Red Pottage

by Mary Cholmondeley

Mary Cholmondeley wrote at the beginning of the 20th century. She spent most of her life in England caring for her mother. By age 18 she was convinced she would never marry. She is best remembered for her satirical novel Red Pottage. Red Pottage is the story of adultery and a clergyman who destroys his sister's art. The first plot contained in this novel is that of Rachael West an heiress and her love for a man trapped in an illicit affair who is doomed to die by is own hand. The second plot is about a gifted female writer who is unable to break away and start her own life free of her family.

Genres: Classics, Victorian, Fiction, 19th Century, British Literature, Romance, Audiobook

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1899

About the author

Mary Cholmondeley was an English novelist.

The daughter of the vicar at St Luke's Church in the village of Hodnet, Market Drayton, Shropshire, England, where she was born, Cholmondeley spent much of the first thirty years of her life taking care of her sickly mother.

Selected writings
* The Danvers Jewels (1886)
* Sir Charles Danvers (1889)
* Let Loose (1890)
* Diana Tempest (1893)
* Devotee: An Episode in the Life of a Butterfly (1897)
* Red Pottage (1899)
* Prisoners (1906)
* The Lowest Rung (1908)
* Moth and Rust (1912)
* After All (1913)
* Notwithstanding (1913)
* Under One Roof (1917)

Reviews

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the Victorian age, Red Pottage is a novel of women's lives and thoughts and strivings in a time period when women were not thought to have those. It is the story of two friends Hester and Rachel, who've known each other since childhood and glimpsed a compatible soul in the other. They are both smart and moral and modern in that they want their lives to have meaning. They communicate with each other and a few good, like-minded friends. They have to endure the stupidity and shallowness of others, some of which are their own family members.

The female writer shows us her society and reveals that it doesn't matter what rung you are on; there are decent, kind people on each level and conversely obtuse, cruel ones. The actions of Hester's brother, who is a clergyman, is a case in point. He is a complete fool who doesn't know how to reach his congregation, but he doesn't know he's an idiot and just flounders around making everyone around him miserable, except for his wife who worships the dumb idol. What he does to Hester is one of the most vile transgressions against an artist that I've ever read.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly wish Mary Cholmondeley had given this book another name. It might have enticed more people to read it now, when the phrase “red pottage” has literally no meaning to our society, and it is a book that well-deserves to be read.

I became completely engrossed in these characters and the moral quagmire of their time. Talk about a cross-section of society, we have the very wealthy and shallow, the very wealthy and titled, the rather poor and ordinary, the rather poor but exceptional, the finest kind of moral beacon in the guise of a bishop, and the very worst of a sniveling, narrow-mindedness in a clergyman. In truth, Cholmondeley makes it clear that where you are born or what profession you choose is not what determines your value in the least.

I felt the punishment did not fit the crime in the case of Hugh Scarlet. He is guilty of cuckolding a gentleman and, in the days when a duel was a matter of honor, he is called to a duel of a kind, but in my view much worse. In a book that is replete with the need for redemption, he desperately tries to find his so that he can measure up to Rachel West, the woman he comes to love. What I found especially moving is that Rachel, while a very decent person, is not a paragon of virtue herself, as she judges men too harshly based on one past experience.

In a parallel story, we become acquainted with Hester Gresley, Rachel’s best friend, and a woman who has her own crosses to bear. She is a spinster living with her brother, a low-ranking clergyman. This pious pontificator made my blood boil. He is everything that causes people to question religion and its worth and the kind of man whose example might well push anyone farther from God if they considered for one instance that he might be God’s chosen representative. Hester, of course, is kinder in her thought of him than I am, but I am proved right.

In fact there are a few characters who cannot be loved, they are just too horrid, but the three main characters are unerringly human and I felt greatly for each of them. Cholmondeley addresses many important themes in this work, not the least of them being the position of unmarried women in society and the struggle for independence they are forced to constantly battle. I felt her writing was reminiscent of George Eliot...and I do not compare anyone to George Eliot lightly.

