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The Five Towns #5
The Old Wives' Tale
First published in 1908, The Old Wives' Tale affirms the integrity of ordinary lives as it tells the story of the Baines sisters--shy, retiring Constance and defiant, romantic Sophia--over the course of nearly half a century. Bennett traces the sisters' lives from childhood in their father's drapery shop in provincial Bursley, England, during the mid-Victorian era, through their married lives, to the modern industrial age, when they are reunited as old women. The setting moves from the Five Towns of Staffordshire to exotic and cosmopolitan Paris, while the action moves from the subdued domestic routine of the Baines household to the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
615 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1908
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10385 people want to read
About the author
Arnold Bennett
1,031 books316 followersEnoch Arnold Bennett was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaboration with other writers), and a daily journal totalling more than a million words. He wrote articles and stories for more than 100 newspapers and periodicals, worked in and briefly ran the Ministry of Information during the First World War, and wrote for the cinema in the 1920s. Sales of his books were substantial, and he was the most financially successful British author of his day.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France.
Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people and he deplored literary cliques and élites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913).
Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.
Born into a modest but upwardly mobile family in Hanley, in the Staffordshire Potteries, Bennett was intended by his father, a solicitor, to follow him into the legal profession. Bennett worked for his father before moving to another law firm in London as a clerk at the age of 21. He became assistant editor and then editor of a women's magazine before becoming a full-time author in 1900. Always a devotee of French culture in general and French literature in particular, he moved to Paris in 1903; there the relaxed milieu helped him overcome his intense shyness, particularly with women. He spent ten years in France, marrying a Frenchwoman in 1907. In 1912 he moved back to England. He and his wife separated in 1921, and he spent the last years of his life with a new partner, an English actress. He died in 1931 of typhoid fever, having unwisely drunk tap-water in France.
Many of Bennett's novels and short stories are set in a fictionalised version of the Staffordshire Potteries, which he called The Five Towns. He strongly believed that literature should be accessible to ordinary people and he deplored literary cliques and élites. His books appealed to a wide public and sold in large numbers. For this reason, and for his adherence to realism, writers and supporters of the modernist school, notably Virginia Woolf, belittled him, and his fiction became neglected after his death. During his lifetime his journalistic "self-help" books sold in substantial numbers, and he was also a playwright; he did less well in the theatre than with novels but achieved two considerable successes with Milestones (1912) and The Great Adventure (1913).
Studies by Margaret Drabble (1974), John Carey (1992), and others have led to a re-evaluation of Bennett's work. The finest of his novels, including Anna of the Five Towns (1902), The Old Wives' Tale (1908), Clayhanger (1910) and Riceyman Steps (1923), are now widely recognised as major works.
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September 15, 2018
A simple concept of parallels and contrasts in the lives of sisters, carefully told with gentle irony. It starts in 1864 when Constance and Sophia are 16 and 15 respectively and follows them to the end of their lives.
Book 1 covers their teenage years together above and in a draper’s shop in a small town in the Staffordshire Potteries (central England). Book 2 is in the same location, but focuses on Constance. Book 3 is set in Paris during great political upheaval and war, and is about Sophia. In book 4, the two threads come together again.
Bennett modelled it on the great realistic French novels of the time (Balzac, Flaubert et al); in some ways it is very mundane, and yet the attention to detail is extraordinary and compelling. As an elderly Sophia muses,
“My life has been so queer – and yet every part of it separately seemed ordinary enough.”
Image: French café scene by Jean Béraud.
Contrasts
It opens with a description of the bucolic countryside, observing “But though Constance and Sophia were in it they were not of it” because “no person who lives in the district… ever thinks about the county”, even though it’s so much pleasanter than the busy, dirty town.
They are the only children of a bedridden but successful and respected draper whose hatred of “puffing” meant he refused to replace the fallen shop sign lest he “condone, yea, to participate in, the modern craze for unscrupulous self-advertisement”. The draper’s shop and home is their world, and yet their lives end up taking very different paths.
Sometimes the contrasts are more parallel than they first seem, and I think this is an aspect that bears further thought and eventual rereading. Constance spends her whole life in the town, living a traditional life as dutiful daughter, wife, mother and widow, whereas Sophia spends many years in France, surviving the Siege of Paris and building independent success.
Their lives seem so different, and for Sophia, there is an aspect of missing England when she’s in France and vice versa. However, despite the apparent exoticism of her life, she comes to realise that her “life, in its way, had been as narrow as Constance’s. Though her experience of humanity was wide… she had been utterly absorbed in doing one single thing.”
I think the only weak point was some aspects of the ending, but in such a long and wonderful book, it's only a minor issue.
Sisterhood
The sisters are deliberately treated equally by their parents: their workboxes “were different but one was not more magnificent than the other. Indeed, a rigid equality was the rule” and yet “in some subtle way, Constance had a standing with her parents which was more confidential than Sofia’s”. This is clear when Mrs Baines confides in Constance about her problems with Sophia: “her tone was peculiar, charged with import, confidential, and therefore very flattering to Constance.”
They are close, though they have very different temperaments, with Sophia being the more mischievous and “a prey ripe for the evil one”. She is clever, proud, shrewd with money, independent and obstinate; she would rather suffer than beg or ask for forgiveness. Constance is… suited to her name, like the continuity and familiarity in her life. She is more dutiful and happy to assume she will go into the shop, but Sophia “had always hated the shop. She did not understand how her mother and Constance could bring themselves to be deferential and flattering to every customer that entered”.
Their teenage banter, mild naughtiness (trying on mother’s new dress), and sneering at a servant from afar could easily be transplanted to teenage sisters anywhere or when. Curiously, their adult relationship seems more like something from a historical novel than their childhood one.
Is Blindness the Price of Love?
A recurring theme is the wilful blindness of love, be that of a parent, spouse or even another relative. All the main characters suffer for it in different ways, though one finally acknowledges the truth to herself, if not to others, and “her affection was unimpaired”. For a more extreme analysis of this idea, that I rated only 2*, see Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, which I reviewed HERE.
Can a child of less than five be bad? Is it “hidden sullenness or mere callous indifference, or a perfect unconsciousness of sin?” And is it misguided to say “If we can be happy only when I give way to him, I must give way to him”? However, that is hard to maintain:
“She lived for nothing but to please him; he was, however, exceedingly difficult to please, not in the least because he was hypocritical and exacting, but because he was indifferent… whereas he was the whole of her universe, she was merely a dim figure in the background of his.”
Modernity and Feminine Insight?
The book has a curiously modern feeling in some ways. In particular, Sophia’s teenage rebellion doesn’t feel like something from a Victorian novel (though this was written in Edwardian times), either in terms of what she says, or what she does. When defiant, she is sullen and evasive, exhibits a “diffident boldness”, plays the fairness card (“Oh, of course Constance is always right”), answers back with excessive logic (“You tell me not to answer back, and then you say you’re waiting”) and declares “You all want to make me miserable… Put me in prison if you like! I know you’d be glad if I was dead!”. One confrontation ends when, “with a brusque precipitation of herself, vanished upstairs”. I’m sure most modern readers have been involved in such conversations.
Although written by a man, all the main characters are women, but they are convincingly and insightfully rendered. For example, Constance’s feelings after her honeymoon are delicately but touchingly described:
“She sat there full of new knowledge and new importance, brimming with experience and strange, unexpected aspirations, purposes, yes - and cunnings!...You could see the timid thing [old, virginal Constance] peeping wistfully out of the eyes of the married woman.”
And the all-encompassing love of a new mother for her baby, she “dived into the recesses of the perambulator and extricated from its cocoon the centre of the universe, and scrutinised him with quiet passion.” The awkwardness of breastfeeding in front of others, and the stresses of controlled crying (not that it’s called that) are also discussed.
At a more trivial level, problems with builders promises, timescales and workmanship are timeless, and the etiquette of all-you-can-eat fare troubled even Edwardians, apparently: the delicate dilemma of “fixed price per day for as much as they can consume while observing the rules of the game… in an instant decided how much they could decently take, and to what extent they could practise the theoretical liberty of choice… they had the right to seize all that was present under their noses, like genteel tigers; and they had the right to refuse; that was all.”
(In contrast, it is very Victorian in the way that women can be laid low by severe shock or a bit of a chill.)
Sympathy
In the Preface, Bennett says “it is an absolute rule that the principal characters of a novel must not be unsympathetic”. I don’t necessarily agree, but he stuck to his principle in this, and the others of his that I have read, which is not to say that his characters are flat or saccharine. And he has no such qualms where some of the minor male characters are concerned.
Quotes
• “It is to be remembered that in those days Providence was still busying himself [yes, him] with everybody’s affairs.”
• The wakes (regional festival) were “an orgiastic carnival, gross in all its manifestations of joy. The whole centre of the town was given over to the furious pleasures of the people… displaying all the delights of the horrible.”
• “She was athirst for sympathy in the task of scorning everything local.”
• Typical Bennett: “One of Maggie’s deepest instincts, always held in check by the dominance of Mrs Baines, was to leave pails prominent on the main routes of the house: and now, divining what was at hand, it flamed into insurrection.”
• Dr Harrop was “common sense in breeches”.
• When Mr Scales mentioned his fox-terrier bitch, he “had no suspicion that he was transgressing a convention by virtue of which dogs have no sex” (and I wonder if any Edwardian readers would have balked at Bennett’s use of the word “sex”).
• Be careful what may be overheard by servants, “A clumsy question might enlighten a member of the class which ought ever be enlightened about one’s private affairs”.
• “The era of good old-fashioned Christmases, so agreeably picturesque for the poor, was not yet at an end.”
• “The remarkable notion that twelve thousand pounds represents the infinity of wealth, that this sum possessed special magical properties which rendered it insensible to the process of subtraction.”
• “Good clothes, when put to the test, survive a change in fortune, as a Roman arch survives the luxury of departed empire.”
• “The irrational obstinacy of a physically weak man who sticks to it that he can defy the laws of nature.”
• Bennett loves writing about hotels, and says “critically examining newcomers was one of the amusements of the occupants of the lounge.”
• “The patched and senile drabness of the [hotel] bedroom.”
• You can tell respectable hotel guests because “their clothes… did not flatter the lust of the eye”.
• “The respectability of a luxury private hotel makes proper every act that passes within its walls.”
Modern British Asian Retelling!
Hugely disappointing, and I suggest avoiding it. My review is here: Marriage Material
Book 1 covers their teenage years together above and in a draper’s shop in a small town in the Staffordshire Potteries (central England). Book 2 is in the same location, but focuses on Constance. Book 3 is set in Paris during great political upheaval and war, and is about Sophia. In book 4, the two threads come together again.
Bennett modelled it on the great realistic French novels of the time (Balzac, Flaubert et al); in some ways it is very mundane, and yet the attention to detail is extraordinary and compelling. As an elderly Sophia muses,
“My life has been so queer – and yet every part of it separately seemed ordinary enough.”
Image: French café scene by Jean Béraud.
Contrasts
It opens with a description of the bucolic countryside, observing “But though Constance and Sophia were in it they were not of it” because “no person who lives in the district… ever thinks about the county”, even though it’s so much pleasanter than the busy, dirty town.
They are the only children of a bedridden but successful and respected draper whose hatred of “puffing” meant he refused to replace the fallen shop sign lest he “condone, yea, to participate in, the modern craze for unscrupulous self-advertisement”. The draper’s shop and home is their world, and yet their lives end up taking very different paths.
Sometimes the contrasts are more parallel than they first seem, and I think this is an aspect that bears further thought and eventual rereading. Constance spends her whole life in the town, living a traditional life as dutiful daughter, wife, mother and widow, whereas Sophia spends many years in France, surviving the Siege of Paris and building independent success.
Their lives seem so different, and for Sophia, there is an aspect of missing England when she’s in France and vice versa. However, despite the apparent exoticism of her life, she comes to realise that her “life, in its way, had been as narrow as Constance’s. Though her experience of humanity was wide… she had been utterly absorbed in doing one single thing.”
I think the only weak point was some aspects of the ending, but in such a long and wonderful book, it's only a minor issue.
Sisterhood
The sisters are deliberately treated equally by their parents: their workboxes “were different but one was not more magnificent than the other. Indeed, a rigid equality was the rule” and yet “in some subtle way, Constance had a standing with her parents which was more confidential than Sofia’s”. This is clear when Mrs Baines confides in Constance about her problems with Sophia: “her tone was peculiar, charged with import, confidential, and therefore very flattering to Constance.”
They are close, though they have very different temperaments, with Sophia being the more mischievous and “a prey ripe for the evil one”. She is clever, proud, shrewd with money, independent and obstinate; she would rather suffer than beg or ask for forgiveness. Constance is… suited to her name, like the continuity and familiarity in her life. She is more dutiful and happy to assume she will go into the shop, but Sophia “had always hated the shop. She did not understand how her mother and Constance could bring themselves to be deferential and flattering to every customer that entered”.
Their teenage banter, mild naughtiness (trying on mother’s new dress), and sneering at a servant from afar could easily be transplanted to teenage sisters anywhere or when. Curiously, their adult relationship seems more like something from a historical novel than their childhood one.
Is Blindness the Price of Love?
A recurring theme is the wilful blindness of love, be that of a parent, spouse or even another relative. All the main characters suffer for it in different ways, though one finally acknowledges the truth to herself, if not to others, and “her affection was unimpaired”. For a more extreme analysis of this idea, that I rated only 2*, see Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, which I reviewed HERE.
Can a child of less than five be bad? Is it “hidden sullenness or mere callous indifference, or a perfect unconsciousness of sin?” And is it misguided to say “If we can be happy only when I give way to him, I must give way to him”? However, that is hard to maintain:
“She lived for nothing but to please him; he was, however, exceedingly difficult to please, not in the least because he was hypocritical and exacting, but because he was indifferent… whereas he was the whole of her universe, she was merely a dim figure in the background of his.”
Modernity and Feminine Insight?
