community struggling with the effects of the depression.
South Riding was written during the last two years of Winifred Holtby’s life, when she knew she was dying, it was prepared for publication by her good friend Vera Brittain.
South Riding combines the countryside of her youth with her progressive political views, to create a sprawling and satisfying picture of life in the area around Hull (here disguised as Kingsport) during the depression. WW1 still casts a shadow, compounded by a floundering economy. Times are tough for almost all of the characters in and around Kingsport.
Sweeping themes, a broad canvas, a wide cast of complex characters, vivid landscapes combined with the wide ranging story with its passion, jealousy, regret, ambition, religion, and the all too human frailty make it a compelling 20th century epic. Both harrowing and hopeful, with plenty of humour too. I romped through this classic of early feminism.
South Riding was a bestseller, and in 1938 was made into a film, directed by Victor Saville and starring Ralph Richardson and Edna Best. Other adaptions have followed including a celebrated 1974 Yorkshire TV adaptation (all on YouTube) and a 2011 BBC TV adaptation.
I was inspired to read it after listening to the 28 February 2022 episode of the Backlisted podcast.
4/5
Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Winifred Holtby's greatest novel was published posthumously
Winifred Holtby's masterpiece is a rich evocation of the lives and relationships of the characters of South Riding. Sarah Burton, the fiery young headmistress of the local girls' school; Mrs Beddows, the district's first alderwoman—based on Holtby's own mother; and Robert Carne, the conservative gentleman-farmer locked in a disastrous marriage—with whom the radical Sarah Burton falls in love. Showing how public decisions can mold the individual, this story offers a panoramic and unforgettable view of Yorkshire life.
It’s a fascinating depiction of a time and place, and a celebration of civic duty.
Actually there's a lot more going on than just local government but that is one of the primary themes.
South Riding (1936) was Winifred Holtby’s last and best known novel and it’s a fascinating depiction of a time and place. Returning to the world of her Yorkshire upbringing, Winifred Holtby created a moving portrait of a rural community struggling with the effects of the depression.
South Riding was written during the last two years of Winifred Holtby’s life, when she knew she was dying, it was prepared for publication by her good friend Vera Brittain.
South Riding combines the countryside of her youth with her progressive political views, to create a sprawling and satisfying picture of life in the area around Hull (here disguised as Kingsport) during the depression. WW1 still casts a shadow, compounded by a floundering economy. Times are tough for almost all of the characters in and around Kingsport.
Sweeping themes, a broad canvas, a wide cast of complex characters, vivid landscapes combined with the wide ranging story with its passion, jealousy, regret, ambition, religion, and the all too human frailty make it a compelling 20th century epic. Both harrowing and hopeful, with plenty of humour too. I romped through this classic of early feminism.
South Riding was a bestseller, and in 1938 was made into a film, directed by Victor Saville and starring Ralph Richardson and Edna Best. Other adaptions have followed including a celebrated 1974 Yorkshire TV adaptation (all on YouTube) and a 2011 BBC TV adaptation.
I was inspired to read it after listening to the 28 February 2022 episode of the Backlisted podcast.
4/5
Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Winifred Holtby's greatest novel was published posthumously
Winifred Holtby's masterpiece is a rich evocation of the lives and relationships of the characters of South Riding. Sarah Burton, the fiery young headmistress of the local girls' school; Mrs Beddows, the district's first alderwoman—based on Holtby's own mother; and Robert Carne, the conservative gentleman-farmer locked in a disastrous marriage—with whom the radical Sarah Burton falls in love. Showing how public decisions can mold the individual, this story offers a panoramic and unforgettable view of Yorkshire life.
August 13, 2025
I like Winifred Holtby. I read Persephone Books "The Crowded Street" and loved it. I read "Anderby Wold" published by Virago and loved that too. I have had this one on my shelf for a while, but was put off by its over 500 page count. (I should know better by now.) Then I was inspired to finally pick it up when I saw a couple of friends reading it.
Not only did I love this, it's a masterpiece portraying the imaginary English district of South Riding and the politics and shenanigans of the Board of Aldermen, local ministers, and long time Gentry who make decisions regarding what goes on in the district that affects the ordinary men and women just trying to get through day by day, raise and educate their children, and put food on the table. We get to know a fair amount of these people intimately. We care about what happens to them and why and how. This novel is set in the years 1932-35, so the depression is in full swing and it's easy to fall through the cracks despite best intentions.
As always throughout history and up to this very day, those making decisions about others lives are the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes decisions based on greed and power grabs can turn out to be a good thing, sometimes the best intentions of good people have unintended consequences that cause pain. Progress is not always the best thing, but neither is living in the past just because it's always been that way. Holtby makes us see all this, and understand, and want to try to be better ourselves.