If you have not read this book, and you have any affinity for 19th Century classics, please do yourself the favor of putting it on your TBR toward the top.

[Christmas Carol ꧁꧂ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5★

Is everyone familiar with the Biblical story of Jacob & Esau?

Flighty Esau sold his birthright to younger brother Jacob for a mess (meal)of red pottage. (probably a red lentil soup or stew) Jacob doesn't come out of that tale as a very nice person, frankly!

This is the Lentil Soup I made last week.

More like a stew really and so is this book.

After a compelling start with Hugh's affair with the shallow Lady Newhaven & subsequently falling deeply in love with the newly wealthy Rachel, this book seems to lose track for a while. I waited impatiently for the story to get on track with Lord Newhaven's revenge. But side stories were introduced. After a while the side stories for gifted author Hester and her self righteous brother and sister-in-law also became engrossing - indeed their resolution was an absolutely shattering part of the book. Around the last 40% was compelling reading. Unfortunately, on my copy anyway, Cholmondely lost her way with a feeble postscript. It was like the author couldn't bear to have a happy ending only for the awful Greasley husband and wife and a couple of minor characters.

It wouldn't have been an easy read, but I think this book would work better if it had gone for complete tragedy, but the final third was still a really good read.

https://wordpress.com/view/carolshess...

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, what a book this is. It has a wonderfully diverse cast of characters, it is full of drama and intrigue, it has plenty to say, and every single thing in it is so cleverly and vividly drawn that I found myself living and breathing the story.

It begins with Hugh Scarlett, who is set on breaking his relationship with his mistress, the married Lady Newhaven, even as he is travelling to a party at her home. He realises that his position is invidious, but he is set on his course.

He is even more certain that he is doing the right thing when, soon after his arrival, he catches sight of young woman he has never seen before. He is struck, not by her beauty but by the expression in her eyes, and he decides there and then that he must make her his wife. She leaves though, before he even learns her name.

Meanwhile, Lord Newhaven is delighted to see Richard Vernon, a friend who has been overseas for a very long time, and who has come to the party purely by chance. He is also drawn to that woman, and his friendship with his host allows him to learn her name – Rachel West – and a little of her story.

Lord Newhaven is preoccupied thought; there is something that he knows he must do. As Hugh is leaving he invites him into his study for a moment. He gives Hugh to understand that he knows of his affair with his wife; and he offers him, not a duel, but a drawing of spills. With the man who drew the shorter of the two undertaking to end his life within five months of that night.

Hugh drew, without stopping to think that he might refuse.

It was a wonderful beginning: Mary Cholmondeley wrote beautifully, balancing narrative, drama, character drawing and story possibilities with such skill. I felt compassion for each of the ‘duellists’; I was intrigued by Rachel; I even felt sympathy for the spoiled Lady Newhaven.

The next day, Hugh was a dinner guest at the home of Doll Loftus and his wife Sybell, a lady eager to establish herself as a society hostess. Rachel was there too, and though his mind was crowded with thoughts of his encounter with Lord Newhaven, he was still drawn to her. They found themselves united in in defence of Rachel’s friend Hester Gresley, whose novel of London’s East End is a critical and popular success. It was said that she could not know, could not possibly understand the world she wrote of, but Rachel knew that she could and she did.

Rachel had been the daughter of wealthy parents. Theirs wasn’t old money, her father was a self-made man. He lost everything he made though, making bad decisions, and when her parents died Rachel had nothing. She was determined to be independent and to support herself, and so she took lodgings in the East End, and made a meagre living as a typist. She lived like that for years, until she inherited a fortune from her father’s former business partner.

She and Hester had been friends from childhood, and it is the drawing of that friendship that raises this book so high. The two of them were quite different in character, but they complemented each other so well, and Mary Cholmondeley illuminates that beautifully as she show them meeting for the first time.