The book has a curiously modern feeling in some ways. In particular, Sophia’s teenage rebellion doesn’t feel like something from a Victorian novel (though this was written in Edwardian times), either in terms of what she says, or what she does. When defiant, she is sullen and evasive, exhibits a “diffident boldness”, plays the fairness card (“Oh, of course Constance is always right”), answers back with excessive logic (“You tell me not to answer back, and then you say you’re waiting”) and declares “You all want to make me miserable… Put me in prison if you like! I know you’d be glad if I was dead!”. One confrontation ends when, “with a brusque precipitation of herself, vanished upstairs”. I’m sure most modern readers have been involved in such conversations.
Although written by a man, all the main characters are women, but they are convincingly and insightfully rendered. For example, Constance’s feelings after her honeymoon are delicately but touchingly described:
“She sat there full of new knowledge and new importance, brimming with experience and strange, unexpected aspirations, purposes, yes - and cunnings!...You could see the timid thing [old, virginal Constance] peeping wistfully out of the eyes of the married woman.”
And the all-encompassing love of a new mother for her baby, she “dived into the recesses of the perambulator and extricated from its cocoon the centre of the universe, and scrutinised him with quiet passion.” The awkwardness of breastfeeding in front of others, and the stresses of controlled crying (not that it’s called that) are also discussed.
At a more trivial level, problems with builders promises, timescales and workmanship are timeless, and the etiquette of all-you-can-eat fare troubled even Edwardians, apparently: the delicate dilemma of “fixed price per day for as much as they can consume while observing the rules of the game… in an instant decided how much they could decently take, and to what extent they could practise the theoretical liberty of choice… they had the right to seize all that was present under their noses, like genteel tigers; and they had the right to refuse; that was all.”
(In contrast, it is very Victorian in the way that women can be laid low by severe shock or a bit of a chill.)
Sympathy
In the Preface, Bennett says “it is an absolute rule that the principal characters of a novel must not be unsympathetic”. I don’t necessarily agree, but he stuck to his principle in this, and the others of his that I have read, which is not to say that his characters are flat or saccharine. And he has no such qualms where some of the minor male characters are concerned.
Quotes
• “It is to be remembered that in those days Providence was still busying himself [yes, him] with everybody’s affairs.”
• The wakes (regional festival) were “an orgiastic carnival, gross in all its manifestations of joy. The whole centre of the town was given over to the furious pleasures of the people… displaying all the delights of the horrible.”
• “She was athirst for sympathy in the task of scorning everything local.”
• Typical Bennett: “One of Maggie’s deepest instincts, always held in check by the dominance of Mrs Baines, was to leave pails prominent on the main routes of the house: and now, divining what was at hand, it flamed into insurrection.”
• Dr Harrop was “common sense in breeches”.
• When Mr Scales mentioned his fox-terrier bitch, he “had no suspicion that he was transgressing a convention by virtue of which dogs have no sex” (and I wonder if any Edwardian readers would have balked at Bennett’s use of the word “sex”).
• Be careful what may be overheard by servants, “A clumsy question might enlighten a member of the class which ought ever be enlightened about one’s private affairs”.
• “The era of good old-fashioned Christmases, so agreeably picturesque for the poor, was not yet at an end.”
• “The remarkable notion that twelve thousand pounds represents the infinity of wealth, that this sum possessed special magical properties which rendered it insensible to the process of subtraction.”
• “Good clothes, when put to the test, survive a change in fortune, as a Roman arch survives the luxury of departed empire.”
• “The irrational obstinacy of a physically weak man who sticks to it that he can defy the laws of nature.”
• Bennett loves writing about hotels, and says “critically examining newcomers was one of the amusements of the occupants of the lounge.”
• “The patched and senile drabness of the [hotel] bedroom.”
• You can tell respectable hotel guests because “their clothes… did not flatter the lust of the eye”.
• “The respectability of a luxury private hotel makes proper every act that passes within its walls.”
Modern British Asian Retelling!
Hugely disappointing, and I suggest avoiding it. My review is here: Marriage Material
July 12, 2012
I recall intensely that The Old Wives' Tale had me weeping silently into my mug of tea on more than one occasion as I followed raptly the ordinary tedious lives of two more than a little irritating women from youth to addled toothlessness, whence are we all doomed, although, one hopes, these days, with more humane dentistry and superior bridgework. Ah, humanity! Is it ever thus? Yes, thus it was, thus it is, and thus is to be. Here is a symphony of domesticity, panopticon of disappointment, spouting jugular of forgiveness; and now, this novel sits on my shelf, long untouched but never to be donated to oxfam. It glows faintly and casts a golden deliquescent shimmer on the surrounding brattier volumes.
June 17, 2020
You all know the problem. You've got some great books on your shelves that you really want to read, and you're pretty sure you're going to love them, because of author or subject matter or reputation as a classic. But it's over 500 pages, sometimes a lot over. So you pick it up, but you're aware that in the time it takes to read this one, you could probably finish 2 or 3 shorter books that you also badly want to get to. So you put that big, fat book back on the shelf and opt for the low-hanging fruit instead.
I promised myself at the beginning of 2020 that I would make it a goal to read some of these thicker books this year; I even made a list of 5 that I most wanted to read. Here it is June, and I'm just getting around to the first on this list. Yes, it's taken me 10 days, and I've ignored a lot of other things to finish, but, I have to tell you, it was SO worth it.
"One of the modern library's hundred best novels of the twentieth century" is just above the title and beautiful artwork on my edition. I'm not going to argue with them; I loved it. I loved it so much that I actually slowed my reading in the last 100 pages to make it last longer. It is the story of two sisters, 15 and 16 when we first meet them around 1862. Constance is shy and retiring, willing to conform to parental and societal expectations. Sophia, the youngest, is beautiful, headstrong and adventurous. Constance marries and she and her husband take over the family business. Sophia elopes with an unsuitable cad and runs away to Paris. The novel follows them through the next 50 years. Along with their immensely readable stories,we are treated to the changing times, customs and expectations of the last half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th in England and Paris. As in any family saga, we get births and deaths, humor and heartbreak, love, hate, jealousy, horrible life changing mistakes, incredible pieces of luck, aging, everything that makes human beings so vulnerable. All by the hands of a wonderful writer.
"It recalled Sophia to a sense of the inner mysteries of life, reminding her somehow that humanity walks ever on a thin crust over terrific abysses". That quote is a little too close for comfort given the current state of our world, simply because of the realization of it's truth.
I am so sad to leave Constance and Sophia's world. The consolation of a big, thick book is worth the cost in time.
I promised myself at the beginning of 2020 that I would make it a goal to read some of these thicker books this year; I even made a list of 5 that I most wanted to read. Here it is June, and I'm just getting around to the first on this list. Yes, it's taken me 10 days, and I've ignored a lot of other things to finish, but, I have to tell you, it was SO worth it.
"One of the modern library's hundred best novels of the twentieth century" is just above the title and beautiful artwork on my edition. I'm not going to argue with them; I loved it. I loved it so much that I actually slowed my reading in the last 100 pages to make it last longer. It is the story of two sisters, 15 and 16 when we first meet them around 1862. Constance is shy and retiring, willing to conform to parental and societal expectations. Sophia, the youngest, is beautiful, headstrong and adventurous. Constance marries and she and her husband take over the family business. Sophia elopes with an unsuitable cad and runs away to Paris. The novel follows them through the next 50 years. Along with their immensely readable stories,we are treated to the changing times, customs and expectations of the last half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th in England and Paris. As in any family saga, we get births and deaths, humor and heartbreak, love, hate, jealousy, horrible life changing mistakes, incredible pieces of luck, aging, everything that makes human beings so vulnerable. All by the hands of a wonderful writer.
"It recalled Sophia to a sense of the inner mysteries of life, reminding her somehow that humanity walks ever on a thin crust over terrific abysses". That quote is a little too close for comfort given the current state of our world, simply because of the realization of it's truth.
I am so sad to leave Constance and Sophia's world. The consolation of a big, thick book is worth the cost in time.
October 2, 2016
BLURB
"Every stout, ageing woman is not grotesque -- far from it! -- but there is an extreme pathos in the mere fact that that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with the unique charm of youth in her form and her movements and in her mind. And the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing woman is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos. It was at (the) instant (of this observation) that I was visited by the idea of writing the book which ultimately became The Old Wives' Tale." So writes Arnold Bennett in the preface to his masterpiece of realistic fiction, a book that follows the lives of two sisters, Constance and Sophia, from simple days in mid-Victorian England through the chaos and tumult of the modern age. Along the way, a novel is built, detail by rich detail, that rivals the great realistic works of Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, and Maupassant.I don't really know what I feel after the reading this book, apart from exhausted and sad. But digging deeper into the reason behind my feelings, I can only conclude that the realities of the two sisters were nothing really different than what is happening to everyone in life.
“Scars are just another kind of memory.” ― M.L. Stedman, The Light Between OceansInstead of hiding behind social etiquette and good manners, the story, published in 1908, is told with blatant honesty, coupled with a subtle dry sense of humor and a profound knowledge of humanity. The historical aspects of events which were either unknown or peculiar, added a deeper nuance to the book. I really enjoyed it.
I found a great audiobook version on Youtube and decided to finish the story that way since I probably would have put it down. It was really too slow and too boring. But the deeper I progressed into the narrative, the more I began to enjoy this saga about two sisters who made different choices in their lives and had to do the best they could. They took responsibility with the tools available to them: pride, a sense of honor, resilience and endurance.
I think it is more the story of life as we know it, than it is about the two sisters alone. It is like asking a few people to write down their life stories and then choose two mundane, probably boring lives, to highlight our own journeys for us all. Or it can also be the gossip stories about neighbors from the cradle to the grave, and how we react to it.
Picturesque, detailed, touching. For me the value lies in the time period it was written and the reminder it is of lives that was lived differently from our own and what we could learn from the experience. I loved it. A great classic.
May 29, 2021
Having read Maupassant’s Une Vie, Arnold Bennett reckoned the time had come for his own epic realist masterpiece, so the formidable chronicler of the late-Victorian bourgeoisie Up North powered through the writing in under a year. The results follow the lives of two sisters from Bursley (now part of Stoke-on-Trent) from their years as flighty youths to their creaky descents into sciatica and rheumatism. As a realist novel, this is as painfully realist a novel as you are likely to ever read. Nowhere are the conveniently brave leaps of courage to power along the plot, the melodramatic conniptions of the early Victorian novels, or the fanciful idea of decent people prospering over the pricks. Here, we have in excruciating detail two characters stoically making the most of their lots, experiencing the small pleasures, the epic failures, the tickertape of anxieties, and the vaunting disappointments of the quotidian, in a way that is almost unbearably accurate, written with a depth of compassion and wisdom that is fairly staggering. You’ll find this novel on a par of brilliance with Henry James’s Portrait of a Lady and Gaskell’s North and South, if you have your eyeballs in the right place.
February 13, 2020
I listened to this over a very long car ride. Both my husband and I thought it was a very good choice. It is easy to follow and keeps your attention.
The book is about two very different sisters—Constance and Sophia. Their names clue you in to their respective personalities. Constance is constant, good-natured, kind and loving. She is a home-body who wants to stay put. She will be married to a dedicated employee in the family’s drapery store in Bursley. Bursley is modeled on Burslem, Staffordshire, England.
Sophia is sophisticated, curious, adventurous and romantic. Her dream is to travel the world. She is one year younger than Constance. She falls in love and marries too, to a rogue, a scoundrel, a philanderer who ups and . She does travel the world though. She is in France during the Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 and is in Paris during the 1871 Siege of Paris.
The two sisters’ lives are woven around the events of their time. The Old Wives' Tale is a book of historical fiction. Readers observe the socio-economic changes occurring at the end of the 19th century, the ever-growing strength of the working classes, the naissance of balloon flight, the federation of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent (Hanley to become the city center, Burslem, Fenton, Longton, Stoke-upon-Trent and Tunstall). An era of modernizations and new inventions is in full swing.
The story is told in four parts. The sisters are first together in Bursley, Constance is sixteen and Sophia fifteen. It is the mid-860s. They part. The second section is about Constance--her marriage and the raising of her son. The third section is about Sophia in France. In the fourth section the two sisters meet up again, but where will that be?! They love each other, they need each other, but the two want different things. We follow them through to their deaths.
Each sister has their own loved pet, one a poodle the other a terrier. The dog escapades are very funny. The author demonstrates his keen knowledge of how pet owners view even the slightest insult or mistreatment of their dear beloved pet.
The writing is straightforward, but it is humorous too, and it captures extremely well how people do actually behave. I smiled over and over again at the lines. Realism is adhered to. Do not expect an overly sweet, cute happy story.
The book also looks at ageing and ultimately each person’s importance in the bigger scheme of things. Each person views their own life as all important, but in reality, at our death, life continues to roll on unperturbed!
David Haig’s narration of the audiobook is VERY good. Four stars for the narration! It is always easy to understand. He intones dialogs very well.
********************
Anna of the Five Towns 4 stars
The Old Wives' Tale 4 stars
The book is about two very different sisters—Constance and Sophia. Their names clue you in to their respective personalities. Constance is constant, good-natured, kind and loving. She is a home-body who wants to stay put. She will be married to a dedicated employee in the family’s drapery store in Bursley. Bursley is modeled on Burslem, Staffordshire, England.
Sophia is sophisticated, curious, adventurous and romantic. Her dream is to travel the world. She is one year younger than Constance. She falls in love and marries too, to a rogue, a scoundrel, a philanderer who ups and . She does travel the world though. She is in France during the Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 and is in Paris during the 1871 Siege of Paris.
The two sisters’ lives are woven around the events of their time. The Old Wives' Tale is a book of historical fiction. Readers observe the socio-economic changes occurring at the end of the 19th century, the ever-growing strength of the working classes, the naissance of balloon flight, the federation of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent (Hanley to become the city center, Burslem, Fenton, Longton, Stoke-upon-Trent and Tunstall). An era of modernizations and new inventions is in full swing.
The story is told in four parts. The sisters are first together in Bursley, Constance is sixteen and Sophia fifteen. It is the mid-860s. They part. The second section is about Constance--her marriage and the raising of her son. The third section is about Sophia in France. In the fourth section the two sisters meet up again, but where will that be?! They love each other, they need each other, but the two want different things. We follow them through to their deaths.