This could easily have been a contemporary novel. There is that upstanding citizen who considers it his business to practice "moral censorship", the alderman who manipulates others for not just his pocketbook, but his own amusement, the only woman alderman who works tirelessly to find solutions and wears herself out, the minister who sins and fears being found corrupt, the lazy, inept and ignorant, but the honorable as well......as I said, the good, the bad and the ugly that are always with us. There's even a measles outbreak!
Holtby is one of those novelists, along with Anthony Trollope, who make us understand that human nature never changes. Time goes on, wars are waged, technology makes things easier and faster, but people are people. It's why we love novels like this, we see people we know and recognize and see ourselves as well.
Not only did I love this, it's a masterpiece portraying the imaginary English district of South Riding and the politics and shenanigans of the Board of Aldermen, local ministers, and long time Gentry who make decisions regarding what goes on in the district that affects the ordinary men and women just trying to get through day by day, raise and educate their children, and put food on the table. We get to know a fair amount of these people intimately. We care about what happens to them and why and how. This novel is set in the years 1932-35, so the depression is in full swing and it's easy to fall through the cracks despite best intentions.
As always throughout history and up to this very day, those making decisions about others lives are the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes decisions based on greed and power grabs can turn out to be a good thing, sometimes the best intentions of good people have unintended consequences that cause pain. Progress is not always the best thing, but neither is living in the past just because it's always been that way. Holtby makes us see all this, and understand, and want to try to be better ourselves.
This could easily have been a contemporary novel. There is that upstanding citizen who considers it his business to practice "moral censorship", the alderman who manipulates others for not just his pocketbook, but his own amusement, the only woman alderman who works tirelessly to find solutions and wears herself out, the minister who sins and fears being found corrupt, the lazy, inept and ignorant, but the honorable as well......as I said, the good, the bad and the ugly that are always with us. There's even a measles outbreak!
Holtby is one of those novelists, along with Anthony Trollope, who make us understand that human nature never changes. Time goes on, wars are waged, technology makes things easier and faster, but people are people. It's why we love novels like this, we see people we know and recognize and see ourselves as well.
March 31, 2016
Absolutely adored, enjoyed and loved this book! If you enjoy sweeping English novels with a pastoral setting and social commentary this book is definitely for you.
Much like Middlemarch by George Eliot and The Warden by Anthony Trollope. Which commentate on social institutions such as church, and small town government. I would argue, South Riding falls into the same category.
Richly written, with characters that come to life, this book, although a little slow at times, has quickly become a favorite of mine.
I especially am intrigued by the personal life of the author. A note on the author reveals that Winifred Holtby led a short life and passed away one year before the publication of South Riding. Her good friend Vera Brittain, whom she met in college, wrote about their close friendship in her book Testament of Friendship (1940).
Having researched a bit about Holtby and Brittain'a lives, especially during the First World War. South Riding, its themes (in particular those towards the end of the book) became even more meaningful and deep to me.
This is one book that I believe, regardless of the number of re-reads will continue to reveal rich new layers and meaning for the reader.
Much like Middlemarch by George Eliot and The Warden by Anthony Trollope. Which commentate on social institutions such as church, and small town government. I would argue, South Riding falls into the same category.
Richly written, with characters that come to life, this book, although a little slow at times, has quickly become a favorite of mine.
I especially am intrigued by the personal life of the author. A note on the author reveals that Winifred Holtby led a short life and passed away one year before the publication of South Riding. Her good friend Vera Brittain, whom she met in college, wrote about their close friendship in her book Testament of Friendship (1940).
Having researched a bit about Holtby and Brittain'a lives, especially during the First World War. South Riding, its themes (in particular those towards the end of the book) became even more meaningful and deep to me.
This is one book that I believe, regardless of the number of re-reads will continue to reveal rich new layers and meaning for the reader.
March 30, 2019
Set in a fictional district of Yorkshire in the early 1930s, South Riding is an epic, life-affirming novel which explores issues of poverty, social mobility and the value of education. On one level, it is an ensemble piece structured around the workings of local government, their impact on the district of South Riding and the people who live there. It is also a feminist book, one concerned with the destinies of women from different points along the social spectrum, both young and old. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I loved this thoroughly absorbing novel, a definite five-star read for me.
To read my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019...
To read my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2019...
November 1, 2021
Such vivid and colourful writing! A really good story unfolding the daily life of a small community with its struggles and triumphs, sorrows and joys!
So many different personalities and their hopes, expectations, dreams and disappointments and so well written that the reader sympathizes, rejoices with them but there are always those that one can't help but disapprove of!
South Riding is also a story about loss and grief and how one faces the future after such an overwhelming pain!
So many different personalities and their hopes, expectations, dreams and disappointments and so well written that the reader sympathizes, rejoices with them but there are always those that one can't help but disapprove of!
South Riding is also a story about loss and grief and how one faces the future after such an overwhelming pain!
May 21, 2011
Fantastic saga set in 1930s Yorkshire.
The book is chockful of political and social drama - with truly memorable characters.