“Such a friendship, very deep, very tender, existed between Rachel West and Hester Gresley. It dated back from the nursery days, when Hester and Rachel solemnly eyed each other, and then made acquaintance in the dark gardens of Portman Square, into which Hester introduced a fortified castle with a captive princess in it, and a rescuing prince and a dragon, and several other ingredients of romance to the awed amazement of Rachel—stolid, solid, silent Rachel—who loved all two and four legged creatures, but who never made them talk to each other as Hester did. And Hester, in blue serge, told Rachel, in crimson velvet, as they walked hand in hand in front of their nursery-maids, what the London sparrows said to each other in the gutters, and how they considered the gravel path in the square was a deep river suitable to bathe in. And when the spring was coming, and the prince had rescued the princess so often from the dungeon in the laurel-bushes that Hester was tired of it, she told Rachel how the elms were always sighing because they were shut up in town, and how they went out every night with their roots into the green country to see their friends, and came back, oh! so early in the morning, before any one was awake to miss them. And Rachel’s heart yearned after Hester, and she gave her her red horse and the tin duck and magnet, and Hester made stories about them all.”

The characters of the two women are drawn so very well; they had such depth, they had such life, that I couldn’t help being drawn in and caring so much about them.

Hester had was brought up by an aunt who was protective of her, who encouraged her ambition to write, and was proud when her niece’s first novel was a success. Her aunt’s death left her with very little money, and she found that she had no alternative but to make a home with her brother and his family.

That was a problem. James Gresley was narrow-minded, self-righteous, and utterly incapable of seeing any view point but his own adoring wife will never challenge or change that. He was supported by an adoring wife, a loyal congregation, and a social circle quite unlike the one to which his sister was used. He though his sister’s writing trivial, far less important then his tracts; and, try as she might, Hester could never manage to follow the path her family expected her to follow; she had to live as a writer.

The story moves between the two friends.

The relationship between Hugh and Rachel grows; but their situation is complicated by his duel with Lord Newhaven, by Lady Newhaven’s unwillingness to let go, and by their understanding of – and honesty about – that situation.

A chain of circumstances has terrible consequences for Hester.

Mary Cholmondeley plotted her story so cleverly, twisting it again and again; and making my heart rise and fall so many times as I followed the fortunes of a cast of characters who became so very real to me.

(There’s so much I could say, there are so many talking points; but I don’t want to say too much because I’d hate to spoil this story for anyone who has yet to read it.)

The two storylines are separate, meeting only as the two friends meet, but the book works because each storyline is so good. There are echoes of great authors, there is glorious satire and wit, there is passionate advocacy of a woman’s right to set the course of her own life; and that is all held together by the most compelling of human dramas and writing that is full of heart and intelligence.

It feels like a Victorian novel, but it also feels wonderfully subversive.

I loved it!

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This starts off with a fascinating and dramatic premise with an adulterous affair gone wrong and a crazy variation on the idea of a duel of honour.

But, sadly, the following chapters seem to forget both these plot points and it seems like a whole other book begins, one where a 'lady' novelist goes to live with her pompous, pious vicar brother and his smug and unpleasant wife. Long swathes of moralising and whining about Hester's writing, and jaunty games with children wore down my patience, and even some authorial snark didn't compensate.

Personal connections between characters bridge the two plotlines but the uneven pace, periods of boredom and the sheer number of pages meant lots of yawning from me.

There are broken hearts, rags to riches stories, plenty of suitors for Rachel, a dramatic book burning and a fantastically high Victorian deathbed scene. But the characters feel a bit like automatons wound up to do their thing, and the writing can feel bogged down with similes and metaphors: just look at that title.

I almost feel as if treating this as pure melodrama would have done wonders for the book. But confusing the love/adultery plot with the secondary one of a struggling emancipated female artist made both strands feel disconnected. And too much unnecessary padding bogged the whole thing down.

When drama comes to the forefront this can really pick up, but too much of this book sadly felt like a chore to wade through as there isn't a strong and clear throughline. I never felt as if the author had a clear vision or intention. A plodding Victober for me, this year.

