The Beth Book

by Sarah Grand

This is a semi-autobiographical novel offering a portrait of the artist as a young woman. Grand’s compelling story recounts in vivid detail the childhood of her young heroine, Beth, a spirited and intelligent girl who challenges the limitations of provincial life in Ireland and Yorkshire.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Victorian, Feminism, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Womens

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1897

Reviews

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, that was very fantastic. A great Bildungsroman with rich characterisation, wonderful funny moments balanced with more serious themes, and an excellent quantity of early feminism.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sarah Grand was my choice for June in my Literary Birthday Challenge. Another new name for me, this author was born in Ireland to English parents in 1854. The Beth Book is described in the GR blurb as semi-autobiographical, and since I usually enjoy such books, I chose it out of the three titles available at Gutenberg.

This story did indeed follow the broad outlines of Grand's own life, if Wiki is at all accurate about her. And it was not an easy life; it was not a happy story. I cringed through most of Beth's childhood, which was full of 'thumpings' and shakings as well as verbal abuse, simply because the parents did not understand the type of child Beth was, and tried to force her to behave the way she was expected to behave. She was overly sensitive, intelligent beyond her years even without any formal education, very observant, and with a temper that gave her both the spirit to endure her life and extra difficulties caused by no one but herself. In any era, she would have been a handful for the adults around her, but in those years she was considered a holy terror.

It was a difficult book to read in many ways. The adult's treatment of Beth horrified me, but Beth's approach to life was also worrisome. She tended to live very much in a fantasy world (and who could blame her?!) but she often could not control the times she let herself escape, and would suddenly rejoin the real world by bumping into a light pole or a person, or discovering herself far from where she had intended to be during walks. I am honestly surprised that she managed to grow up at all, let alone grow up sane.

I was a bit put off by the author's subtitle: Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure A Woman of Genius
I am not sure I would have the nerve to say that about a character who is supposed to represent me. Of course, I do not have Beth's spirit....Grand obviously did.

There was an uncomfortable strident tone in many parts of the book. The author seemed to shift gears from relating Beth's life to ranting about the conditions of society that created it. Perfectly understandable, of course, considering how much the author had to relive in order to write this book, but there is explaining and there is ranting. Grand worked very hard in her adult years to try to change the world for women, and I am sure she needed to rant a lot. But I felt she got a little carried away in this book, and could have made her points with more subtlety.

I had to skim the last chapters. I had seen our Beth through her childhood, which ended abruptly at about age 15 when she was married. I hung on while she dealt with the consequences of that decision, and followed her into Society and the discovery of people who saw her as Grand saw her ~~ a genius. But somehow by the last dozen or so of the 52 chapters, I just wanted it over. I wanted out of Beth's world. Kudos to Grand for re-creating that world, I am sure it was a painful experience to have to look back in such detail. I wish she could have been born in modern days. She might have had more joy in her life.

Usually I want to read other titles by my Literary Birthday authors, but I honestly don't know if I want to read any more of Grand's work. I will have a peek at them Someday, but if they are as painful as this book was, I'll pass.

One thing for sure, the book made me grateful once again to be alive in modern times, even with all their troubles. I have had more freedom and more opportunity in life than either Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure or Sarah Grand could have ever dreamed about. Thank you, Ms. Grand, for wanting to change life for women. There is a long way to go yet, but without you and others like you back then, who knows where we would be now?

[Deborah Pickstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book - the depiction alone of Uncle James ('Jimmy-Wimmy') and the description of the dreadfulness of a male nag is priceless! It's very in keeping with the writing of that era, a story of a girl growing up and finally reaching an independent state after living under male....constriction.

The author eventually became the first Lady Mayoress (of Bath) in her own right in Britain and the story is probably strongly autobiographical, though it is not an autobiography.

In my Top Twenty - probably in my Top Ten :)

[Juliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review: https://theblankgarden.com/2019/04/05...

[ػᶈᶏϾӗ]

I recommend it! Surprisingly funny. There's a little bit of that Victorian style, but just enough of the modern style that it makes it an interesting read for the contemporary reader. Plays with gender roles in an interesting way for the time period, too, of course (reading it for a gender and lit class). Also, I really related to the main character, and I think anyone who remembers their childhood well will.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this voraciously in one day. Very good at the beginning but by the end a little hard to deal with. The problem was that the main character, Beth, changed from a child to an adult. That in itself is not a problem. The problem is that she suddenly became perfect perfect ethically perfect with only perfect motives and only perfect goals. The plot included the man sympathetic to intelligent female position i.e. "oh gracious I had never thought of it as such!! This female gives up her all for me! Clearly I have a total revelation about full worth and everything is fine for all characters afterward", which is unfortunate. The whole wasn't insufferable, since there were some clearly stated flaws in Beth's execution of perfection. The point however is that society etc family did not at all think of her as perfect, but as terrible fallen etc since blah blah women's roles in society blah. It's clearly a very important book but still hard to take at this point in time.