Like the important women in the book -- Sarah Burton, the Headmistress; and Mrs. Beddows, the Alderman -- I was obsessed with Robert Carne. Symbol of a previous age, so noble and tragic!
The entire book rang true, even if it did describe a world unfamiliar to me.
I would happily read it again. Like all of the great novels, there is so much in it; one could hardly grasp it all on an initial reading.
The book is chockful of political and social drama - with truly memorable characters.
Like the important women in the book -- Sarah Burton, the Headmistress; and Mrs. Beddows, the Alderman -- I was obsessed with Robert Carne. Symbol of a previous age, so noble and tragic!
The entire book rang true, even if it did describe a world unfamiliar to me.
I would happily read it again. Like all of the great novels, there is so much in it; one could hardly grasp it all on an initial reading.
January 27, 2011
South Riding is set in Yorkshire in the first half of the 1930′s, focusing on the everyday lives of the people who live there. There is Sarah Burton, the new headmistress of the girls’ school who returns to the area armed with progressive ideas and is determined to make a difference; there is Mrs Beddows, the council’s only female alderman who is torn between her desire for progress and her personal loyalties; and there is Robert Carne, staunch proponent of the old ways, desperately trying to care for his mad wife and fragile daughter while not losing his tenuous hold on his lands. The book chronicles their struggles, sometimes against each other, sometimes alongside one another for a common cause, and those of a whole host of other characters.
The cast of this novel is huge, with more than a hundred characters (listed handily after the introduction), but it never feels overpopulated or confusing. In fact, they are what makes South Riding such a great read. I felt as though I knew each and every one of those characters, even if we only had a nodding acquaintance. It is testament to Winifred Holtby’s writing skill that she manages to create such a wide variety of characters with equal authenticity; I believe in Midge Carne, who is young, female, highly strung and unthinkingly cruel, just as much as I believe in Castle, who is an elderly, male, gentle salt of the earth type. I particularly liked the fact that no character is as straightforward as they at first seem, and not in a gimmicky everyone-has-a-dark-secret way, but in a these-are-all-real-people-with depth way. They aren’t defined by their quirks, but these help to gain a deeper insight into the characters and why they behave the way they do. Councillor Snaith at home with his cats was a particular favourite of mine.
A wide range of characters means a wide range of relationships, and here too Winifred Holtby excels. Whether two people are cooperating or at loggerheads they always act in a way that is so appropriate and well described that I experienced everything along with them. Tom and Lily’s relationship broke my heart time and time again, and they are relatively minor characters (if there can be said to be such a thing in this novel). Not only does she write scenes tightly focused on one individual or group, she also writes the best, most effective crowd scenes I’ve ever read. The outside performance put on by Madam Hubbard’s girls, at which cast and audience alike spend more time focusing on their own individual thoughts and agendas than the show, is an absolute masterpiece. Her writing reveals a wealth of life experience put to very good use.
I also appreciated the fact that, although people struggle and fight with one another, there is no cruel, cackling villain in this book. The characters go through hard times and experience tragedy, but that is because life is hard rather than because someone is plotting against them. Harvests fail so people lose their money. People become sick and, because they are poor, they die. It’s all very matter-of-fact and realistic. This may make the novel sound rather bleak, and it’s definitely not without its bleak moments, but there is also a great deal of comedy in this book. There is stoicism but there is also humour; the people of South Riding endure hardships and they do so with a shrug and a grin. Despite some of the tragedies that occur, Holtby never allows characters to wallow or the tightly controlled plot to spiral into melodrama, which I find only adds to the pathos. I’m sad to leave South Riding and it’s definitely a novel that I’ll be rereading in the future.
The cast of this novel is huge, with more than a hundred characters (listed handily after the introduction), but it never feels overpopulated or confusing. In fact, they are what makes South Riding such a great read. I felt as though I knew each and every one of those characters, even if we only had a nodding acquaintance. It is testament to Winifred Holtby’s writing skill that she manages to create such a wide variety of characters with equal authenticity; I believe in Midge Carne, who is young, female, highly strung and unthinkingly cruel, just as much as I believe in Castle, who is an elderly, male, gentle salt of the earth type. I particularly liked the fact that no character is as straightforward as they at first seem, and not in a gimmicky everyone-has-a-dark-secret way, but in a these-are-all-real-people-with depth way. They aren’t defined by their quirks, but these help to gain a deeper insight into the characters and why they behave the way they do. Councillor Snaith at home with his cats was a particular favourite of mine.
A wide range of characters means a wide range of relationships, and here too Winifred Holtby excels. Whether two people are cooperating or at loggerheads they always act in a way that is so appropriate and well described that I experienced everything along with them. Tom and Lily’s relationship broke my heart time and time again, and they are relatively minor characters (if there can be said to be such a thing in this novel). Not only does she write scenes tightly focused on one individual or group, she also writes the best, most effective crowd scenes I’ve ever read. The outside performance put on by Madam Hubbard’s girls, at which cast and audience alike spend more time focusing on their own individual thoughts and agendas than the show, is an absolute masterpiece. Her writing reveals a wealth of life experience put to very good use.