[K.J. Charles]

Wildly enjoyable Victorian melodrama about three women: Hester the author, living with her appalling clergyman brother, Rachel who's done the rags to riches thing and had a painful love affair, and Lady Newhaven, whose adultery sets the plot in motion. Rollicking good melodramatic fun with people behaving appallingly and lots of thundering morality (not all conventional). If you like that kind of thing, you'll love it.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Friends since childhood, Rachel West and Hester Gresley now lead very different lives. Rachel came through years of poverty to inherit a fortune, but becomes involved in a messy love triangle. Hester is a writer, forced by her aunt's death to live with her conservative clergyman brother and his wife.

Their plotlines have little to do with each other, only intersecting because of their friendship, but each plotline examines, forcefully and satirically, how the women are bound by the conventions of their society and how they seek to move beyond those boundaries. Cholmondeley takes no prisoners in satirizing and criticizing her targets (especially Hester's family), while maintaining a great deal of sympathy with her heroines.

This is one of the best Virago books I've read lately, and I wish they had more Cholmondeley on their list (though this is apparently her best-known book).

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves to be lauded and praised as much as the more widely read and popular Victorian novels are.

[Di Hemy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in an old leather-bound copy, published in 1899 by Edward Arnold, third edition. Some of the pages at the end, listing other titles by the publisher, are still uncut. It has a handwritten dedication in the front, dated Xmas 1899. The book was a sensation in that year, so it was an obvious choice of Christmas present.

I was bowled over by the brilliance of the author's ironic wit. I laughed out loud in many places. But I was disappointed by the last third of the book, which lapses into melodrama. If the author had maintained her ironic distance to the end, the book would have been a masterpiece. Having set up the bizarre duel, she could have done better things with it. She also allowed her dislike of a certain type of clergyman to run away with her, hammering away at that theme longer than was necessary.

Those are just my impressions on a first reading. The book merits another reading.

I was delighted to find that E.F.Benson may have got Mapp and Lucia's 'au reservoir' from this book. I could imagine him reading Red Pottage with enjoyment.

As a new contributor, I wonder why so many of the readers on this site think that to review a book means to retell the story and describe the characters, at great length? That’s not a review, and it’s boring and unhelpful.

[Mela · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stream talked and talked and talked about what he was going to do when he was a river.

What a surprising gem. From the first scene to the last words of Postscript.

I admit I would have liked to see a different end for two characters - no spoilers if you have read it you know which two I mean. But nonetheless, it was a mature wise (with a little wit) story about life. Some conversations, e.g. the Bishop with Regie when he explained Hester's behaviour and the Bishop with Rachel when he explained what her words meant to Hugh, were priceless.

One of the books I call "a splendidly written novel".

Yes, there was a tragedy. Some events were emotionally exaggerated (at least in my modern point of view) but Mary Cholmondeley didn't leave us with them. Because life goes on.

For Hope and Love and Enthusiasm never die. We think in youth that we bury them in the graveyards of our hearts, but the grass never yet grew over them.

4.5 rounded up.

[For more I recommend Jane's review. She summarized it perfectly: It feels like a Victorian novel, but it also feels wonderfully subversive.]

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important thing I learned is that the author’s difficult looking last name is actually pronounced as “Chumley.” For overall ease, I have chosen to use the phonetic version of her name.
Chumley published this novel in 1899 and set it in her contemporary England. The story involves two females, Rachel West and Hester Gresley as heroines. While both started as childhood friends in well-regarded households, Rachel’s family fortunes sank and she lived in near poverty as a typist until a recent inheritance made her wealthy. Hester’s aunt, Lady Susan, brought her up in a sheltered style yet when she died, she left Hester without much income, forcing Hester to live with her brother, the Reverend James Gresley and his wife in the country village of Middleshire.