Each sister has their own loved pet, one a poodle the other a terrier. The dog escapades are very funny. The author demonstrates his keen knowledge of how pet owners view even the slightest insult or mistreatment of their dear beloved pet.
The writing is straightforward, but it is humorous too, and it captures extremely well how people do actually behave. I smiled over and over again at the lines. Realism is adhered to. Do not expect an overly sweet, cute happy story.
The book also looks at ageing and ultimately each person’s importance in the bigger scheme of things. Each person views their own life as all important, but in reality, at our death, life continues to roll on unperturbed!
David Haig’s narration of the audiobook is VERY good. Four stars for the narration! It is always easy to understand. He intones dialogs very well.
********************
Anna of the Five Towns 4 stars
The Old Wives' Tale 4 stars
March 2, 2025
This book was a joy to read. The characters of Sophia and Constance were excellent. There lives chalk and cheese. I was not sure what to expect, and aside for some incredibly long sentences it was a great novel of the day to day lives of the two sisters.
The contrast between the two sisters is incredible. The first part describes the two sisters growing up in their fathers drapers shop. Constance is constant while Sophia has a wild streak and elopes with a traveling salesman. In contrast, Constance marries Mr Povey who works at the shop. The story covers her life at the drapers shop and the death of her husband and the spoiling of her son.
Sophia in contrast is abandoned by her husband in Paris where she goes in to establish a successful pensione. Later the two now elderly sisters are reunited. The story is a masterpiece covering 1840-1905 and the technology and political changes.
Bennett captures the poignancy of two different lives in a time of change with strong woman characters.
The contrast between the two sisters is incredible. The first part describes the two sisters growing up in their fathers drapers shop. Constance is constant while Sophia has a wild streak and elopes with a traveling salesman. In contrast, Constance marries Mr Povey who works at the shop. The story covers her life at the drapers shop and the death of her husband and the spoiling of her son.
Sophia in contrast is abandoned by her husband in Paris where she goes in to establish a successful pensione. Later the two now elderly sisters are reunited. The story is a masterpiece covering 1840-1905 and the technology and political changes.
Bennett captures the poignancy of two different lives in a time of change with strong woman characters.
November 27, 2024
In the autumn of 1903 Arnold Bennett used to dine recurrently at a small, undistinguished Paris restaurant. Once he saw the waiters and customers mocking and scorning a "fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque old woman” whose peculiar mannerisms soon "had the whole restaurant laughing at her."
Reflecting that her case was a tragedy, Bennett realized that "this woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful." With the example of Guy de Maupassant's Line Vie in mind, Bennett decided to write a novel in which the hero and villain would be "time" as it remorselessly converts a lovely, spirited young girl into a pathetic old frump. Thus the idea for The Old Wives Tale was born,
But where Maupassant had chronicled one woman's passage from innocent youth to disillusioned old age, Bennett decided to use two, in order to to appraise and compare the effect of the forces of heredity and environment.
Both Constance and Sophia are Baineses; that is to say, fundamentally granite-willed, indomitable North of England women.
By separating them early in life, keeping Constance in the environment of her birth and sending Sophia to the totally different environment of besieged Paris, Bennett was able to show that, except for superficial differences, a person's character will remain principally what it was at birth.
Constance stoically endures her long, uneventful life in Bursley, while Sophia, as much a Baines as her sister, triumphs over a rubbish and useless husband, a completely foreign atmosphere, and even a great famine, to become a success in business. But like Constance, Sophia ends up a lonely old woman.
The triumph of The Old Wives' Tale, then, is in its subtle, meticulous study of time's erosions.
Ever so gradually the girls become less playful, less self-assured, but better able to take care of themselves and more inured to loneliness in their very different environments.
Time works its havoc on them and in the end wins a hollow victory over these two indomitable women.
With quiet confidence and steadfast self-assurance in his power to keep two plots moving simultaneously, Bennett set out quite purposely in The Old Wives' Tale to write what he knew would be his masterpiece.
He even learned penmanship so that the manuscript itself would be a work of art, as indeed a published facsimile edition of it shows it to be.
Following his usual rigid writing schedule, thinking out each episode a day in advance during long walks in the beautiful forest of Fontaine- bleu, Bennett attained his goal.
‘The Old Wives' Tale combines the ruthlessly and brutally accurate detail of French realism with the gusto and comicality that have always characterized English fiction.
If life seeks to cow you down, and cow down and submit you must, give life a hell of a fight --- the fight of a lifetime.
Reflecting that her case was a tragedy, Bennett realized that "this woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful." With the example of Guy de Maupassant's Line Vie in mind, Bennett decided to write a novel in which the hero and villain would be "time" as it remorselessly converts a lovely, spirited young girl into a pathetic old frump. Thus the idea for The Old Wives Tale was born,
But where Maupassant had chronicled one woman's passage from innocent youth to disillusioned old age, Bennett decided to use two, in order to to appraise and compare the effect of the forces of heredity and environment.
Both Constance and Sophia are Baineses; that is to say, fundamentally granite-willed, indomitable North of England women.
By separating them early in life, keeping Constance in the environment of her birth and sending Sophia to the totally different environment of besieged Paris, Bennett was able to show that, except for superficial differences, a person's character will remain principally what it was at birth.
Constance stoically endures her long, uneventful life in Bursley, while Sophia, as much a Baines as her sister, triumphs over a rubbish and useless husband, a completely foreign atmosphere, and even a great famine, to become a success in business. But like Constance, Sophia ends up a lonely old woman.
The triumph of The Old Wives' Tale, then, is in its subtle, meticulous study of time's erosions.
Ever so gradually the girls become less playful, less self-assured, but better able to take care of themselves and more inured to loneliness in their very different environments.
Time works its havoc on them and in the end wins a hollow victory over these two indomitable women.
With quiet confidence and steadfast self-assurance in his power to keep two plots moving simultaneously, Bennett set out quite purposely in The Old Wives' Tale to write what he knew would be his masterpiece.
He even learned penmanship so that the manuscript itself would be a work of art, as indeed a published facsimile edition of it shows it to be.
Following his usual rigid writing schedule, thinking out each episode a day in advance during long walks in the beautiful forest of Fontaine- bleu, Bennett attained his goal.
‘The Old Wives' Tale combines the ruthlessly and brutally accurate detail of French realism with the gusto and comicality that have always characterized English fiction.
If life seeks to cow you down, and cow down and submit you must, give life a hell of a fight --- the fight of a lifetime.
June 23, 2012
A testament to the power and influence of Goodreads is the discovery of this gem which otherwise would have escaped my notice.
Bennett grabbed me with the second sentence of his preface and never let go for a moment. In many ways this 5 page preface is more compelling than the actual novel. Here he relates an anecdote of sitting in a favorite cafe when an old woman comes in talking to herself and dropping her parcels. She is the subject of immediate ridicule by the two waitresses, one old enough to know better and one young enough to be more charitable. He muses that this fat, ugly, old woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful but most certainly free of her ridiculous mannerisms. He continues that thought with the realization “…that the change from the young girl to the stout aging woman is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her…” This is the story he writes but with two sisters, Sophia and Constance, whose lives he chronicles from girlhood through old age across a canvas that stretches from a provincial English town to Paris and back. Initially published in 1908, the story is set in the mid 19th century.
This is a book of small moments – the petty disappointments, jealousies, power struggles and vanities that are woven into every life. There are no grand gestures here. Joselito in his review absolutely nailed it when he wrote, “It's an exciting, unputdownable reading frenzy of non-events.” The lasso? Bennett’s deft observations and characterizations. I can’t think of another writer who has captured youth and aging better than he. On youth: “As for them, they marveled at the phenomena presented in Sophia’s person; they admired; they admitted the style of her gown; but they envied neither her innocence nor her beauty; they envied nothing but her youth and the fresh tint of her cheeks.” On aging: “Nothing could destroy the structure of her beauty, but she looked worn and appreciably older.” On acceptance: “The truth was that, though her bereavement had been the cause of a most genuine and durable sorrow, it had been a relief to her. When Constance was over fifty, the energetic and masterful Sophia had burst in upon her lethargic tranquility and very seriously disturbed the flow of old habits. Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main point, and won; but on a hundred minor points she had either lost or had not fought. Sophia had been ‘too much’ for Constance, and it had been only by a wearying expenditure of nervous force that Constance had succeeded in holding a small part of her own against the unconscious domination of Sophia. The death of Mrs. Scales had put an end to all the strain, and Constance had been once again mistress in Constance’s house. Constance would never have admitted these facts, even to herself; and no one would ever have dared to suggest them to her. For with all her temperamental mildness she had her formidable side.”
Bennett underscores that no life is ever small to the person living it. Think about that for a moment: no life is ever small to the person living it. Annie Lamott once wrote, “I may not be much but I’m all I think about.” Bennett's sentiments exactly. A pitch perfect novel – recommended without reservation.
Note: I read the Modern Library edition which shows a date of 1911 but I don't think that's right. The preface was written by Bennett which may not be included in the edition with the introduction by Francine Prose.
Bennett grabbed me with the second sentence of his preface and never let go for a moment. In many ways this 5 page preface is more compelling than the actual novel. Here he relates an anecdote of sitting in a favorite cafe when an old woman comes in talking to herself and dropping her parcels. She is the subject of immediate ridicule by the two waitresses, one old enough to know better and one young enough to be more charitable. He muses that this fat, ugly, old woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful but most certainly free of her ridiculous mannerisms. He continues that thought with the realization “…that the change from the young girl to the stout aging woman is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her…” This is the story he writes but with two sisters, Sophia and Constance, whose lives he chronicles from girlhood through old age across a canvas that stretches from a provincial English town to Paris and back. Initially published in 1908, the story is set in the mid 19th century.
This is a book of small moments – the petty disappointments, jealousies, power struggles and vanities that are woven into every life. There are no grand gestures here. Joselito in his review absolutely nailed it when he wrote, “It's an exciting, unputdownable reading frenzy of non-events.” The lasso? Bennett’s deft observations and characterizations. I can’t think of another writer who has captured youth and aging better than he. On youth: “As for them, they marveled at the phenomena presented in Sophia’s person; they admired; they admitted the style of her gown; but they envied neither her innocence nor her beauty; they envied nothing but her youth and the fresh tint of her cheeks.” On aging: “Nothing could destroy the structure of her beauty, but she looked worn and appreciably older.” On acceptance: “The truth was that, though her bereavement had been the cause of a most genuine and durable sorrow, it had been a relief to her. When Constance was over fifty, the energetic and masterful Sophia had burst in upon her lethargic tranquility and very seriously disturbed the flow of old habits. Certainly Constance had fought Sophia on the main point, and won; but on a hundred minor points she had either lost or had not fought. Sophia had been ‘too much’ for Constance, and it had been only by a wearying expenditure of nervous force that Constance had succeeded in holding a small part of her own against the unconscious domination of Sophia. The death of Mrs. Scales had put an end to all the strain, and Constance had been once again mistress in Constance’s house. Constance would never have admitted these facts, even to herself; and no one would ever have dared to suggest them to her. For with all her temperamental mildness she had her formidable side.”
Bennett underscores that no life is ever small to the person living it. Think about that for a moment: no life is ever small to the person living it. Annie Lamott once wrote, “I may not be much but I’m all I think about.” Bennett's sentiments exactly. A pitch perfect novel – recommended without reservation.
Note: I read the Modern Library edition which shows a date of 1911 but I don't think that's right. The preface was written by Bennett which may not be included in the edition with the introduction by Francine Prose.
May 14, 2012
He saw a fat, old, ridiculous, shapeless woman in a restaurant. Then he imagined her once as a vivacious young girl, perhaps pretty when she was a young woman, had some love affairs, married, brought forth children, and now she's like that, most likely alone and forgotten. For a long while he thought of writing a story about an old woman like her. When he finally got himself into writing it, he thought it would be more challenging to write about two of them, so Arnold Bennett made them sisters--Constance and Sophia Baines.
Life, aging and death. We follow the story of the sisters' two-penny lives (spoiler alert: read on!). They live in a small English provincial town above their father's draper's shop. We see them when they were small girls, grow up to be young women: Constance marrying a local guy (and later inheriting her father's business), while the more spirited Sophia steals money from her aunt and elopes with a playboy traveling businessman to Paris. She remains childless, abandoned by her husband, but by stroke of luck was able to put up a business and prospered. Constance, on the other hand, stays in their town, has a son, sees her loved ones grow old and die one by one (her parents, friends, her husband). Her son leaves to seek his fortune elsewhere.
In old age the sisters are briefly reunited. They shared problems with househelps, their dogs, and Constance's son's apparent neglect of her. Then they, too, die one by one.
You yawn and ask inwardly: why then is this a 5-star? Because this is a masterpiece of realistic writing, Bennett's description of the everyday, humdrum happenings of ordinary 19th century people sucks you inside the book and makes you feel the characters like they're real flesh-and-blood. It's an exciting, unputdownable reading frenzy of non-events. A remarkable example of the old-fashioned way of telling a story, utilizing no attention-getting, sophisticated-sounding modern tricks. Something you'll miss when you get back again to the great, unreadable novels of the current times where you have to pretend understanding them, or deceive yourself into believing that you somehow got the point of your 3-week reading labor, to give them a decent rating.
Life, aging and death. We follow the story of the sisters' two-penny lives (spoiler alert: read on!). They live in a small English provincial town above their father's draper's shop. We see them when they were small girls, grow up to be young women: Constance marrying a local guy (and later inheriting her father's business), while the more spirited Sophia steals money from her aunt and elopes with a playboy traveling businessman to Paris. She remains childless, abandoned by her husband, but by stroke of luck was able to put up a business and prospered. Constance, on the other hand, stays in their town, has a son, sees her loved ones grow old and die one by one (her parents, friends, her husband). Her son leaves to seek his fortune elsewhere.
In old age the sisters are briefly reunited. They shared problems with househelps, their dogs, and Constance's son's apparent neglect of her. Then they, too, die one by one.