I also appreciated the fact that, although people struggle and fight with one another, there is no cruel, cackling villain in this book. The characters go through hard times and experience tragedy, but that is because life is hard rather than because someone is plotting against them. Harvests fail so people lose their money. People become sick and, because they are poor, they die. It’s all very matter-of-fact and realistic. This may make the novel sound rather bleak, and it’s definitely not without its bleak moments, but there is also a great deal of comedy in this book. There is stoicism but there is also humour; the people of South Riding endure hardships and they do so with a shrug and a grin. Despite some of the tragedies that occur, Holtby never allows characters to wallow or the tightly controlled plot to spiral into melodrama, which I find only adds to the pathos. I’m sad to leave South Riding and it’s definitely a novel that I’ll be rereading in the future.
November 6, 2018
I understand why this book is likened to Eliot's Middlemarch: it has a huge cast of characters who all happen to live in the same place, and each of them—even the unlikable among them—is sensitively, insightfully depicted. For me, Holtby's exploration of the psyche of the aging woman is particularly astute, and her willingness to address issues not commonly considered in the literature of the period is praiseworthy: dysfunction (even incest) within families, women's need for meaningful work and the opportunity to make a social impact, the nature of female sexuality and desire, the conflicted path to social change, and the price of personal advancement.
Having said that, however, I don’t think Holtby’s protagonist, Sarah Burton, stands up well against Eliot’s idealistic and sympathetic Dorothea Brooke, and in Holtby’s novel I missed the romance that Eliot provided. I neither felt convinced of Miss Burton's love for Robert Carne nor her almost mystical melding with the spirit of the man after his death. Sarah is realistic enough, but not a fully sympathetic or compelling central character. Since she lacks a rich inner life, a long visit with her (as a reader) becomes tiresome. On the other hand, the situation of Miss Sigglesthwaite, an incompetent scholarly spinster teacher who is "eaten alive" by her adolescent charges, is movingly depicted. I also found Mrs. Beddows, somewhat to my surprise, the most interesting and dynamic character.
Though it didn’t wow me quite as much as I’d hoped, the book is an accomplished social novel, which offers a view into the world of 1930s rural Yorkshire.
Having said that, however, I don’t think Holtby’s protagonist, Sarah Burton, stands up well against Eliot’s idealistic and sympathetic Dorothea Brooke, and in Holtby’s novel I missed the romance that Eliot provided. I neither felt convinced of Miss Burton's love for Robert Carne nor her almost mystical melding with the spirit of the man after his death. Sarah is realistic enough, but not a fully sympathetic or compelling central character. Since she lacks a rich inner life, a long visit with her (as a reader) becomes tiresome. On the other hand, the situation of Miss Sigglesthwaite, an incompetent scholarly spinster teacher who is "eaten alive" by her adolescent charges, is movingly depicted. I also found Mrs. Beddows, somewhat to my surprise, the most interesting and dynamic character.
Though it didn’t wow me quite as much as I’d hoped, the book is an accomplished social novel, which offers a view into the world of 1930s rural Yorkshire.
June 11, 2021
I had been meaning to get around to reading this for ages, and now I'm sorry I waited so long.
Holtby takes a community in Yorkshire and, using the framework of its local government, builds up a narrative which tells the stories of many people in the community, all intertwined. It reminds me a good deal of George Eliot in the organic feel of the community, how decisions and events affect everyone, and of Elizabeth Gaskell in the concern for social issues.
The characterization is simply brilliant; there are a lot of characters, but I never once lost track of who was who nor forgot anyone's particular plot thread. Fortunately, Virago has reprinted at various times all of Holtby's other novels, which I will be tracking down soonest.
Holtby takes a community in Yorkshire and, using the framework of its local government, builds up a narrative which tells the stories of many people in the community, all intertwined. It reminds me a good deal of George Eliot in the organic feel of the community, how decisions and events affect everyone, and of Elizabeth Gaskell in the concern for social issues.
The characterization is simply brilliant; there are a lot of characters, but I never once lost track of who was who nor forgot anyone's particular plot thread. Fortunately, Virago has reprinted at various times all of Holtby's other novels, which I will be tracking down soonest.
November 12, 2023
“We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage, to take our future into our hands. If the law is oppressive, we must change the law. If tradition is obstructive, we must break tradition. If the system is unjust, we must reform the system.”
This is a classic novel set in a village in Yorkshire, the author’s home county, first published in 1936 after Holtby had died at age 36 of kidney disease. The book takes in a range of issues such as local politics, socialism, poverty, and the impact of the war and the influenza pandemic. It also has a colourful array of characters: the village councillors, in particular, the feisty female alderman Mrs Beddows, the straying minister Huggins, and returned spinster school ma’am Sarah Burton. Holtby describes the villagers with wit and charm reminiscent of Jane Austen.