Rachel and Hester are the heroines of separate story threads. The book opens with Rachel’s story as she is at a party with the London elite at Lord and Lady Newhaven’s where two suitors begin their pursuit of the heiress: Lord N’s friend, Dick Vernon and Hugh Scarlett. Hugh is at the party with hopes of breaking off his affair with Lady N but before he can, Lord N confronts him about the affair. The method chosen to resolve the conflict is the key impetus for the dramatic plot events in Rachel’s story. The nature of this method adds a “sensational” element to the story's plot.
All the parties in Rachel’s story eventually shift over from London to summer estates near Middleshire, moves that allow the two stories to intersect for their finales. Both Dick and Hugh continue to pursue Rachel and one does manage to grab her heart. Thus, Rachel’s story is a love story, one with adultery, romance and a sensational element always hanging over the ultimate resolution. The adultery aspect and attitudes at first had me thinking this storyline was very modern and 21st Century but as the story developed, its similarity to the sensational novels of the 1860s and 70s stood out.

The Hester story is a love story too, but one of Hester’s love of writing and her suffering over this love. Hester is pursuing a career as a writer to earn her living. At her brother’s, she is working on her 2nd novel to follow-up her popular and critical successful 1st novel, a novel with themes and topics that Rev. and Mrs. Gresley find morally abhorrent.
The sanctimonious and self-important Reverend, aided by his blindly supportive, enabling wife seeks to control the behavior of all his parishioners and especially his own sister. Hester chooses not to follow her brother’s behavior edicts. The Reverend’s irritation with Hester’s lax morals and attitudes evidenced by her writing of ‘immoral’ novels and manner of mixing with Middleshire society provides the main dramatic tension in Hester’s storyline. Besides the serious drama, though, Hester’s storyline did provide some instances of social commentary and satire of the clergy and village residents. This storyline felt like one of Mrs. Oliphant’s Carlingford stories, but one with a fairly dramatic event.

The Rachel and Hester storylines do intertwine, but not that often. The story flips between them, though often spending several chapters on one thread before switching to the other. In reminded me of Middlemarch’s two storylines with Dorothea Brooke and Dr. Lydgate, ones that operated independently but with some overlap.
I liked the Rachel storyline more than the Hester storyline. While I was initially skeptical over the reasonableness of Chumley’s sensational device used to resolve the adultery dispute, I soon chose to ignore my skepticism and accept its validity. I’m glad I did as this sensational device did add to the dramatic tension that made Rachel’s storyline engrossing, if fairly melodramatic.
In contrast, the Hester storyline, despite having an interesting heroine, themes and social commentary, suffers from too much of the sanctimonious Gresleys. While I admire Chumley’s ability to keep the Gresleys consistent, this consistency also made it harder to stomach them after over-exposure.

I would rate the Hester storyline at 3 stars and the Rachel storyline at 4 stars. I will give the book as a whole a 3.7-star rating, rounded up to 4 stars. I do so because, despite the slow periods with the Gresleys, the overall book was interesting, well-paced and moved forward well. I often found myself reading beyond my planned page amounts. A book that captivates me sufficiently to have me exhibit such unbridled reading behavior is 4-star worthy.

[Tabuyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aunque la historia en sí me ha gustado mucho hay que reconocer que le sobran algunas páginas por el centro de la novela.
Tiene un punto feminista que llama mucho la atención porque la novela está escrita en 1899. El personaje de Hester es el que más me ha gustado. Es una mujer que quiere escribir una novela pero a lo largo de la historia tiene un montón de impedimentos que le complicarán su cometido.
Os recomiendo leer este libro teniendo fresco el mensaje de Virginia Woolf en «Una habitación propia», es el complemento perfecto.

[Deborah J · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars in fact. Loved loved loved this. I'm not quite sure why, but I was surprised and delighted to find this 1899 book very moving and extremely funny. Sure, some of the class issues are very much of its time, but conversely it dealt with feminism, adultery and possibly lesbianism, while being sad and shocking and totally involving. I shall be looking for more Mary Cholmondeley, if she's still in print.