You yawn and ask inwardly: why then is this a 5-star? Because this is a masterpiece of realistic writing, Bennett's description of the everyday, humdrum happenings of ordinary 19th century people sucks you inside the book and makes you feel the characters like they're real flesh-and-blood. It's an exciting, unputdownable reading frenzy of non-events. A remarkable example of the old-fashioned way of telling a story, utilizing no attention-getting, sophisticated-sounding modern tricks. Something you'll miss when you get back again to the great, unreadable novels of the current times where you have to pretend understanding them, or deceive yourself into believing that you somehow got the point of your 3-week reading labor, to give them a decent rating.
January 31, 2026
30 Dec 2025: This book has been on my to read list the longest. Today, Simon and I visited The Hive library in Worcester in Worcestershire specifically for me to pick out another book that they had exclusively, however, while I went in for one book, I came out with five! When I showed this book, The Old Wives' Tale (725 pages in total) to Simon his comment was, "You know you can't read and knit at the same time?!" I laughed, as I have several knitting projects I'd like to make progress on and it's painful to admit that he might be right.
31 Jan 2026: The story is set in Bursley, Staffordshire in the north of England 1840-1905 and follows the lives of sisters Constance and Sophia Baines. Arnold Bennett does a wonderful job of describing the area and setting the scene. One example is "the villages were full of women who did nothing but fight against dirt and hunger, and repair the effects of friction on clothes,” and I chuckled at “It was not easy to right a capsized crinoline.” I think he seemed to understand a woman’s lot in life and poke fun at finicky fashions that were difficult to wear and somewhat ridiculous.
I also appreciated his insights into how people communicate, especially non-verbally, such as: “Their glances met for an instant in the transient gaze which expresses the tenderness of people who feel more than they kiss.” Later on in the story he tells us that the sisters communicate better with each other through non-verbal communication.
At ages sixteen and fifteen respectively, Constance and Sophia are about to leave school. Sophia wants to be a teacher. Mrs. Baines (her mother) has other ideas.
There is much talk of Mrs. Baines’ ringlets. My favorite quote is, “her temper flashed out and you could see ringlets vibrating under the provocation of Sophia’s sauciness.”
Mrs. Baines is described as dealing with Sophia with “god-like calm.” Constance refers to her sister as a “stormy creature.”
Mr. Baines is bed bound after a stroke. Mother and daughters nurse him for fourteen years until he dies by falling out of bed during a moment where Sophia left him briefly.
I won’t describe all the intervening years, however I will say that the sisters end up being separated for about thirty years and we learn about their separate fates.
I noticed that a lot of attention is given to the dogs in the story. One example is the announcement, ‘Here’s a man come to see you about a dog.’ This got a wry chuckle out of me as this idiom is usually used to cover up the true purpose of someone’s visit, however in this case there truly is a dog involved!
Continuing on the topic of dogs, I loved that Constance couldn’t resist getting another dog, ‘a young wire-haired fox-terrier’ as a replacement when her elderly dog passed away, even though she had sworn off having “a young dog again because, […] they ate the stuffing out of the furniture.”
When Sophia falls sick as a mature woman and manager of a boarding-house in Paris, France the doctor tells her “speaking with a charming exaggerated purity of the vowels.”
‘You have the mucous fever. I have had it myself. You will be forced to take baths; very frequently. I must ask you to reconcile yourself to that, to be good.’ I was bemused to think that she may dislike taking baths and even rebel against them!
After a more than thirty-year gap, Sophia, now aged fifty, is now back in touch with her sister Constance via letter. She exaggerates Constance’s illness (a bout of sciatica) to depart from her friends and acquaintances in France and returns to England.
After much anticipation and some trepidation on Constance’s part, the sisters are reunited at the family home in Bursley. “As Constance shut and bolted the front door the sisters looked at each other, Sophia faintly smiling. It seemed to them that they understood each other better when they did not speak.”
The sisters must learn to live together again. They each have a dog; Constance has the wire-haired terrier named Spot and Sophia has Fosette, which is described as having a ‘Lion cut’ or ‘Continental Cut’ whereby there is a lot of hair on the front half, the back half is shaved and the hair at the tail tip and ankles is rounded. Additionally, Fosette was decorated with a pink ribbon round her neck. “The animal had absolutely the air of a decked trollop.” These dogs must learn to live together also.
Sophia regrets her hasty departure from Paris. “Ten steps, and her career was finished, closed. Astonishing, with what liquid tenderness she turned and looked back on that hard, fighting, exhausting life in Paris.” But, once reunited with Constance is loathe to leave her again.
The sisters, with their dogs in tow, visit a hotel in Buxton, which was of interest to me having visited this lovely town in the Peak District of Derbyshire just recently. I met a couple there that mentioned that Buxton was once a destination place for honeymooners. Bennett also refers to Buxton in this way earlier on in the story.
Bringing dogs to the hotel takes courage; “to bring one dog indicates that you are not accustomed to deny yourself small pleasures for the sake of a few extra shillings; to bring two indicates that you have no fear of hotel managers and that you are in the habit of regarding your own whim as nature’s law.” I thought this was an interesting insight.
Sophia had intended to use the stay at the hotel in Buxton as a springboard to a new life with Constance away from the dark brooding house in Bursley. I guess she thought that once she had lured Constance away from Bursley she could keep her away. After all she missed her light and airy boarding-house in Paris.
However, she neglected to take into account Constance’s stubbornness, and they return home to Bursley to live out the rest of their days together. At the very least, Sophia hoped to brighten the house up, however it seems to defeat her.
Bennett describes the sisters’ final decade together. I was glad they shared these years but felt sad that they didn’t make more of them. They seemed resigned to living out their years quietly in the dark brooding house and fighting with the servant girl, and caring for their dogs. It gave me a sense of melancholia. Arnold refers to “the futility of Sophia’s career, and the waste of her attributes.”
Both Sophia and Constance bequeath their monies to Cyril, Constance’s son and only child. Of Sophia, Arnold writes, “She had grown old and hard in joyless years in order to amass this money which Cyril would spend coldly and ungratefully, never thinking of the immense effort and endless sacrifice which had gone into its collection.” I feel very sad indeed.
Standout quote:
“He had not ruined her, as a bad professor may ruin a fine voice, because her moral force immeasurably exceeded his; he had unwittingly produced a masterpiece, but it was a tragic masterpiece.”
31 Jan 2026: The story is set in Bursley, Staffordshire in the north of England 1840-1905 and follows the lives of sisters Constance and Sophia Baines. Arnold Bennett does a wonderful job of describing the area and setting the scene. One example is "the villages were full of women who did nothing but fight against dirt and hunger, and repair the effects of friction on clothes,” and I chuckled at “It was not easy to right a capsized crinoline.” I think he seemed to understand a woman’s lot in life and poke fun at finicky fashions that were difficult to wear and somewhat ridiculous.
I also appreciated his insights into how people communicate, especially non-verbally, such as: “Their glances met for an instant in the transient gaze which expresses the tenderness of people who feel more than they kiss.” Later on in the story he tells us that the sisters communicate better with each other through non-verbal communication.
At ages sixteen and fifteen respectively, Constance and Sophia are about to leave school. Sophia wants to be a teacher. Mrs. Baines (her mother) has other ideas.
There is much talk of Mrs. Baines’ ringlets. My favorite quote is, “her temper flashed out and you could see ringlets vibrating under the provocation of Sophia’s sauciness.”
Mrs. Baines is described as dealing with Sophia with “god-like calm.” Constance refers to her sister as a “stormy creature.”
Mr. Baines is bed bound after a stroke. Mother and daughters nurse him for fourteen years until he dies by falling out of bed during a moment where Sophia left him briefly.
I won’t describe all the intervening years, however I will say that the sisters end up being separated for about thirty years and we learn about their separate fates.
I noticed that a lot of attention is given to the dogs in the story. One example is the announcement, ‘Here’s a man come to see you about a dog.’ This got a wry chuckle out of me as this idiom is usually used to cover up the true purpose of someone’s visit, however in this case there truly is a dog involved!
Continuing on the topic of dogs, I loved that Constance couldn’t resist getting another dog, ‘a young wire-haired fox-terrier’ as a replacement when her elderly dog passed away, even though she had sworn off having “a young dog again because, […] they ate the stuffing out of the furniture.”
When Sophia falls sick as a mature woman and manager of a boarding-house in Paris, France the doctor tells her “speaking with a charming exaggerated purity of the vowels.”
‘You have the mucous fever. I have had it myself. You will be forced to take baths; very frequently. I must ask you to reconcile yourself to that, to be good.’ I was bemused to think that she may dislike taking baths and even rebel against them!
After a more than thirty-year gap, Sophia, now aged fifty, is now back in touch with her sister Constance via letter. She exaggerates Constance’s illness (a bout of sciatica) to depart from her friends and acquaintances in France and returns to England.
After much anticipation and some trepidation on Constance’s part, the sisters are reunited at the family home in Bursley. “As Constance shut and bolted the front door the sisters looked at each other, Sophia faintly smiling. It seemed to them that they understood each other better when they did not speak.”
The sisters must learn to live together again. They each have a dog; Constance has the wire-haired terrier named Spot and Sophia has Fosette, which is described as having a ‘Lion cut’ or ‘Continental Cut’ whereby there is a lot of hair on the front half, the back half is shaved and the hair at the tail tip and ankles is rounded. Additionally, Fosette was decorated with a pink ribbon round her neck. “The animal had absolutely the air of a decked trollop.” These dogs must learn to live together also.
Sophia regrets her hasty departure from Paris. “Ten steps, and her career was finished, closed. Astonishing, with what liquid tenderness she turned and looked back on that hard, fighting, exhausting life in Paris.” But, once reunited with Constance is loathe to leave her again.
The sisters, with their dogs in tow, visit a hotel in Buxton, which was of interest to me having visited this lovely town in the Peak District of Derbyshire just recently. I met a couple there that mentioned that Buxton was once a destination place for honeymooners. Bennett also refers to Buxton in this way earlier on in the story.
Bringing dogs to the hotel takes courage; “to bring one dog indicates that you are not accustomed to deny yourself small pleasures for the sake of a few extra shillings; to bring two indicates that you have no fear of hotel managers and that you are in the habit of regarding your own whim as nature’s law.” I thought this was an interesting insight.
Sophia had intended to use the stay at the hotel in Buxton as a springboard to a new life with Constance away from the dark brooding house in Bursley. I guess she thought that once she had lured Constance away from Bursley she could keep her away. After all she missed her light and airy boarding-house in Paris.
However, she neglected to take into account Constance’s stubbornness, and they return home to Bursley to live out the rest of their days together. At the very least, Sophia hoped to brighten the house up, however it seems to defeat her.
Bennett describes the sisters’ final decade together. I was glad they shared these years but felt sad that they didn’t make more of them. They seemed resigned to living out their years quietly in the dark brooding house and fighting with the servant girl, and caring for their dogs. It gave me a sense of melancholia. Arnold refers to “the futility of Sophia’s career, and the waste of her attributes.”
Both Sophia and Constance bequeath their monies to Cyril, Constance’s son and only child. Of Sophia, Arnold writes, “She had grown old and hard in joyless years in order to amass this money which Cyril would spend coldly and ungratefully, never thinking of the immense effort and endless sacrifice which had gone into its collection.” I feel very sad indeed.
Standout quote:
“He had not ruined her, as a bad professor may ruin a fine voice, because her moral force immeasurably exceeded his; he had unwittingly produced a masterpiece, but it was a tragic masterpiece.”
January 11, 2011
Arnold Bennett is one of the great under-read authors ever. His prose is shining-carved out of marble each word beautiful resonating off the surrounding ones. But really-his craft is so pure and every word counts. Of course, it's good his writing is so unsentimental because it keeps his stories from being unbearable sad (instead of just barely bearably painful). This is the book I would recommend people begin with if they don't know Bennett; I found it the most accessible with even a little humor (irony, actually: Bennett's not really one for funny-or fun). I wish I could enter his written universe for the first time again. Whatever the subject, the people or the plot, his writing (like Bach's music, which for some reason it reminds me of) and like Trollope's writing (only always bleaker) is eminently sane.
November 5, 2013
I consider Arnold Bennett to be the most underrated of all English novelists, and The Old Wives’ Tale to be one of the great undiscovered (or ‘underdiscovered’) masterpieces of twentieth century literature. Bennett was despised by the Bloomsbury group, particularly Virginia Woolf, who thought him conservative and vulgar; his popularity made him a figure of envy and ridicule amongst the Modernists. Obviously he’s got much more in common with Trollope, Thackeray and Dickens than he does with Joyce or Woolf herself – but he was also very much influenced by French writers, particularly Maupassant, and this is the ‘Frenchest’ of all his books, with some of the most powerful sections set in Paris. The Old Wives’ Tale is the story of two sisters, Sophia and Constance Baines, their contrasting characters and destinies, their estrangement and final reunion in old age. In the course of the book they run the whole gamut of experiences open to women of that period, and the final section is deeply moving. The prose is breathtakingly good, the characterisation powerful and the subject matter (particularly in the Paris sections) unflinching. Bennett will never be fashionable: he represents a type of prosperous, worldly-wise English gentleman, and obviously that’s just not very cool. But only a fool would dismiss him for that –and it’s worth pointing out that Bennett, unlike the pampered denizens of Bloomsbury, actually wrote to make a living.
May 2, 2013
2 sisters, 2 separate lives : "I have been through too much, I cannot stand it." Yes, we're only concerned with our paltry selves, so why do some whine, Why did this novel not mention this or that war or crisis. Why? Cos outside events never matter . In his preface Bennett notes that ordinary people are never aware of history's dramatic events.
And talented Cyril, the child of one sis : so cute, so spoiled. At 33, his "habits were industrious as ever. He seldom spoke of his plans and never of his hopes. He was unexceptionable. He imagined that industry was sufficient justification for a life."
A classic tale covering 60 years by the underrated Arnold Bennett. I refer GRs to the fine review by Cecily for dets. Bennett's decades-long novel influenced authors like the plodding (and, for me, unreadable) Edna Ferber. It will put a lump in your throat, if you have a throat.