Sarah is a strong, feminist character with modern ideals and a zest for life, who finds herself attracted to Robert Carne, a struggling conservative upper class landowner who is battling with the financial challenge of maintaining his estate, dealing with his institutionalised wife and with his own failing health. Sarah deals with her own work-related challenges: a frustrated scientist become science teacher, a talented student whose impoverished home situation steals her opportunities, and Robert’s turbulent daughter Midge.
I loved the writing in this book. Strangely I usually detest writers that use tell instead of show techniques but this story illustrates that it can be done well with some humour and insight. I have not seen the TV mini-series connected with this, but am now inspired to do so. What a shame this author’s life was so tragically cut short, she seems like a fascinating person.
This is a classic novel set in a village in Yorkshire, the author’s home county, first published in 1936 after Holtby had died at age 36 of kidney disease. The book takes in a range of issues such as local politics, socialism, poverty, and the impact of the war and the influenza pandemic. It also has a colourful array of characters: the village councillors, in particular, the feisty female alderman Mrs Beddows, the straying minister Huggins, and returned spinster school ma’am Sarah Burton. Holtby describes the villagers with wit and charm reminiscent of Jane Austen.
Sarah is a strong, feminist character with modern ideals and a zest for life, who finds herself attracted to Robert Carne, a struggling conservative upper class landowner who is battling with the financial challenge of maintaining his estate, dealing with his institutionalised wife and with his own failing health. Sarah deals with her own work-related challenges: a frustrated scientist become science teacher, a talented student whose impoverished home situation steals her opportunities, and Robert’s turbulent daughter Midge.
I loved the writing in this book. Strangely I usually detest writers that use tell instead of show techniques but this story illustrates that it can be done well with some humour and insight. I have not seen the TV mini-series connected with this, but am now inspired to do so. What a shame this author’s life was so tragically cut short, she seems like a fascinating person.
February 22, 2011
First published in 1936 this is a marvelously femenist novel. Set in the fictional South Riding, with much of the story concerning local poitics, and the different characters and factions associated with the county council, alongside other local people. There is a large cast of characters, at the centre of which is Robert Carne, landowner and councillor, Sarah Burton, a new headmistress for the high school, and Mrs Beddows 72 Alderman, and great friend of Carne. Mrs Beddows - a truly marvelous character - seems to be a portrait - at least in part of Winifred Holtby's mother, herself a local councillor who became (like Mrs Beddows) the first woman Alderman.
This novel is actually quite sad, although there are many uplifting moments too. Winifred Holtby was uncompromising in her portrayal of life as it was in the 1930's, both socially and politically. We see the few chances given to women and the sacrifices made by many bright young girls, the hardship and the poverty and the desperation of those finding themselves in difficulty. There is a conspiracy of corruption at the council, backbiting and gossip, all of which help to bring a good man down. The poignant story of Sarah and Robert Carne is the one at the centre of the novel, is wonderfully romantic on the one hand without ever descending into sentimentality. Alongside that story though we that of Lydia Holly - whose family live in "the shacks" a group of old railway carriages, Lydia dreamsof scholarship and learning. Carne's daughter Midge - the same age as Lydia but from a very different background is rather wild, her mother is in a mental hospital, for a time the girls come togther under the watchful eye of the new headmistress Sarah Burton. Meanwhile at the Nag's head, Tom Sawdon is unaware of his wife's illness. So much human drama in just under 500 pages! A fantastic read.
This novel is actually quite sad, although there are many uplifting moments too. Winifred Holtby was uncompromising in her portrayal of life as it was in the 1930's, both socially and politically. We see the few chances given to women and the sacrifices made by many bright young girls, the hardship and the poverty and the desperation of those finding themselves in difficulty. There is a conspiracy of corruption at the council, backbiting and gossip, all of which help to bring a good man down. The poignant story of Sarah and Robert Carne is the one at the centre of the novel, is wonderfully romantic on the one hand without ever descending into sentimentality. Alongside that story though we that of Lydia Holly - whose family live in "the shacks" a group of old railway carriages, Lydia dreamsof scholarship and learning. Carne's daughter Midge - the same age as Lydia but from a very different background is rather wild, her mother is in a mental hospital, for a time the girls come togther under the watchful eye of the new headmistress Sarah Burton. Meanwhile at the Nag's head, Tom Sawdon is unaware of his wife's illness. So much human drama in just under 500 pages! A fantastic read.
May 8, 2022
This is an epic portrait of the fictional Yorkshire county of South Riding in the 1930s. It describes the events following the hiring of a new headmistress of the girls’ school, Sarah Burrton, a 40ish progressive, self-confident woman returning to Yorkshire after years of teaching in London. There are many characters, and the plot involves many elements. Several South Riding county aldermen are prominently involved. The most prominent is Robert Carne, a conservative and manly gentleman-farmer, struggling to make ends meet because his wife is in an asylum and trying to bring up his daughter alone. Carne and Burton’s relationship figures prominently and, while there are Jane Eyre elements in the story, their relationship follows its own path. I thought that the relationship events and emotions were quite intriguing and unique.