[Marie Saville · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Montse Gallardo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lo leímos en un Club de lectura sobre feminismo... y cuesta ver esta postura en el libro. Es cierto que las dos protagonistas -Hester y Rachel- se salen del canon de mujer de clase aristocrática de la época; la primera, porque realmente es su trabajo como escritora el que le permite codearse con un sector de la sociedad que le estaría vedado de otra forma; la segunda, porque habiendo sido pobre, un golpe de fortuna la incluye en la clase alta, pero ella no olvida ni sus inicios, ni cómo fue tratada por quienes ahora la buscan (es decir, por quienes ahora buscan su dinero)

Y además, hay otras mujeres con vidas pequeñas, limitadas, que sí responden a ese estereotipo de mujer casada cuya única aspiración en la vida es -dependiendo de en qué punto del camino que media entre la frivolidad y la pacatería se sitúen- o ser la más admirada del baile o la más piadosa de la Iglesia local.

Probablemente influyó mi momento lector, no quiero decir que el libro sea malo, pero me aburrí. Hubo momentos en que sí me interesé por Hester y su tira y afloja con su engreído hermano y la obtusa de su mujer, o por los (no) amores de Rachel; incluso el extraño duelo entre Lord Newhaven y Hugh tiene momentos emocionantes. Pero es eso, en la novela hay momentos que sí se leen con interés, entre otros muchos pasajes tediosos y con un tufillo moralizante que cansa.

Tal vez en su momento estas dos amigas resultaran chocantes para la buena sociedad (la que tenía recursos para comprar y leer libros), pero hoy ha envejecido en estilo y enfoque.

Sí me gustó mucho ese final fuera de lo esperado para las amigas.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

The publication of “Red Pottage’ in 1899 was greeted with shock by polite society in England and sold like hot cakes both there and in America. This `new woman’ novel not only advocated for a woman’s financial independence and right to choose her own path in life, but also took aim at what the author saw as the hypocrisy endemic in the Church of England.
The main protagonists are Rachel West, who had newly come into inherited wealth after years of poverty, and her friend from childhood, Hester Gresley, who has published one successful novel and is struggling to finish her second. With her new found wealth West is able to mingle in intellectual society and at one gathering she catches the eye of ne’er do well Hugh Scarlett who has been entangled for some while in an affair with the married Lady Newhaven. He observes that Rachel is not a beauty but “Upon her grave face the word `Helper’ was plainly written.” On the spot he decides that she is the answer to all his problems. “That woman must be his wife. She would save him from himself, this cynical restless self which never remained in one stay…Her presence would leaven his whole life.” He pursues her and ultimately gains some acceptance but he in turn is bedeviled by Lady Newhaven who is determined not to let him go, the more once she realizes that Rachel might ultimately accept him.
Hester Gresley s challenge is that the death of the aunt with whom she’s been living means that she has to find somewhere else to live. Since it is not considered suitable for a young woman to live alone, even though she has the means, she ends up renting a room from her clergyman brother who has a minor living in a country parish. Her first book had reaped “its harvest of astonished indignation and admiration, and her acquaintances – but not her friends- were still wondering how she came to know so much of a life of which they decided she could know nothing.” Not surprisingly she is viewed with suspicion by her stiff brother and his meek wife who at the same time are very glad of the income she provides.
Mr. Gresley also fancies himself as a writer and asks Hester to review his latest essay “Modern Dissent” which she is loath to do. In his “his lesson for-the-day voice” he expounds his views on writing and his refusal “sell my soul to obtain popularity, for that is which it comes to in these days. The public must be pandered to.” Despite this implicit disparagement of her success Hester stays calm. “Mr. Gresley liked Hester immensely when she ironed herself flat under one of these resolutions.”
When Rachel also comes to stay in the country nearby Hester confesses that her nine months with her brother have been depressing. “I feel as if I have been ironed all over since I came here, and all kinds of ugly words in invisible ink are coming out clear in the process." Meanwhile Rachel fends off Hugh as best she can while being able to move up and down the social and ecumenical hierarchy of the local area with an ease that infuriates Hester’s brother.
Hanging over the whole narrative though is a fateful pact that Hugh has been forced to make with Lord Newhaven when he reveals that he knows about Hugh’s affair with his wife. It’s a pact Rachel and Lady Newhaven know something about but not enough to forestall it. Add to that the unconscionable act Mr. Gresley inflicts on his sister and this narrative, after a slowish start, really builds momentum.
The dramatic events towards the end of the book are balanced by Cholmondeley’s wittily satirical portrayal of both town and village society. She particularly pokes fun at woman who live through their husbands and consider themselves superior to childless spinsters. Lady Newhaven and her sloe friend Sybell “were conscious…that since the birth of their first child their opinions respecting literature, politics and art had acquired additional weight and solidity, and that a wife and mother could pronounce with decisions on important subjects where a spinster would do well to hold her peace.” It’s delicious reading and evidently quite on point at the turn of the century, and in certain levels of society perhaps still.
I can’t quite connect the title to the narrative except perhaps it alludes to two woman who in the end refuse to sell the birthright of their talents and desires, though it is not without a significant fight.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Like Sara, I think another title would help this book sound more appealing, but the author lets us know why she chose it. It is quite a long listen, but Simon Evers on Librivox gives a magnificent audio performance. The story has been described in numerous reviews, so I won't do that. The characters' lives intersect in various ways throughout the main plot narratives, and the story is interwoven in a very satisfying way. I intend to get to her other available books.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