[Ginny]

I was required to read this book for a graduate-level gender and literature course. I may be forever indebted to my professor for finding my new favorite character in Victorian literature -- Beth. Watching her grow and evolve as a character and as a woman was fascinating for me. I enjoyed seeing her negotiate relationships with various people - her mother, Dan, Arthur, various other women - in spite of and through society's conventional class and gender roles. One can certainly learn much about these standard conventions and how they were being questioned and changing during the fin de siècle through this text. I would highly recommend it if that time period of literature and concepts of gender roles are of interest to you.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, this was a rollercoaster for me. At some points I loved it, at some points it was a huge chore to read. Will be discussing this at my Victorian Book Group later and am eager to hear other views. I skimmed the last chapters because I just couldn't take it anymore. But when I started it, I couldn't put it down.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a total Anglophile, (including Scotland and Ireland) and this is another beautifully written portrait of a young woman.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

To quote the story itself, this book has done me good.

[Jenny Yates · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I could’ve liked this book more. There’s some very inspired writing, here and there, and the title character, Beth Caldwell, is a singular personage. But it has one bad habit, and that’s a tendency to lecture the reader at every turn.

It can be very strident, but its causes are worthwhile. Written in 1897, it is very much a feminist novel, holding forth for equality and respect for women, and for men to stop acting like idiots.

The first half of the book is about Beth’s childhood and formative influences, and it’s very dense and slow-moving. It details her mental processes from infancy on, and at 250 pages, she’s still only reached the age of 12.

When Beth is 18, she is pressured into marriage by her mother, and goes into it without passion, or even a particular interest in her young suitor. The rest of the novel is about the slow process of a woman psychologically – and finally, physically - freeing herself from a man she despises. In many ways, it’s also a very realistic novel, showing in stark terms how it feels for a woman to be married to a man who condescends, manipulates, and deceives. There are no happy romantic endings in this book, not for any of the characters.

Here are some quotes from the book.

This one is about her selfish, autocratic Uncle James. Beth, with her mother and sisters, moves into his house after her father dies, when she is seven. Here’s Grand writing about his peculiar habits:

< He had also trained himself to sleep at odd times, and in all sorts of odd places, choosing by preference some corner where Aunt Grace Mary and the maids would least expect to find him, the consequence being wild shrieks and shocks to their nerves, such as, to use his own bland explanation, might be expected from undisciplined females. Beth found him one day spread out on a large oak chest in the main corridor upstairs, with two great china vases, one at his head and one at his feet, filled with reeds and bulrushes, which appeared to be waving over him, and looking in his sleep, with his cadaverous countenance, like a self-satisfied corpse. She had been on her way downstairs to dispose of the core of an apple she had eaten; but, as Uncle James’s mouth was open, she left it there. >

As you can see, Beth is quite an original child, and she has a tendency to say exactly what she’s thinking, and to ask awkward questions. At the same time, she is very self-aware, constantly at war within herself. This passage shows her thought processes after coming home from a visit with her supportive Aunt Victoria:

< While she was away, Beth had made many good resolutions about behaving herself on her return. Aunt Victoria had talked to her seriously on the subject. Beth could be good enough when she liked: she did all that her aunt expected of her; why could she not do all that her mother expected? Beth promised she would; and was beginning already to keep her promise faithfully by being as troublesome as possible, which was all that her mother ever expected of her. Whether or not thoughts are things which have power to produce effects, there are certainly people who answer to expectation with fatal facility, and Beth was one of them. >

Here is a description of Beth’s mother:

< She belonged to early Victorian times, when every effort was made to mould the characters of women as the homes of the period were built, on lines of ghastly uniformity. The education of a girl in those days was eminently calculated to cloud her intelligence and strengthen every failing developed in her sex by ages of suppression. >

When Grand is making a feminist point in a pithy way, she’s at her best. Here she edges into sarcasm:

< There are some who maintain that a man can do everything better than a woman can do it. This is certainly true of nagging. When a man nags, he shows his thoroughness, his continuity, and that love of sport which is the special pride and attribute of his sex. When a man nags, he puts his whole heart into the effort; a woman only nags, as a rule, because the heart has been taken out of her. >