But this book is far more than a romantic tale like Jane Eyre. It is closer in scope to Middlemarch than Jane Eyre. South Riding is a far more appropriate title for this book than Sarah Burton would have been. Besides the fate of Burton and Carne, the fate and effective functioning of the whole of South Riding is at stake, resulting in various side plots. The book examines the inner workings of the county and school board bureaucracy and issues such as welfare payments to the poor, eradication of slums, education, health, mental illness and political corruption. Other county aldermen play prominent roles in some of the plots, as do several residents, with several chapters focusing on their actions and thoughts rather than on Burton and Carne.
These residents and politicians are wonderful creations. Holtby populates the book with realistic people with both good and bad traits that cover a broad spectrum of the community. There is a 70ish female alderman, Mrs. Bellows, who’s friends with Carne and champions Burton, which is an especially effective and warm portrayal. Holtby peppers the book with insightful and, at times, sharp, even savage, observations of these South Riding denizens.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this tale. It had much more substance than I anticipated and was epic in its scope. This is a rich novel, full of nuanced well-drawn characters, touching on important societal issues, all told with sharply worded observations by Holtby. Although the novel moves at a leisurely pace and Holtby’s writing had me reading more slowly than usual, the time was well worth it. I savored each moment I was reading, and I was never bored. I thought it especially poignant that Holtby wrote this book, her last, while she knew she was dying, which she did prior to its publication.
I rate it as 5 stars. Please note that I do find governmental operations interesting, so some of the book’s subjects may have interested me more than it will other readers.
But this book is far more than a romantic tale like Jane Eyre. It is closer in scope to Middlemarch than Jane Eyre. South Riding is a far more appropriate title for this book than Sarah Burton would have been. Besides the fate of Burton and Carne, the fate and effective functioning of the whole of South Riding is at stake, resulting in various side plots. The book examines the inner workings of the county and school board bureaucracy and issues such as welfare payments to the poor, eradication of slums, education, health, mental illness and political corruption. Other county aldermen play prominent roles in some of the plots, as do several residents, with several chapters focusing on their actions and thoughts rather than on Burton and Carne.
These residents and politicians are wonderful creations. Holtby populates the book with realistic people with both good and bad traits that cover a broad spectrum of the community. There is a 70ish female alderman, Mrs. Bellows, who’s friends with Carne and champions Burton, which is an especially effective and warm portrayal. Holtby peppers the book with insightful and, at times, sharp, even savage, observations of these South Riding denizens.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this tale. It had much more substance than I anticipated and was epic in its scope. This is a rich novel, full of nuanced well-drawn characters, touching on important societal issues, all told with sharply worded observations by Holtby. Although the novel moves at a leisurely pace and Holtby’s writing had me reading more slowly than usual, the time was well worth it. I savored each moment I was reading, and I was never bored. I thought it especially poignant that Holtby wrote this book, her last, while she knew she was dying, which she did prior to its publication.
I rate it as 5 stars. Please note that I do find governmental operations interesting, so some of the book’s subjects may have interested me more than it will other readers.
June 4, 2016
South RidingA big book with a four page character list is not something I would generally pick. But I am so glad I did. Read this if you want to get lost in idyllic prose set in a neighborhood in old Yorkshire. As you read you will stumble upon beautiful phrases such as "slapped the kettle on the stove" and "fastened it at the throat with a cameo brooch" strewn over a slow narrative.
This is the story of a multitude of characters, flawed and imperfect as may be' yet with an undeniable charm. Be it Carne, a traditionalist who doesn't want to be pitied for his crumbling finances or Sarah Burton, the fiery headmistress who has modern reforms in mind yet hopelessly in love with her fiercest opponent, or Lydia Holly, who has to give up her education or Madame Hubbard who teaches young girls to dance ti ridiculous songs, every character will earn a place in your heart. I must add this is the first book I have read on local government and workings of the village council in the countryside, hence was refreshing and informative.
Half a chapter of romance that made me well up with an undescribable churning in heart is a testament to Holtby's brilliance. A wonderful piece of writing about provincial life through the lives of a neighborhood.
This is the story of a multitude of characters, flawed and imperfect as may be' yet with an undeniable charm. Be it Carne, a traditionalist who doesn't want to be pitied for his crumbling finances or Sarah Burton, the fiery headmistress who has modern reforms in mind yet hopelessly in love with her fiercest opponent, or Lydia Holly, who has to give up her education or Madame Hubbard who teaches young girls to dance ti ridiculous songs, every character will earn a place in your heart. I must add this is the first book I have read on local government and workings of the village council in the countryside, hence was refreshing and informative.