OH. What a journey I’ve been on. This book had me laughing, gasping at the plot twists, and wishing I could strangle certain characters. I loved that the friendship between Rachel and Hester was at the heart of the book. (Though their devotion to each other was clear, I would not have complained if the book had contained more of them together.) I found the ending satisfying, though I feel the postscript tried to detract from its unconventionality. Let Rachel and Hester be old maids together!!!

[Tania · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it

[Sonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Realmente serían 3,5 estrellas.
Y de hecho, no sé si estoy siendo del todo justa y debería haberle dado una puntuación mayor, ya que, en muchos aspectos, un “Guiso de lentejas” es una gran novela. Pero tal vez la mala fortuna ha hecho que se haya cruzado en mi camino en un año en que estoy teniendo una racha lectora buenísima, donde he leído auténticos novelones... y, aunque no debería, no he podido evitar las comparaciones durante la lectura, lo cual ha hecho que saliera perdiendo, porque no la he disfrutado tanto mientras la iba leyendo. A veces un libro te hace sentir no sólo por sí mismo, sino por el momento en que lo pillas y el contexto en el que se encuentra el lector (que es lo que me ha pasado en este caso).
Como decía, este libro tiene muchas cosas buenas: una trama con giros impactantes e interesantes, un estilo de escritura exquisito, y una reivindicación de la emancipación de las mujeres absolutamente sorprendente en una novela escrita en 1899.
Las dos protagonistas femeninas, Hester (en busca de la realización del amor por la escritura) y Rachel (enfrentada a superar las secuelas del desamor y enfrentarse al amor verdadero) están muy bien construidas y son personajes con muchos matices.
... Y sin embargo... debo confesar que en algunos pasajes le falla el ritmo y la novela se me ha hecho algo pesada y aburrida, me ha dado la sensación de que la autora desaprovechaba grandes ideas y grandes giros “masticándolos” demasiado, dándoles demasiadas vueltas o desarrollándolos demasiado lentamente, de modo que con ello perdían toda la fuerza que podrían haber tenido.
Y, si bien toda la trama de la historia de Hester y su relación con los repugnantes Gresley me ha entusiasmado, no ha sido así con la trama de Rachel, especialmente en la subtrama de Hugh y los Newhaven. Y, en ocasiones, el engarce de ambas tramas me ha parecido algo forzado, como metido con calzador, lo cual hacía que parecieran dos novelas transcurriendo en paralelo, más que una sola (reitero que eso era a veces, no durante toda la novela).
Con todo, el balance es positivo. Es una novela recomendable y me ha gustado mucho: si se hubiera centrado únicamente en contar la historia de Hester le hubiera puesto sin dudarlo un 4,5.
Mención aparte merecen los Gresley los villanos que no saben que lo son mejor construidos de cuantos he leído, y una crítica bestial de la autora hacia cierto tipo de clérigos y espíritus capillitas diversos y varios