And talented Cyril, the child of one sis : so cute, so spoiled. At 33, his "habits were industrious as ever. He seldom spoke of his plans and never of his hopes. He was unexceptionable. He imagined that industry was sufficient justification for a life."
A classic tale covering 60 years by the underrated Arnold Bennett. I refer GRs to the fine review by Cecily for dets. Bennett's decades-long novel influenced authors like the plodding (and, for me, unreadable) Edna Ferber. It will put a lump in your throat, if you have a throat.
February 8, 2023
3.5 stars
Interesting Edwardian novel by an author who has fallen into relative obscurity. Arnold Bennett was a well-known novelist in the early twentieth century, but when I came to this all I knew was that Virginia Woolf took a dim view of him, arguing in the essay “Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown” that his characters lacked complexity and interior life.
This story spans the lives of two provincial sisters from adolescence to death (spoiler?). On the face of it, it seems to contradict Woolf’s view, for there is a great deal of interiority in the portrayal of sisters Constance and Sophia and their mother, Mrs. Baines. We see Mrs. Baines grapple with the ingratitude of a teenage daughter (the modern reader would likely be on the daughter’s side; she aspires to be a teacher). Strikingly, we see Constance in labour:
She wept; beaten, terrorized, smashed and riven. No commonsense now! No wise calmness now! No self-respect now! Why, not even a woman now! Nothing but a kind of animalized victim! And then the supreme endless spasm, during which she gave up the ghost and bade good-bye to her very self….
In the afternoon the doctor returned, and astounded her by saying that hers had been an ideal confinement. She was too weary to rebuke him for a senseless, blind, callous old man. But she knew what she knew. “No one will ever guess,” she thought, “no one ever can guess, what I’ve been through! Talk as you like. I KNOW, now.”
Younger sister Sophia rejects the constraints of their hometown and runs away to Paris. Bennett captures the emigrant mentality beautifully: Sophia loves and admires the French, is exasperated by them, in some way considers herself superior to them – she has that tendency of many foreigners abroad to ascribe situations, history and idiosyncrasies of character… to national characteristics.
For the reader Sophia’s storyline is something of a treat. Not for her the child’s birthday parties of Constance’s life. We are given an execution by guillotine, the siege of Paris and the Paris commune, a hot air balloon.
Even so, I tired a little of Bennett’s shoehorning meaning into his heroines’ lives. With both sisters, all the significant action of their lives takes place within ten years of their early marriages, and later years are hurried through, before we rejoin them as old women. This rang somewhat true for Constance, living in the house in which she was born, but struck me as a missed opportunity for Sophia. And why this missed opportunity? It seems designed to enforce a moral of some kind, and quite a dreary one.
Overall I enjoyed reading this, and don’t quite understand why the Modernists disliked Bennett so much. He seems to take an empathetic and intelligent stab at creating his characters. They didn’t feel entirely real to me, because of the shoehorning, but this was balanced by the pleasures of reading such evocative writing of both a small English town and nineteenth century Paris.
Interesting Edwardian novel by an author who has fallen into relative obscurity. Arnold Bennett was a well-known novelist in the early twentieth century, but when I came to this all I knew was that Virginia Woolf took a dim view of him, arguing in the essay “Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown” that his characters lacked complexity and interior life.
This story spans the lives of two provincial sisters from adolescence to death (spoiler?). On the face of it, it seems to contradict Woolf’s view, for there is a great deal of interiority in the portrayal of sisters Constance and Sophia and their mother, Mrs. Baines. We see Mrs. Baines grapple with the ingratitude of a teenage daughter (the modern reader would likely be on the daughter’s side; she aspires to be a teacher). Strikingly, we see Constance in labour:
She wept; beaten, terrorized, smashed and riven. No commonsense now! No wise calmness now! No self-respect now! Why, not even a woman now! Nothing but a kind of animalized victim! And then the supreme endless spasm, during which she gave up the ghost and bade good-bye to her very self….
In the afternoon the doctor returned, and astounded her by saying that hers had been an ideal confinement. She was too weary to rebuke him for a senseless, blind, callous old man. But she knew what she knew. “No one will ever guess,” she thought, “no one ever can guess, what I’ve been through! Talk as you like. I KNOW, now.”
Younger sister Sophia rejects the constraints of their hometown and runs away to Paris. Bennett captures the emigrant mentality beautifully: Sophia loves and admires the French, is exasperated by them, in some way considers herself superior to them – she has that tendency of many foreigners abroad to ascribe situations, history and idiosyncrasies of character… to national characteristics.
For the reader Sophia’s storyline is something of a treat. Not for her the child’s birthday parties of Constance’s life. We are given an execution by guillotine, the siege of Paris and the Paris commune, a hot air balloon.
Even so, I tired a little of Bennett’s shoehorning meaning into his heroines’ lives. With both sisters, all the significant action of their lives takes place within ten years of their early marriages, and later years are hurried through, before we rejoin them as old women. This rang somewhat true for Constance, living in the house in which she was born, but struck me as a missed opportunity for Sophia. And why this missed opportunity? It seems designed to enforce a moral of some kind, and quite a dreary one.
Overall I enjoyed reading this, and don’t quite understand why the Modernists disliked Bennett so much. He seems to take an empathetic and intelligent stab at creating his characters. They didn’t feel entirely real to me, because of the shoehorning, but this was balanced by the pleasures of reading such evocative writing of both a small English town and nineteenth century Paris.
January 12, 2012
The story of two sisters moving through life to their twilight years. Each faces life's tribulations, and works her way through it, but it is in the end, where they reflect back, that the brilliance of this book comes out. What is life, what contributions and differences do we make, and can we adapt, or should we? These questions permeate the prose of Bennett. One of the better books I have ever read. Possibly, being in my 60's it really speaks to me.
December 25, 2025
First published in 1908, this is considered one of Bennett's finest works. His breathtaking detail and description is something to behold.
The story begins around 1840 in the Staffordshire pottery town of Burslem, where young sisters Constance and Sophia Baines work in their parents' draper's shop. They are initially close but contrastingly different girls, Sophie the younger considered incorrigible by the more proper Constance. As they grow up, the sisters drift, mentally and geographically, apart. Later also set partly in Paris, the tale tracks each sister, separately, into the full bloom of adulthood, the prime of maturity and the frailty of their dotage. It concludes in 1905.
The book divides into four parts. The first, 'Mrs Baines', introduces the two sisters and those around them, in their bedridden father's combined shop-cum-house overlooking the town square. With their father ill, the sisters' primary parent is their mother. By the end of this section, rebellious Sophia has eloped with a travelling salesman, while obedient Constance has married her parent's shop employee, Mr Povey.
The second part, 'Constance', follows sensible Constance through to her grey-haired retirement, when she reunites with her long-lost runaway sister. Her unremarkable life is defined not by adventure or outstanding accomplishments, but by deeply personal events, such as her husband's death, her growing worries over her son's life decisions and social behaviour.
The third part, 'Sophia', follows passionate young Sophia after her elopement. Deserted in Paris by her husband, she survives the odds, becoming a successful pensione proprietor.
The fourth part, 'What Life Is', sees the two sisters reunite. Worldly old Sophia finally returns to her Burslem childhood home, which plain old Constance has never left.
It's mindboggling that one man could have created so much intricate detail in these wonderful Victorian characters. How on earth did he achieve this?
In his initial published introduction, Bennett mentioned his debt to Guy de Maupassant's Une Vie (that same introduction originally included a nod to W. K. [Lucy] Clifford's Aunt Anne, but her mention is intermittently omitted from various subsequent editions and is permanently absent by the 1983 edition). Bennett's inspiration for the actual story was triggered by a chance encounter in a Paris restaurant, as he recounts:
Perfect in every way, I have never read anything in this category that surpasses this in literary quality or storytelling. Why this is not more famously celebrated I can't imagine. No major updated screen adaption has eventuated since the 1921 film The Old Wives' Tale starring Fay Compton, Florence Turner and Henry Victor, other than the 1988 BBC TV series Sophia and Constance starring Alfred Burke, Lynsey Beauchamp and Katy Behean.
I adore this oft overlooked great classic. Everyone should read it at least once in their life.
The story begins around 1840 in the Staffordshire pottery town of Burslem, where young sisters Constance and Sophia Baines work in their parents' draper's shop. They are initially close but contrastingly different girls, Sophie the younger considered incorrigible by the more proper Constance. As they grow up, the sisters drift, mentally and geographically, apart. Later also set partly in Paris, the tale tracks each sister, separately, into the full bloom of adulthood, the prime of maturity and the frailty of their dotage. It concludes in 1905.
The book divides into four parts. The first, 'Mrs Baines', introduces the two sisters and those around them, in their bedridden father's combined shop-cum-house overlooking the town square. With their father ill, the sisters' primary parent is their mother. By the end of this section, rebellious Sophia has eloped with a travelling salesman, while obedient Constance has married her parent's shop employee, Mr Povey.
The second part, 'Constance', follows sensible Constance through to her grey-haired retirement, when she reunites with her long-lost runaway sister. Her unremarkable life is defined not by adventure or outstanding accomplishments, but by deeply personal events, such as her husband's death, her growing worries over her son's life decisions and social behaviour.
The third part, 'Sophia', follows passionate young Sophia after her elopement. Deserted in Paris by her husband, she survives the odds, becoming a successful pensione proprietor.
The fourth part, 'What Life Is', sees the two sisters reunite. Worldly old Sophia finally returns to her Burslem childhood home, which plain old Constance has never left.
It's mindboggling that one man could have created so much intricate detail in these wonderful Victorian characters. How on earth did he achieve this?
In his initial published introduction, Bennett mentioned his debt to Guy de Maupassant's Une Vie (that same introduction originally included a nod to W. K. [Lucy] Clifford's Aunt Anne, but her mention is intermittently omitted from various subsequent editions and is permanently absent by the 1983 edition). Bennett's inspiration for the actual story was triggered by a chance encounter in a Paris restaurant, as he recounts:
...an old woman came into the restaurant to
dine. She was fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque. She had a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. It was easy to see that she lived alone, and that in the long lapse of years she had developed the kind of peculiarity which induces guffaws among the thoughtless.
I reflected, concerning the grotesque diner: 'This woman was once
young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculous mannerisms. Very probably she is unconscious of her singularities. Her case is a tragedy. One ought to be able to make a heartrending novel out of the history of a woman such as she.' Every stout, ageing woman is not grotesque—far from it!—but there is an extreme pathos in the mere fact that every stout ageing woman was once a young girl with the unique charm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind. And the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout ageing woman is made up of an infinite number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.
Perfect in every way, I have never read anything in this category that surpasses this in literary quality or storytelling. Why this is not more famously celebrated I can't imagine. No major updated screen adaption has eventuated since the 1921 film The Old Wives' Tale starring Fay Compton, Florence Turner and Henry Victor, other than the 1988 BBC TV series Sophia and Constance starring Alfred Burke, Lynsey Beauchamp and Katy Behean.
I adore this oft overlooked great classic. Everyone should read it at least once in their life.
November 24, 2013
The start of this is very slow with much description. I wondered if I'd started another which would be a slog. Not a bit of it, I'm happy to report. Primarily characterization with some small plot to go with it, it is no wonder this is on both Bloom's Western Canon and Boxall's 1001 Books - and maybe other lists, too.
Bennett gives us the inspiration for his story in a preface to the edition I read, wherein he states that he frequented a certain restaurant in Paris. ... an old woman came into the restaurant to dine. She was fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque. She had a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. ... I reflected concerning the grotesque diner: "This woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculous mannerisms. Her case is a tragedy." He then was reminded of de Maupassant's Une Vie. He thought he could make something of these two observations.
Bennett decided to write his novel about the lives of two women - sisters, who he named Constance and Sophia Baines. Their ages were sixteen and fifteen; it is an epoch when, if one if frank, one must admit that one has nothing to learn: one has learnt simply everything in the previous six months. In the first about one-quarter of the novel I noticed such small witticisms. Perhaps they continue, but I stopped noticing them if they are there.
Published in 1908, it follows the lives of Constance and Sophia over the next forty plus years, from the mid-1860s to the early 20th Century. It is not a Victorian novel, although it takes place in Victorian England - he is able to say things that I think might not have gotten by Victorian censors. Her passion for him burned stronger than ever. She knew then that she did not love him for his good qualities, but for something boyish and naive that there was about him, an indescribably something that occasionally, when his face was close to hers, made her dizzy. Very tame by today's standards, yet there it is - a woman has passion, a man makes her dizzy.
I don't know that I really liked these women to the point I would have wanted to spend time with them, so much as I came to know them and respect them. I feel privileged that this has survived for me to enjoy.
Bennett gives us the inspiration for his story in a preface to the edition I read, wherein he states that he frequented a certain restaurant in Paris. ... an old woman came into the restaurant to dine. She was fat, shapeless, ugly, and grotesque. She had a ridiculous voice, and ridiculous gestures. ... I reflected concerning the grotesque diner: "This woman was once young, slim, perhaps beautiful; certainly free from these ridiculous mannerisms. Her case is a tragedy." He then was reminded of de Maupassant's Une Vie. He thought he could make something of these two observations.
Bennett decided to write his novel about the lives of two women - sisters, who he named Constance and Sophia Baines. Their ages were sixteen and fifteen; it is an epoch when, if one if frank, one must admit that one has nothing to learn: one has learnt simply everything in the previous six months. In the first about one-quarter of the novel I noticed such small witticisms. Perhaps they continue, but I stopped noticing them if they are there.
Published in 1908, it follows the lives of Constance and Sophia over the next forty plus years, from the mid-1860s to the early 20th Century. It is not a Victorian novel, although it takes place in Victorian England - he is able to say things that I think might not have gotten by Victorian censors. Her passion for him burned stronger than ever. She knew then that she did not love him for his good qualities, but for something boyish and naive that there was about him, an indescribably something that occasionally, when his face was close to hers, made her dizzy. Very tame by today's standards, yet there it is - a woman has passion, a man makes her dizzy.
I don't know that I really liked these women to the point I would have wanted to spend time with them, so much as I came to know them and respect them. I feel privileged that this has survived for me to enjoy.