Half a chapter of romance that made me well up with an undescribable churning in heart is a testament to Holtby's brilliance. A wonderful piece of writing about provincial life through the lives of a neighborhood.
July 14, 2016
This book deals with the community of South Riding in the 1930s, and in it we encounter a variety of characters who are very different from each other, but who all have South Riding in common.
While this novel was entertaining, I wouldn't call it a favourite of mine. There is a great set of characters to keep track of, and only some of the chapters kept my attention 100%.
However, there is something nice and pleasant about reading of a community in which everyone knows everyone. It definitely kept me entertained to read about certain characters and their destinies as well as character development, although I could have lived without all the overt morales towards the end of it.
While this novel was entertaining, I wouldn't call it a favourite of mine. There is a great set of characters to keep track of, and only some of the chapters kept my attention 100%.
However, there is something nice and pleasant about reading of a community in which everyone knows everyone. It definitely kept me entertained to read about certain characters and their destinies as well as character development, although I could have lived without all the overt morales towards the end of it.
April 19, 2014
The last time I read this book I was feeling too raw and emotional at the end to write a review. I think I'll give it a try now.
I think the greatest strength of South Riding is its sincerity. There is not a cynical bone in this book's body. Some of the characters express cynical views, some of the characters are deceitful and crooked, but Winifred Holtby writes about all of them without passing judgment. All people are good and bad and right and wrong. Sarah Burton realizes at the end of the book that the answer to Mrs. Beddows’s question “Who pays?” (in response to Sarah’s favorite quotation from Lady Rhondda: “Take it and pay for it”—also the epigraph of the novel) is that everyone pays. Everyone is connected; everyone’s experience benefits someone else, someone’s sacrifice is somebody else’s gain. We’re all in this together.
To a certain extent that’s what makes this novel so heartbreaking to me. Holtby loved the people of her fictional South Riding and of her real home in Yorkshire, she loved the world—and she died of Bright’s disease at the age of 37 before this book saw the light of day. This time through South Riding, I found myself wondering how much of Sarah Burton’s unrequited love story mirrored Holtby’s own relationship with the man who was never going to marry her. That chapter “Two in a Hotel Are Insane” is one of the most exquisite and excruciating sequences in literature; it contains so much anguish, grief, pleasure and pain, and it all feels so real that I’m curious as to whether Holtby had a similar experience. (Certainly she was a talented enough writer that I don’t doubt her ability to create such a scene out of her imagination, but so much of this book feels personal to the author that I think it’s a possibility.)
I love that Holtby shows us the inner lives of people from all walks of life and all circumstances—slumdwellers, middle class, crumbling aristocracy, the healthy, the infirm, the married, the single, politicians, journalists, teachers, students, adults, children—so that we as readers really get a feel for the character of the South Riding. Yes, there’s a love story, of sorts, but in the end it’s the surrounding detail that makes this book one of my favorites. It’s the chapters about Miss Sigglesthwaite, the hapless science teacher, Lily Sawdon, the innkeeper’s wife secretly dying of cancer, and Lydia Holly, the gifted girl from the slums who has to quit school when her mother dies in childbirth. It’s Mrs. Beddows, the competent female alderman (modeled on Holtby’s mother, I believe) stuck in a disappointing marriage, finding fulfillment in her friendship with Robert Carne. It’s the memory of World War I and the specter of World War II—which Holtby would not live to see.
South Riding is a masterpiece and I can’t help but wonder what Winifred Holtby would have achieved had she lived longer. It’s one of those books that spoils me and makes it difficult for me to find something just as good to read next.
I think the greatest strength of South Riding is its sincerity. There is not a cynical bone in this book's body. Some of the characters express cynical views, some of the characters are deceitful and crooked, but Winifred Holtby writes about all of them without passing judgment. All people are good and bad and right and wrong. Sarah Burton realizes at the end of the book that the answer to Mrs. Beddows’s question “Who pays?” (in response to Sarah’s favorite quotation from Lady Rhondda: “Take it and pay for it”—also the epigraph of the novel) is that everyone pays. Everyone is connected; everyone’s experience benefits someone else, someone’s sacrifice is somebody else’s gain. We’re all in this together.
To a certain extent that’s what makes this novel so heartbreaking to me. Holtby loved the people of her fictional South Riding and of her real home in Yorkshire, she loved the world—and she died of Bright’s disease at the age of 37 before this book saw the light of day. This time through South Riding, I found myself wondering how much of Sarah Burton’s unrequited love story mirrored Holtby’s own relationship with the man who was never going to marry her. That chapter “Two in a Hotel Are Insane” is one of the most exquisite and excruciating sequences in literature; it contains so much anguish, grief, pleasure and pain, and it all feels so real that I’m curious as to whether Holtby had a similar experience. (Certainly she was a talented enough writer that I don’t doubt her ability to create such a scene out of her imagination, but so much of this book feels personal to the author that I think it’s a possibility.)