Grand also had strong ideas about the religious practices of the day. She sees it as a study of:

< the doings of a barbarous people led by a vengeful demon of perplexing attributes whom they worshipped as a deity >

The tendency to lecture is stronger as you read further into the book. At the end, Beth has managed to forge a new life on her own, and she spends much of her time having abstract and somewhat self-congratulatory conversations with her enlightened friends. I’m happy for her, but, at this point, I didn’t really want to be around her all that much.

v

[Jeanine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed The Beth Book more than any other book I've read in a long time. It was a fairly large book, & I took my time reading it, wanting to enjoy every page. I found this book, by chance, in a used book store. It had fallen, or had been placed behind the books on a shelf. I am amazed that I never heard of the author, Sarah Grand. This would have been a perfect book to have been read by high school or college girls, as it discusses women's rights quite a lot. I had to double check the date of publishing, as the book seemed more modern, at times. The book also seems to mirror the life of the author; possibly, it is semi-autobiographical.

The story is about a little girl named Beth, of course. We start when she is quite young, & the story follows her life until she is 25. She is an amazing child, very outspoken, & maybe a little odd, to some. She is so in tune with nature, & she has such a gift for words. She is an independent little girl, & this, of course, causes a lot of problems, especially as she gets older. Women had very little in the way of rights back then. Education was for boys, & Beth is always told she can't do something, that she's too "silly, idiotic," or "just a girl." She is a very sensitive girl, & the constant belittling does affect her self-worth. But there are those who support her, too, so she is not completely demoralized. There is also humor in the story. Beth says some amusing things, & she is quite brave, too, whether an opponent be man or force of nature.

The author does not merely tell a story. She also advocates for women's rights, as well. Ms. Grand writes a story, while, at the same time, produces a book that gives the reader something to think about, to discuss with others, with the hopes of improving society, humanity. I can imagine how true that must have been when this book first was published.

The Book of Beth is a marvelous story of a young girl, with tremendous spirit. who thinks of others before herself most of the time. It's not enough for her to fight for herself, but she is called to be there for others.

I hope Ms. Grand's other books are as good as this one. :)

[Annabel Wearring-Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

As most Victorian books are wont to, this would have benefited from being 150/200 pages shorter. There is a great deal of the minutiae of Beth's childhood given in great detail that could have been lost - but as it is semi-autobiographical, I can see why Sarah Grand waxed lyrical.
That being said, I kept picking it up for Beth's precious nature, humour and feisty give-no-inches to the dreadful men she is surrounded by (all of whom conspire to keep her in a place she won't be boxed into). The New Freewoman is certainly in no short supply here. The book is a study of the ways women's intelligence and identities were suppressed in favour of men and interrogates gender in a way that feels ahead of its time. I appreciated the fact that Beth is allowed to succeed, and does not succumb to the conditions of her life as the wife of an abusive doctor.
Not my favourite Victorian Woman's novel or my favourite VMC, but an interesting read nonetheless.

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a classic that I discovered in The White Cat used book store. It is the story of an unusual girl from birth to age 25, set in the mid to late 1800's. It is semi-autobiographical in nature and reading the story was eye-opening. The women of today owe much to the women of that day. I cannot imagine a society that stifled their women in so many ways, from thought, word and deed to financial, family and career. It was plain to see the author felt the same way and it was courageous of her to write her true feelings.

[Sreepurna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book could have been at least 300 pages shorter if it stopped repeating things (read: what a genius Beth is) so many times.

That being said, I really enjoyed certain parts of the novel.

[darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opening Line: The day preceding Beth’s birth was a grey day, a serene grey day, awesome with a certain solemnity, and singularly significant to those who seek a sign.

Rating: 4/5 Stars

[Christopher Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confusing.

[Jed Mayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this novel gives a subtle portrait of the development of a young girl's mind, comparable in many ways to Joyce's, Richardson's and Woolf's later experiments. While this goes on for rather too long, it is really the heart of the work, which falters once it shifts to a portrayal of a loveless and destructive marriage. Yet even this would have made a compelling counterbalance to the early chapters if it hadn't ended in the protagonist finding salvation in yet another men, rather than allowing her to revel in the hard-won independence that seemed to be the work's main argument. A deeply flawed but nevertheless important work from the fin de siecle.

[Sally Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this a million years ago and somehow it just came to mind. Very much enjoyed these Virago Press books in the 1970s and '80s.