November 18, 2017
Finished: 07 November 2017
Title: The Old Wives Tales
Genre: fiction
Score: A++
Review: This was THE best novel on the Modern Library’s Top 100 Novels list I’ve read so far. It is strange how fate has changed the lives of the sisters Sophia and Constance. Sophia’s charm and beauty was dazzling…but she was mischievous, proud. She had sinned in the eyes of the Victorians. She fled to Paris. Constance’s had remained, her father had wanted, quiet and the model of consideration. She lived at St. Luke's Square in Bursley her entire life.
I listened to the audio book (24 hrs) over the course of 4 days during a weekend trip. The story was perfect while waiting for the train, a boat trip to a coastal island, walking in the dunes and enjoying an aperitif during a beach sunset. I am very impressed with Arnold Bennett’s masterpiece!
#MustReadClassic
Title: The Old Wives Tales
Genre: fiction
Score: A++
Review: This was THE best novel on the Modern Library’s Top 100 Novels list I’ve read so far. It is strange how fate has changed the lives of the sisters Sophia and Constance. Sophia’s charm and beauty was dazzling…but she was mischievous, proud. She had sinned in the eyes of the Victorians. She fled to Paris. Constance’s had remained, her father had wanted, quiet and the model of consideration. She lived at St. Luke's Square in Bursley her entire life.
I listened to the audio book (24 hrs) over the course of 4 days during a weekend trip. The story was perfect while waiting for the train, a boat trip to a coastal island, walking in the dunes and enjoying an aperitif during a beach sunset. I am very impressed with Arnold Bennett’s masterpiece!
#MustReadClassic
September 14, 2009
I LOVED THIS BOOK! First published in 1908, it read like a modern-day novel - not tedious and wordy like many Victorian novels. The author painted such vivid characters, scenery and narrative that it was very easy to get swept up in the storyline. Covering a span of 50 years the story is about two sisters, Constance and Sophia Baines, following their lives from youth into old age. The book is broken down into four "books": Book 1 is about the teen-aged girls and their mother; Book 2 is a chronicle of Constance's life; Book 3 is Sophia's story and in Book 4 the sisters are reunited in their old age. Constance is the 'constant" one who remains at home and lives a very provincial life; Sophia, the "sophisticated" one chooses romance and adventure and elopes to France with a traveling salesman. There is much in this book that can relate to our lives today.
October 9, 2025
I love queer men with thick thighs and classical books with thick plots.
Người ta biết tới Arnold Bennett như một nhà văn của những sự thường, người dành nhiều mối bận tâm cho những điều bình dị tới độ giản đơn, nhưng luôn sẵn lòng lột tả chúng trong văn chương bằng toàn bộ sức mạnh phi thường ông có. Chuyện các bà vợ già là một sự-thường bất-thường như vậy.
Chuyện các bà vợ già ra mắt công chúng độc giả vào năm 1908, nhưng kỳ thai nghén của nó đã sớm bắt đầu trước đó hơn nửa thập kỷ, khi Bennett dùng bữa tại một tiệm ăn ở Paris, Pháp. Ngày hôm đó, từ đâu không hiểu nổi bỗng xuất hiện một người phụ nữ luống tuổi, “dị hình, xấu xí và lố bịch”, quanh quẩn hầu khắp mọi bàn ăn trong quán nhưng vẫn chẳng thể tìm nổi một chỗ ưng ý để đặt mông. Hành động vụng về ấy khiến cả quán cười ầm lên, duy chỉ có Bennett là cảm thấy thương cảm cho bà, bởi biết đâu, ở những tháng ngày xa kia, có thể bà cũng từng là một “thiếu nữ trẻ trung, thanh mảnh và xinh đẹp”. Nhận thức bất chợt này gợi hứng cho Bennett đặt bút viết cuốn sách mà giờ là Chuyện các bà vợ già, đi cùng với tham vọng biến cuốn tiểu thuyết còn chưa thành hình kể trên có khả năng bao quát trọn vẹn cuộc đời của một (và/hoặc nhiều) người phụ nữ, trở thành một kiểu Un Vie hoành tráng của nước Anh.
Và thế là Chuyện các bà vợ già được ra đời.
Trong thiên tiểu thuyết đồ sộ này, Bennett kể lại cuộc đời của hai chị em nhà Baines: Constance và Sophia. Trong khi Constance là hiện thân của mọi lề thói kiểu mẫu của một gia đình Anh quốc sơ kỳ Victoria, Sophia lại là đứa con gái hoang đàng, sẵn sàng đạp đổ hết thảy mọi luân lý đạo đức, rời bỏ gia đình, chạy theo một gã chào hàng mà cô chỉ mới có đôi ba lần trò chuyện. Sau này, Constance kết hôn một người làm công của gia đình. Hai vợ chồng tiếp quản tiệm vải có tiếng tăm bậc nhất Năm Thị Trấn. Họ sinh con, đẻ cái, sau này, khi chồng qua đời vì viêm phổi, Constance vẫn tiếp tục ở lại thị trấn nhỏ nơi cô đã sinh ra thêm hàng chục năm ròng rã, bất chấp rằng thị trấn ấy đang ngày một trở nên không thể sống nổi.
Cùng lúc đó, Sophia đang thỏa thích thưởng ngoạn mọi lạc thú trần gian, cuối cùng mới chịu dừng chân tại Paris hoa lệ. Khi món tiền thừa kế béo bở từ trên trời rơi xuống được trao cho người chồng trên danh nghĩa của cô cuối cùng cũng cạn nhẵn, Sophia bị đơn độc bỏ lại nơi đất khách quê người. Tại đây, cô gái trẻ phải tự học cách sinh tồn, xoay xở lập nghiệp cùng vài đồng ít ỏi. Bằng chút tháo vát, thêm nhiều tự tin, cuối đời, cô là bà chủ của một Khách Sạn Nhỏ có tiếng.
Tuy nhiên, dù có cách trở ngàn dặm đường trường, bất chấp những khác biệt trong tính cách và trải nghiệm sống, giữa hai chị em vẫn tồn tại những điểm giao nhất định. Cả hai đều sống trong một vòng tròn khép kín, với kiếp đời chẳng có mấy đổi thay, ngày ngày gặp gỡ những gương mặt luôn trở đi trở lại. Khi thuật lại câu chuyện cuộc đời Constance cùng Sophia trong gần nửa thế kỷ ròng rã, bao giờ, Bennett cũng chú tâm đi vào tiểu tiết, không vội vàng bỏ qua bất kỳ sự kiện nào dẫu rằng thoạt nghe, đó hẳn đều là những chuyện cỏn con.
Trong cuộc đời bé nhỏ của hai chị em, giữa nhịp sống chừng, đơn điệu, ít biến động, dường như, dưới biệt tài đặc tả của Bennett, một mặt, mọi sự kiện dẫu bình thường nhất cũng đều có khả năng trở thành một sự biến ồn ào, đầy náo động, xứng đáng ghi vào sách sử. Từ chuyện ông chủ chủ tiệm đáng kính sẵn sàng từ chối giao thương với khách hàng trong kỳ sa sút, đơn thuần vì món hàng anh ta muốn mua chỉ là súc vải may đồ cho chó xứng đáng 12 shilling, hình ảnh những đứa trẻ ăn bận tươm tất trong ngày sinh nhật bạn, cho tới chuyện cha tặng con trai một chiếc đồng hồ thật xinh, tất cả đều được hiện diện dưới một tầm vóc, quy mô hoàn toàn khác. Mặt khác, cũng chính trong cuộc đời ấy, khuất sau bức tường ngăn của sự thờ ơ, kể cả những sự biến mang tầm cỡ quốc gia, chẳng hạn như cuộc vây hãm thành Paris, đối với những người phụ nữ trong truyện, âu cũng chỉ là một mối lo nhỏ nhặt liên quan tới giá cả thất thường của thực phẩm. Thậm chí, những sự kiện man rợ, vượt xa tất thảy mọi luân thường đạo lý con người, như đám đông ồn ào được hiệu triệu từ trò vui xử trảm, cũng chẳng gây nên được những chấn động tai ác nào hơn, ngoài một cái rùng mình kinh tởm, trước khi họ lại quay trở lại với những lo toan thường ngày.
Có lẽ, khi cố gắng hoàn thành Chuyện các bà vợ già, Bennett không cố gắng hòa lẫn tiếng nói của những người bình dân cùng những vọng âm váng động của các biến chuyển lịch sử. Nỗ lực lớn nhất của ông là trình hiện những kiếp sống nhỏ bé bị nhấn chìm trong vô vàn náo động của cuộc đời, của những sự kiện không thể tránh khỏi mà họ dường như cũng chẳng thể hiểu nổi. Ở những cảnh huống kỳ khôi như vậy, điều duy nhất họ có thể làm là gìn giữ những lề thói xưa cũ được gia đình truyền lại, gợi dậy trong lòng bất kể vô thức hay ý thức những giá trị cốt tủy mà gia đình, trong điều kiện tuyệt vời nhất mà nó có thể đạt được, dạy dỗ.
Ở đó, dù ở thị trấn công nghiệp đầy khói bụi Bursley, hay ở quảng trường Champs-Elysees biểu tượng của kinh đô ánh sáng, hai chị em Constance và Sophia đều thuộc nằm lòng cách để điều hành chuyện kinh doanh sao cho khoa học, cách để quán xuyến tỉ mẩn mọi việc trong nhà, cũng như cách để tuân thủ những quy tắc giao thiệp đầy chuẩn mực mà bất kỳ ai từng tiếp xúc với hai chị em cũng đều không thôi thích thú. Dù có đi tới bất kỳ đâu, dường như, gia đình cùng những ảnh hưởng của nó ở thời kỳ đầu của cuộc đời rồi sẽ luôn theo chân ta. Ta cũng sẽ luôn mang theo bên mình một phần của gia đình. Mỗi gia đình đều có những truyền thống riêng, mỗi con người cũng sẽ có một câu chuyện riêng, kể cả là những người bình thường nhất.
Kể lại được những sự thường dung dị nêu trên bằng lối hành văn chi tiết mà đầy lôi cuốn, phác thảo tỉ mỉ những bức chân dung cuộc đời trong hơn sáu-trăm trang sách nhưng vẫn không khiến độc giả chán ngán, gẩy lên những vần vũ lịch sử đầy biến động nhưng không làm chệch đi trọng tâm câu chuyện, chứng minh được rằng: dù một người bình thường, từ một quý bà trẻ trung cho tới một người phụ nữ trung niên lố bịch, ai cũng đều có những sự thường bất-thường đáng ghi nhận, theo tôi, đó cũng là một sự thường nữa trong hằng hà sa số những cái bất thường đáng trọng mà ta có thể tìm thấy ở cuốn sách tuyệt vời của nhà văn hiện thực người Anh./
Người ta biết tới Arnold Bennett như một nhà văn của những sự thường, người dành nhiều mối bận tâm cho những điều bình dị tới độ giản đơn, nhưng luôn sẵn lòng lột tả chúng trong văn chương bằng toàn bộ sức mạnh phi thường ông có. Chuyện các bà vợ già là một sự-thường bất-thường như vậy.
Chuyện các bà vợ già ra mắt công chúng độc giả vào năm 1908, nhưng kỳ thai nghén của nó đã sớm bắt đầu trước đó hơn nửa thập kỷ, khi Bennett dùng bữa tại một tiệm ăn ở Paris, Pháp. Ngày hôm đó, từ đâu không hiểu nổi bỗng xuất hiện một người phụ nữ luống tuổi, “dị hình, xấu xí và lố bịch”, quanh quẩn hầu khắp mọi bàn ăn trong quán nhưng vẫn chẳng thể tìm nổi một chỗ ưng ý để đặt mông. Hành động vụng về ấy khiến cả quán cười ầm lên, duy chỉ có Bennett là cảm thấy thương cảm cho bà, bởi biết đâu, ở những tháng ngày xa kia, có thể bà cũng từng là một “thiếu nữ trẻ trung, thanh mảnh và xinh đẹp”. Nhận thức bất chợt này gợi hứng cho Bennett đặt bút viết cuốn sách mà giờ là Chuyện các bà vợ già, đi cùng với tham vọng biến cuốn tiểu thuyết còn chưa thành hình kể trên có khả năng bao quát trọn vẹn cuộc đời của một (và/hoặc nhiều) người phụ nữ, trở thành một kiểu Un Vie hoành tráng của nước Anh.
Và thế là Chuyện các bà vợ già được ra đời.
Trong thiên tiểu thuyết đồ sộ này, Bennett kể lại cuộc đời của hai chị em nhà Baines: Constance và Sophia. Trong khi Constance là hiện thân của mọi lề thói kiểu mẫu của một gia đình Anh quốc sơ kỳ Victoria, Sophia lại là đứa con gái hoang đàng, sẵn sàng đạp đổ hết thảy mọi luân lý đạo đức, rời bỏ gia đình, chạy theo một gã chào hàng mà cô chỉ mới có đôi ba lần trò chuyện. Sau này, Constance kết hôn một người làm công của gia đình. Hai vợ chồng tiếp quản tiệm vải có tiếng tăm bậc nhất Năm Thị Trấn. Họ sinh con, đẻ cái, sau này, khi chồng qua đời vì viêm phổi, Constance vẫn tiếp tục ở lại thị trấn nhỏ nơi cô đã sinh ra thêm hàng chục năm ròng rã, bất chấp rằng thị trấn ấy đang ngày một trở nên không thể sống nổi.
Cùng lúc đó, Sophia đang thỏa thích thưởng ngoạn mọi lạc thú trần gian, cuối cùng mới chịu dừng chân tại Paris hoa lệ. Khi món tiền thừa kế béo bở từ trên trời rơi xuống được trao cho người chồng trên danh nghĩa của cô cuối cùng cũng cạn nhẵn, Sophia bị đơn độc bỏ lại nơi đất khách quê người. Tại đây, cô gái trẻ phải tự học cách sinh tồn, xoay xở lập nghiệp cùng vài đồng ít ỏi. Bằng chút tháo vát, thêm nhiều tự tin, cuối đời, cô là bà chủ của một Khách Sạn Nhỏ có tiếng.