I love that Holtby shows us the inner lives of people from all walks of life and all circumstances—slumdwellers, middle class, crumbling aristocracy, the healthy, the infirm, the married, the single, politicians, journalists, teachers, students, adults, children—so that we as readers really get a feel for the character of the South Riding. Yes, there’s a love story, of sorts, but in the end it’s the surrounding detail that makes this book one of my favorites. It’s the chapters about Miss Sigglesthwaite, the hapless science teacher, Lily Sawdon, the innkeeper’s wife secretly dying of cancer, and Lydia Holly, the gifted girl from the slums who has to quit school when her mother dies in childbirth. It’s Mrs. Beddows, the competent female alderman (modeled on Holtby’s mother, I believe) stuck in a disappointing marriage, finding fulfillment in her friendship with Robert Carne. It’s the memory of World War I and the specter of World War II—which Holtby would not live to see.
South Riding is a masterpiece and I can’t help but wonder what Winifred Holtby would have achieved had she lived longer. It’s one of those books that spoils me and makes it difficult for me to find something just as good to read next.
April 14, 2011
This is one of the most enjoyable novels I’ve read for ages.
South Riding covers two years in the life of a fictionalised borough in Yorkshire (though with a real name), and immerses you into the local politics and social life of the area. I felt myself being drawn into a gentle vortex where all human virtues and shortcomings intersect and revolve around each other – power-seeking and corruption, dutifulness and rectitude, greed and pettiness, generosity and kindness, but where there is equally a recognition that human beings are usually a blend of both the admirable and the not so admirable qualities. This method of storytelling, if well done, can provide some truly profound insights into human nature, and it’s very well done indeed here, through some excellently drawn three dimensional main characters, and a huge cast of convincing and memorable minor characters.
We get some very vivid glimpses of the reality of some of the most significant social problems of the time – poverty, poor housing, the education of girls, and maternal health. But it is the tension between tradition and progress which is at the heart of the story, and it’s explored with great humanity and a nuanced understanding, with both sides of the argument sympathetically presented, personified by the beguiling Carne, a near-bankrupt gentleman farmer, and the ambitious calculating Snaith, who has become wealthy on the back of the modernisation he champions. It is the traditionalist who is the nobler and more likeable of the two, but it is the man who wants to move with the times, albeit we might not like him so much, whom we know is right.
Inevitably with this kind of multi-dimensional story of course readers will find themselves having to follow many different narrative threads tracing the stories of the characters, their struggles to lead their lives, and to deal with adversity. This can lead to a confusing and frustrating read, with a lot of loose ends or unsatisfactory resolutions. In South Riding though the little pictures fit comfortably into the big picture and the individual threads are knitted together very adroitly into the larger picture, and with larger themes that transcend these individual histories. And in addition to this dexterity with her narrative, and mastery of her material, I should finally say that Winifred Holtby has an excellent writing style – light, ironic, and with wonderful visually descriptive touches throughout the book, which make the setting feel very real.
South Riding covers two years in the life of a fictionalised borough in Yorkshire (though with a real name), and immerses you into the local politics and social life of the area. I felt myself being drawn into a gentle vortex where all human virtues and shortcomings intersect and revolve around each other – power-seeking and corruption, dutifulness and rectitude, greed and pettiness, generosity and kindness, but where there is equally a recognition that human beings are usually a blend of both the admirable and the not so admirable qualities. This method of storytelling, if well done, can provide some truly profound insights into human nature, and it’s very well done indeed here, through some excellently drawn three dimensional main characters, and a huge cast of convincing and memorable minor characters.
We get some very vivid glimpses of the reality of some of the most significant social problems of the time – poverty, poor housing, the education of girls, and maternal health. But it is the tension between tradition and progress which is at the heart of the story, and it’s explored with great humanity and a nuanced understanding, with both sides of the argument sympathetically presented, personified by the beguiling Carne, a near-bankrupt gentleman farmer, and the ambitious calculating Snaith, who has become wealthy on the back of the modernisation he champions. It is the traditionalist who is the nobler and more likeable of the two, but it is the man who wants to move with the times, albeit we might not like him so much, whom we know is right.
Inevitably with this kind of multi-dimensional story of course readers will find themselves having to follow many different narrative threads tracing the stories of the characters, their struggles to lead their lives, and to deal with adversity. This can lead to a confusing and frustrating read, with a lot of loose ends or unsatisfactory resolutions. In South Riding though the little pictures fit comfortably into the big picture and the individual threads are knitted together very adroitly into the larger picture, and with larger themes that transcend these individual histories. And in addition to this dexterity with her narrative, and mastery of her material, I should finally say that Winifred Holtby has an excellent writing style – light, ironic, and with wonderful visually descriptive touches throughout the book, which make the setting feel very real.
February 9, 2017
Review included in my second half of 2016 round up on my blog: https://shouldacouldawouldabooks.com/...
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