Tuy nhiên, dù có cách trở ngàn dặm đường trường, bất chấp những khác biệt trong tính cách và trải nghiệm sống, giữa hai chị em vẫn tồn tại những điểm giao nhất định. Cả hai đều sống trong một vòng tròn khép kín, với kiếp đời chẳng có mấy đổi thay, ngày ngày gặp gỡ những gương mặt luôn trở đi trở lại. Khi thuật lại câu chuyện cuộc đời Constance cùng Sophia trong gần nửa thế kỷ ròng rã, bao giờ, Bennett cũng chú tâm đi vào tiểu tiết, không vội vàng bỏ qua bất kỳ sự kiện nào dẫu rằng thoạt nghe, đó hẳn đều là những chuyện cỏn con.
Trong cuộc đời bé nhỏ của hai chị em, giữa nhịp sống chừng, đơn điệu, ít biến động, dường như, dưới biệt tài đặc tả của Bennett, một mặt, mọi sự kiện dẫu bình thường nhất cũng đều có khả năng trở thành một sự biến ồn ào, đầy náo động, xứng đáng ghi vào sách sử. Từ chuyện ông chủ chủ tiệm đáng kính sẵn sàng từ chối giao thương với khách hàng trong kỳ sa sút, đơn thuần vì món hàng anh ta muốn mua chỉ là súc vải may đồ cho chó xứng đáng 12 shilling, hình ảnh những đứa trẻ ăn bận tươm tất trong ngày sinh nhật bạn, cho tới chuyện cha tặng con trai một chiếc đồng hồ thật xinh, tất cả đều được hiện diện dưới một tầm vóc, quy mô hoàn toàn khác. Mặt khác, cũng chính trong cuộc đời ấy, khuất sau bức tường ngăn của sự thờ ơ, kể cả những sự biến mang tầm cỡ quốc gia, chẳng hạn như cuộc vây hãm thành Paris, đối với những người phụ nữ trong truyện, âu cũng chỉ là một mối lo nhỏ nhặt liên quan tới giá cả thất thường của thực phẩm. Thậm chí, những sự kiện man rợ, vượt xa tất thảy mọi luân thường đạo lý con người, như đám đông ồn ào được hiệu triệu từ trò vui xử trảm, cũng chẳng gây nên được những chấn động tai ác nào hơn, ngoài một cái rùng mình kinh tởm, trước khi họ lại quay trở lại với những lo toan thường ngày.
Có lẽ, khi cố gắng hoàn thành Chuyện các bà vợ già, Bennett không cố gắng hòa lẫn tiếng nói của những người bình dân cùng những vọng âm váng động của các biến chuyển lịch sử. Nỗ lực lớn nhất của ông là trình hiện những kiếp sống nhỏ bé bị nhấn chìm trong vô vàn náo động của cuộc đời, của những sự kiện không thể tránh khỏi mà họ dường như cũng chẳng thể hiểu nổi. Ở những cảnh huống kỳ khôi như vậy, điều duy nhất họ có thể làm là gìn giữ những lề thói xưa cũ được gia đình truyền lại, gợi dậy trong lòng bất kể vô thức hay ý thức những giá trị cốt tủy mà gia đình, trong điều kiện tuyệt vời nhất mà nó có thể đạt được, dạy dỗ.
Ở đó, dù ở thị trấn công nghiệp đầy khói bụi Bursley, hay ở quảng trường Champs-Elysees biểu tượng của kinh đô ánh sáng, hai chị em Constance và Sophia đều thuộc nằm lòng cách để điều hành chuyện kinh doanh sao cho khoa học, cách để quán xuyến tỉ mẩn mọi việc trong nhà, cũng như cách để tuân thủ những quy tắc giao thiệp đầy chuẩn mực mà bất kỳ ai từng tiếp xúc với hai chị em cũng đều không thôi thích thú. Dù có đi tới bất kỳ đâu, dường như, gia đình cùng những ảnh hưởng của nó ở thời kỳ đầu của cuộc đời rồi sẽ luôn theo chân ta. Ta cũng sẽ luôn mang theo bên mình một phần của gia đình. Mỗi gia đình đều có những truyền thống riêng, mỗi con người cũng sẽ có một câu chuyện riêng, kể cả là những người bình thường nhất.
Kể lại được những sự thường dung dị nêu trên bằng lối hành văn chi tiết mà đầy lôi cuốn, phác thảo tỉ mỉ những bức chân dung cuộc đời trong hơn sáu-trăm trang sách nhưng vẫn không khiến độc giả chán ngán, gẩy lên những vần vũ lịch sử đầy biến động nhưng không làm chệch đi trọng tâm câu chuyện, chứng minh được rằng: dù một người bình thường, từ một quý bà trẻ trung cho tới một người phụ nữ trung niên lố bịch, ai cũng đều có những sự thường bất-thường đáng ghi nhận, theo tôi, đó cũng là một sự thường nữa trong hằng hà sa số những cái bất thường đáng trọng mà ta có thể tìm thấy ở cuốn sách tuyệt vời của nhà văn hiện thực người Anh./
December 9, 2025
Read about half of it. Unfortunately I couldnt finish it as I found it very boring and did not get invested in it. Felt much more like a chore than a enjoyable reading time. might go back to this book sometime in the future and try again.
November 29, 2011
I have finally finished this thing. So relieved. I really need to quit subjecting myself to the nauseum that is Victorian novels. Absolutely nothing happens in this book with the exception of the sections dealing with the youngest Baines daughter, Sophia.
Sophia is the only one in the family that actually lived. She left the tiny town of Bursley for, in my opinion, stupid reasons, but she left. And she lived a life worthy of talking about. Constance, the elder sister, sat around, got fat and complained about her sciatica. I think she needed a backiotomy.
Considering this book is old and if you read the introduction (at least the introduction in my copy) there is no such thing as a spoiler, so here comes a spoiler.
Arnold Bennett is a stone cold killer. Of all the characters given ample page time, they all die. And they don't die interesting deaths, they die boring old age deaths.
Here is the problem I have with Victorian novels. They all center around women. Kidding, there's more to it. They all center around women that are supposed to be bucking the societal trends for women of the time. Either they want to marry for love and not wealth (although they always marry for wealth, love just happens to be a convenience) or they are living the feminist lifestyle and can do anything that men can do aside from peeing standing up without making a big mess.
This was Sophia, she fell in love and left Bursley against her family's wishes and mine. She traveled and experienced the world, fell out of love, because it turned out her worthless cad of a husband was indeed, a worthless cad of a husband. He admitted to marrying her just so he could get inside her girdle. Thank god those times are past, have to get married just to get some nookie (right, Fred?). Now, all of that stuff happens on the second date. Intercourse happens on the second date, right?
Going on, Sophia's marriage falls apart, she becomes a successful business lady, moves back home to be with her ailing sister. Finds out that her husband, whom she hasn't seen in 36 years is ill. Travels to see his idle body, then gets sick on the ride home and dies. WTF! She was the only interesting aspect of this book. Then you go and kill her, Arnold. I hate you so much.
Anyway, I'm putting off these crappy books for awhile. Gonna read some self-help stuff that my mom gave me instead. I can already tell you that they won't help. I'm a wreck.
*As an aside, anyone else sick of coworkers not grasping the concept of the reply and reply all buttons? What's the deal? Am I right or am I right?
Sophia is the only one in the family that actually lived. She left the tiny town of Bursley for, in my opinion, stupid reasons, but she left. And she lived a life worthy of talking about. Constance, the elder sister, sat around, got fat and complained about her sciatica. I think she needed a backiotomy.
Considering this book is old and if you read the introduction (at least the introduction in my copy) there is no such thing as a spoiler, so here comes a spoiler.
Arnold Bennett is a stone cold killer. Of all the characters given ample page time, they all die. And they don't die interesting deaths, they die boring old age deaths.
Here is the problem I have with Victorian novels. They all center around women. Kidding, there's more to it. They all center around women that are supposed to be bucking the societal trends for women of the time. Either they want to marry for love and not wealth (although they always marry for wealth, love just happens to be a convenience) or they are living the feminist lifestyle and can do anything that men can do aside from peeing standing up without making a big mess.
This was Sophia, she fell in love and left Bursley against her family's wishes and mine. She traveled and experienced the world, fell out of love, because it turned out her worthless cad of a husband was indeed, a worthless cad of a husband. He admitted to marrying her just so he could get inside her girdle. Thank god those times are past, have to get married just to get some nookie (right, Fred?). Now, all of that stuff happens on the second date. Intercourse happens on the second date, right?
Going on, Sophia's marriage falls apart, she becomes a successful business lady, moves back home to be with her ailing sister. Finds out that her husband, whom she hasn't seen in 36 years is ill. Travels to see his idle body, then gets sick on the ride home and dies. WTF! She was the only interesting aspect of this book. Then you go and kill her, Arnold. I hate you so much.
Anyway, I'm putting off these crappy books for awhile. Gonna read some self-help stuff that my mom gave me instead. I can already tell you that they won't help. I'm a wreck.
*As an aside, anyone else sick of coworkers not grasping the concept of the reply and reply all buttons? What's the deal? Am I right or am I right?
June 21, 2020
This book is the small details in life. Two sisters - of a mercantile family - lead very different lives. One stays in Bursley her whole life. And the other one scandalously elopes with a less than honorable traveling salesman. Late in life the two sisters reunite. Sophia reflects on her leaving and returning to Bursley Square:
Her return was accepted with indifference. Her escapade of thirty years ago entirely lost its dramatic quality. Many people indeed never heard that she had run away from to marry a commercial traveler; and to those who remembered, or had been told, it seemed a sufficiently banal exploit--after thirty years! Her fear, and Constance's that the town would be murmurous gossip was ludicrously unfounded. The effect of time was such that even Mr Critchlow (the local doctor) appeared to have forgotten even that she had been indirectly responsible for her father's death. She had nearly forgotten it herself; when she happened to think about it she felt no shame, no remorse, seeing the death as purely accidental, and not altogether unfortunate.
This passage represents much of how I think about this book. It focus on details. Even the big scandalous events are with the passage of time made into simple choices.
Another great example of details and then an insight into the character:
Constance's eyes suddenly filled with tears.
'Ye'd had Spot a long time, hadn't ye?' he said sympathetically.
She nodded. 'When I was married,' said she, 'the first thing my husband did was to buy a fox-terrier, and ever since we've always had a fox-terrier in the house.' This was not true, but Constance was firmly convinced of its truth.
Her return was accepted with indifference. Her escapade of thirty years ago entirely lost its dramatic quality. Many people indeed never heard that she had run away from to marry a commercial traveler; and to those who remembered, or had been told, it seemed a sufficiently banal exploit--after thirty years! Her fear, and Constance's that the town would be murmurous gossip was ludicrously unfounded. The effect of time was such that even Mr Critchlow (the local doctor) appeared to have forgotten even that she had been indirectly responsible for her father's death. She had nearly forgotten it herself; when she happened to think about it she felt no shame, no remorse, seeing the death as purely accidental, and not altogether unfortunate.
This passage represents much of how I think about this book. It focus on details. Even the big scandalous events are with the passage of time made into simple choices.
Another great example of details and then an insight into the character:
Constance's eyes suddenly filled with tears.
'Ye'd had Spot a long time, hadn't ye?' he said sympathetically.
She nodded. 'When I was married,' said she, 'the first thing my husband did was to buy a fox-terrier, and ever since we've always had a fox-terrier in the house.' This was not true, but Constance was firmly convinced of its truth.
November 4, 2016
H.G. Wells may think this book is a masterpiece, but I myself don't see the allure. The Old Wives' Tale tells the story of two sisters, only one year apart, and their journey from lively young girls into unhappy old women. One sister, Sophia, runs away with a handsome man only to be trapped in a loveless marriage until her husband deserts her a few years later. Intelligent and resourceful, she manages to make money running a hotel until her 50's, never truly happy but at least feeling like she has a purpose. Her older sister, Constance, marries a shopkeep, and is moderately happy until he dies, leaving her a widow with a spoiled son to raise. Both women are finally reunited in their old age and live together, both compromising their happiness for some companionship. Eventually they die, tired and used up.
Seriously. That is the plot of this book. Sorry if I spoiled it for you, but I sort of wish someone had spoiled it for me before I wasted two weeks reading it.
Okay, I'm being a little harsh here. The writing was, at times, beautiful, and the characters really did represent the tragedy of our short time on this earth. But the whole thing was so depressing it was hard not to throw the book across the room. I know that in real life we often end up unhappy and alone, but I don't need to read about it in books. I'm not asking for a sappy, happy ending, and I don't mind a little realistic suffering. I think the problem here is that I didn't care enough about these women to cry for their ruined lives, their unhappiness just frustrated and annoyed me. Perhaps it's a brilliant masterpiece of its time, but I think there's a reason few people read it today.
Seriously. That is the plot of this book. Sorry if I spoiled it for you, but I sort of wish someone had spoiled it for me before I wasted two weeks reading it.
Okay, I'm being a little harsh here. The writing was, at times, beautiful, and the characters really did represent the tragedy of our short time on this earth. But the whole thing was so depressing it was hard not to throw the book across the room. I know that in real life we often end up unhappy and alone, but I don't need to read about it in books. I'm not asking for a sappy, happy ending, and I don't mind a little realistic suffering. I think the problem here is that I didn't care enough about these women to cry for their ruined lives, their unhappiness just frustrated and annoyed me. Perhaps it's a brilliant masterpiece of its time, but I think there's a reason few people read it today.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 3, 2016
Bennett’s very readable telling of the story of Constance and Sophia, two sisters, from young adulthood to old age and death. Bennett shows wonderfully how even ordinary lives — like Constance’s or even Sophia’s (which was certainly more exciting than her sister’s and full of heartbreak and struggle) are full and rich with experiences, they have their little and large tussles, joys, loss and sadness, and even some drama. He also shows that perhaps one can’t label or characterise anything — whether a life, a person, an event, or a situation quite so simply; for instance people can at once be ridiculous and tragic like Madame Foucault as can situations like Mr Baines’ death which is somewhat ridiculous, tragic, and grotesque all at the same time, and that life’s little jokes aren’t all that pleasant for the person it plays them on. I liked how the story comes full circle with Sophia and Constance ending up coming together living like Mrs Baines and Aunt Harriet years ago when they were starting their adult lives, while the next generation (Dick and Lily and the callous Cyril) set off on or rather continue their own journeys.
December 8, 2013
Constance and Sophia are two sisters born into the narrow but secure world of their parents' drapery business in the Potteries. The Old Wives' Tale is the story of their lives from girlhood to old age and it is a remarkable masterpiece.
The life experiences of the two are vastly different, yet in essence they end up living the same life. As products of a hard-working, respectable trading class, their values are with them for life. Bennett puts the women centre stage, and male characters are peripheral, leaving Constance and Sophia free to make their own choices.
The balance between the two stories and the parallels in detail are finely crafted and give resonance and texture. For example, hot air balloons make an appearance in both strands of the story, separated by many miles and years; and an execution features in both.
The psychological insight is acute. The account of lives lived in the Potteries between 1860 and 1908 is a fascinating and invaluable document. Is it just me, or is Arnold Bennett a hugely underrated writer?
The life experiences of the two are vastly different, yet in essence they end up living the same life. As products of a hard-working, respectable trading class, their values are with them for life. Bennett puts the women centre stage, and male characters are peripheral, leaving Constance and Sophia free to make their own choices.
The balance between the two stories and the parallels in detail are finely crafted and give resonance and texture. For example, hot air balloons make an appearance in both strands of the story, separated by many miles and years; and an execution features in both.
The psychological insight is acute. The account of lives lived in the Potteries between 1860 and 1908 is a fascinating and invaluable document. Is it just me, or is Arnold Bennett a hugely underrated writer?
October 21, 2016
تاريخ القراءة الأصلي : ٢٠٠١
ممتعة وبسيطة
ممتعة وبسيطة
February 13, 2023
This is a witty, entertaining yet melancholy tale that traces the life of two Englishwomen from their girlhood in the 1860s until about 1907, when Bennett started drafting the novel. Bennett got the idea for writing the book in 1903 when, observing a fairly ridiculous acting and looking stout elderly woman dining at a restaurant. Bennett thought:
“there is an extreme pathos in the mere fact that every stout aging woman was once a young girl with the unique charm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind. And the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout aging woman is made up of an infinitesimal number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.”
Bennett thought this a good idea for a novel but set it aside until he reread Guy de Maupassant’s “Un Vie” which traces the entire life of a woman, and decided to do an English version but, being English, had to “go one better” and trace the lives of two women; two sisters Constance and Sophia Baines. Constance is the one Bennett modeled on his 1903 restauranter, but intended to create a more sympathetic woman than that ‘ridiculous’ person, and one who would pass unnoticed in a crowd. Sophia he says he created out of his own bravado, a trait which is reflected in Sophia’s character. I thought Bennett was quite successful in fulfilling his intent when creating the characters of Constance and Sophia.
Bennett has the sisters start their lives sometime between 1846 and 1849 and the story picks up with them as teenage girls in 1864, living in a residence adjacent and over the Baines family’s store on St. Luke’s Square in Bursley, England, one of the five towns collectively referred to as the Potteries, being the area in central England where British earthenware is made, with entities such as Wedgwood, Spode and Royal Doulton. These five towns, later joined by a sixth, ended up being amalgamated in 1910 into a city known as Stoke–on–Trent.
I won’t go into the story details except to say that while most of it is set in the family home in Bursley, the book isn’t static in locale. While Constance indeed lives a life in Bursley as a woman “who would pass unnoticed in a crowd,” Sophia has a more adventurous life, especially during an eventful period in Paris history. Sophia’s life, while not always leading to positive outcomes, befits Sophia’s strong-willed, intelligent, adventurous yet often stubborn and judgmental character.
Constance’s story is less exciting than Sophia’s, but it contains quite meaningful and very perceptive moments and insights into her character and, through her interactions with them, into the characters of her family members, servants, employees and some of the quirky denizens of Bursley. Constance may have a more parochial character befitting her life in a more parochial setting, but her story is still interesting.
While making such vivid and realistic depictions of the sisters’ Bursley and Paris lives, Bennett sprinkles into it various doses of humor and wit, both when commenting on his characters’ traits, thoughts and actions and when making his sharply satirical societal observations. These comments and observations greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the book, though I could see where some might view them as unwelcome interruptions of the pathos building in some serious scenes.
And, yes, pathos – to borrow Bennett’s own term - is the dominating emotion evoked in this novel and Bennett, despite his wit and satirical bent, is extremely talented at presenting it. Bennett really delves inside the personalities of these two sisters; their thoughts, the rationale for the thoughts, especially exploring their thoughts during interpersonal interactions. His is quite the thorough character study of these two flawed and sympathetic sisters from a 19th century central England town.
I was quite moved by their story. The novel touched many of my emotions; it made me smile, worry, laugh, be teary-eyed and be heart-broken, all while being enlightened with knowledge and insights into the English and French people and social history of the time. I couldn’t ask for much more out of a classic novel.
This is a 5-star novel, rare for me to give to a Victorian novel, but then this is actually a 20th Century Edwardian novel rather than a Victorian one. It made for a superbly rewarding and compelling read. Last night, after finding myself unable to sleep, I arose at 3:00 a.m. and read the last 80 pages to finish the book by breakfast. I think my inability to sleep was due to my desire to finish the book as I had read part of a chapter before going to bed in the first place. Whatever the reason for my bout of insomnia, I’m very glad I got up to read the book. Finishing the book during a period of change from darkness to sunrise to light likely enhanced the “pathos” of the overall reading experience.
(As a bonus, by reading this in a GR group read, I learned that in the 19th century, Sophia, was pronounced “So-feye-a” rather than “So-fee-a,” so similar to the pronunciation of Maria in "They Call the Wind Maria" from the musical Paint Your Wagon).
“there is an extreme pathos in the mere fact that every stout aging woman was once a young girl with the unique charm of youth in her form and movements and in her mind. And the fact that the change from the young girl to the stout aging woman is made up of an infinitesimal number of infinitesimal changes, each unperceived by her, only intensifies the pathos.”
Bennett thought this a good idea for a novel but set it aside until he reread Guy de Maupassant’s “Un Vie” which traces the entire life of a woman, and decided to do an English version but, being English, had to “go one better” and trace the lives of two women; two sisters Constance and Sophia Baines. Constance is the one Bennett modeled on his 1903 restauranter, but intended to create a more sympathetic woman than that ‘ridiculous’ person, and one who would pass unnoticed in a crowd. Sophia he says he created out of his own bravado, a trait which is reflected in Sophia’s character. I thought Bennett was quite successful in fulfilling his intent when creating the characters of Constance and Sophia.
Bennett has the sisters start their lives sometime between 1846 and 1849 and the story picks up with them as teenage girls in 1864, living in a residence adjacent and over the Baines family’s store on St. Luke’s Square in Bursley, England, one of the five towns collectively referred to as the Potteries, being the area in central England where British earthenware is made, with entities such as Wedgwood, Spode and Royal Doulton. These five towns, later joined by a sixth, ended up being amalgamated in 1910 into a city known as Stoke–on–Trent.
I won’t go into the story details except to say that while most of it is set in the family home in Bursley, the book isn’t static in locale. While Constance indeed lives a life in Bursley as a woman “who would pass unnoticed in a crowd,” Sophia has a more adventurous life, especially during an eventful period in Paris history. Sophia’s life, while not always leading to positive outcomes, befits Sophia’s strong-willed, intelligent, adventurous yet often stubborn and judgmental character.
Constance’s story is less exciting than Sophia’s, but it contains quite meaningful and very perceptive moments and insights into her character and, through her interactions with them, into the characters of her family members, servants, employees and some of the quirky denizens of Bursley. Constance may have a more parochial character befitting her life in a more parochial setting, but her story is still interesting.
While making such vivid and realistic depictions of the sisters’ Bursley and Paris lives, Bennett sprinkles into it various doses of humor and wit, both when commenting on his characters’ traits, thoughts and actions and when making his sharply satirical societal observations. These comments and observations greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the book, though I could see where some might view them as unwelcome interruptions of the pathos building in some serious scenes.
And, yes, pathos – to borrow Bennett’s own term - is the dominating emotion evoked in this novel and Bennett, despite his wit and satirical bent, is extremely talented at presenting it. Bennett really delves inside the personalities of these two sisters; their thoughts, the rationale for the thoughts, especially exploring their thoughts during interpersonal interactions. His is quite the thorough character study of these two flawed and sympathetic sisters from a 19th century central England town.
I was quite moved by their story. The novel touched many of my emotions; it made me smile, worry, laugh, be teary-eyed and be heart-broken, all while being enlightened with knowledge and insights into the English and French people and social history of the time. I couldn’t ask for much more out of a classic novel.
This is a 5-star novel, rare for me to give to a Victorian novel, but then this is actually a 20th Century Edwardian novel rather than a Victorian one. It made for a superbly rewarding and compelling read. Last night, after finding myself unable to sleep, I arose at 3:00 a.m. and read the last 80 pages to finish the book by breakfast. I think my inability to sleep was due to my desire to finish the book as I had read part of a chapter before going to bed in the first place. Whatever the reason for my bout of insomnia, I’m very glad I got up to read the book. Finishing the book during a period of change from darkness to sunrise to light likely enhanced the “pathos” of the overall reading experience.
(As a bonus, by reading this in a GR group read, I learned that in the 19th century, Sophia, was pronounced “So-feye-a” rather than “So-fee-a,” so similar to the pronunciation of Maria in "They Call the Wind Maria" from the musical Paint Your Wagon).
August 18, 2017
An astonishing, perfect piece of work.
I’ve occasionally recognised, over the years, the not-so deep fact that the way one perceives the quality of a book can in fact depend on one’s own mood at the time. I remember once reading Bleak House as part of my student studies and I read it in 100 page chunks: well, it remains one of my all-time favourite books, a complete masterpiece; but pages 301-400 were quite poor…
Maybe I happened to be in the right, receptive sort of mood here too. Who cares – try to ensure you are too, gentle reader.
If so, you will encounter a quietly unpretentious but nonetheless moving exposition of – simple life. The soul of the book lies in its simplicity, its affectionate insights into unexceptional people. True, part of the novel uses the Franco-Prussian war and its effects on Paris as the backdrop: I found myself almost ‘resenting’ that drama! Because it is the quiet trickling of the sand in the hourglass that is the heart and soul, the glory, of this work. Quietly, almost before you realise what he’s up to, Bennett has described what growing old looks like. Not particularly in any wistful sense of losing one’s strength or faculties (though that’s part of it): but simply, an account of what time does to two normal, very human, sisters.
For me it was as if Bennett had played some kind of trick. As if I spent the larger part of the book admiring his ability as a watercolour painter of life. But when the sisters got back in touch with each other I found I had to stop reading: my eyes had got so gummed up with tears that I couldn’t see the pages properly. That’s not the effect of a watercolour; it’s the full-on blast of an oil painting, rich and profound. I had no idea Bennett had it in him – or could find that in me!
Lovely book. My only, utterly footling comment in the other direction is Bennett’s tendency to use a kind of Franglais to show off that he knows his French, even though he is writing in English translation. For example, when Sophia is unwell, the doctor does not say “get some rest” – Bennett insists on putting the words “Repose the most absolute” in his mouth. You wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t such a sure-footed, perfect piece of work – but that is plain silly.
Never mind. Bennett’s work was once derided by the luvvies of Bloomsbury – not modern enough, too rooted in the narrative traditions of the nineteenth century, and so on. Goodreads’ own, stupidly patronising summary of the book is an example of that too. Well, for me, never mind that either: the nineteenth century was when the art of the novel arguably blossomed to greatest effect, and this is bang in that mainstream for me. A desert island novel.
I’ve occasionally recognised, over the years, the not-so deep fact that the way one perceives the quality of a book can in fact depend on one’s own mood at the time. I remember once reading Bleak House as part of my student studies and I read it in 100 page chunks: well, it remains one of my all-time favourite books, a complete masterpiece; but pages 301-400 were quite poor…
Maybe I happened to be in the right, receptive sort of mood here too. Who cares – try to ensure you are too, gentle reader.
If so, you will encounter a quietly unpretentious but nonetheless moving exposition of – simple life. The soul of the book lies in its simplicity, its affectionate insights into unexceptional people. True, part of the novel uses the Franco-Prussian war and its effects on Paris as the backdrop: I found myself almost ‘resenting’ that drama! Because it is the quiet trickling of the sand in the hourglass that is the heart and soul, the glory, of this work. Quietly, almost before you realise what he’s up to, Bennett has described what growing old looks like. Not particularly in any wistful sense of losing one’s strength or faculties (though that’s part of it): but simply, an account of what time does to two normal, very human, sisters.
For me it was as if Bennett had played some kind of trick. As if I spent the larger part of the book admiring his ability as a watercolour painter of life. But when the sisters got back in touch with each other I found I had to stop reading: my eyes had got so gummed up with tears that I couldn’t see the pages properly. That’s not the effect of a watercolour; it’s the full-on blast of an oil painting, rich and profound. I had no idea Bennett had it in him – or could find that in me!
Lovely book. My only, utterly footling comment in the other direction is Bennett’s tendency to use a kind of Franglais to show off that he knows his French, even though he is writing in English translation. For example, when Sophia is unwell, the doctor does not say “get some rest” – Bennett insists on putting the words “Repose the most absolute” in his mouth. You wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t such a sure-footed, perfect piece of work – but that is plain silly.
Never mind. Bennett’s work was once derided by the luvvies of Bloomsbury – not modern enough, too rooted in the narrative traditions of the nineteenth century, and so on. Goodreads’ own, stupidly patronising summary of the book is an example of that too. Well, for me, never mind that either: the nineteenth century was when the art of the novel arguably blossomed to greatest effect, and this is bang in that mainstream for me. A desert island novel.
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