[Steph | bookedinsaigon · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Red Pottage, childhood friends Rachel West and Hester Gresley exist in entirely different realms within late 19th century British society, with Rachel facing a sudden transition from an impoverished but independent typist to the heiress of an industrial fortune and Hester struggling to write her second novel in the oppressive conditions of her provincial clergyman brother's home. The novel follows the story of their friendship through Rachel's romantic entanglements with Hugh Scarlett, "an inferior man, ...without moral backbone, ... the stuff out of which liars and cowards are made," and Hester's attempts to abide by conventional social expectations while writing an unconventional novel. Red Pottage transgresses genre boundaries; it incorporates aspects of popular sensation novels by using a provocative plot addressing predominant Victorian obsessions, the New Woman novels depicting women transgressing traditional gender roles, and social problem novels pondering the rampant poverty and harsh social barriers.

In its eclectic thematics, Red Pottage attempts to synthesize various facets of the late Victorian era, providing its readers with a more comprehensive view of Victorian life rather than directing the reader to a predetermined ending. The novel unobtrusively integrates issues of labor, theology, gender roles, church politics, slumming, literary culture and the economics of publication, and the impact of literary genre on modern life. Its narrative style similarly synthesizes earlier Victorian realism with later Jamesian innovations, in its use of multiple narrative subjectivities. Despite its use of a dual plotline, a common feature of Victorian novels, Red Pottage diverges from the norm by never fully integrating the two stories, except through subverting the marriage trope.

...And yes, I totally copied that from the prospectus intro that my 19th-century lit class wrote together. :) As a personal note, I WILL add, though, that I really enjoyed it. It read easily, was entertaining and witty, and still gave a great amount to think about. This long-lost gem should be reintroduced to the 21st century, where I think it will find a respectable and appreciative audience.

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tomo esta lectura en un momento de desgana en el que ni la lectura ni la escritura me dicen mucho. Mi opinión, seguro, lleva una carga pesada de sesgos apáticos y no sé si aportará mucho.

Empieza el texto con lo que me pareció un mucho contar y cero mostrar. Se hace cuesta arriba. ¿Es lo que se llevaba? No sé.
A pesar de un arranque algo pobre, coge ritmo después, pero no llego a meterme bien en la historia. Sí que me han gustado algunas escenas particulares, pero no terminé de empatizar con los personajes, que son muchos y variados, y la historia no consiguió cautivarme. Quizá esperaba más peso de complicidad entre Rachel y Hester, más amistad, más señoras sobreviviendo en el mundo de los hombres.

¿Qué está bien en todo esto? Los varios estratos sociales mezclándose, con sus máscaras; los roles de género, el desafío de las protagonistas ante la imposición del "por nacimiento" o por ser mujer; los contrastes entre unos personajes y otros, todos llenos de excesos y defectos. Los puntos de vista bien definidos de cada uno de ellos y cómo una misma realidad se interpreta de múltiples maneras.

¿Lo recomiendo? Bueno, con esta racha de apatía lectora que me causa desencanto de cualquier lectura, no recomiendo ninguna. Intento sacarme este mal de encima y ver el libro de una forma más objetiva, pero no lo consigo
Si te interesa un entorno victoriano, la sociedad del momento creo que está bien reflejada, sobre todo porque toca puntos de vista diferentes que muestran la realidad de distintos grupos sociales; lo que pasa también por crítica social, especialmente satiriza al clero, la labor o la función social de la iglesia.
Si buscas una historia de amor, tienes la de amor correspondido, la de amor no correspondido, el triángulo amoroso...
También, dentro de la crítica, nos habla de cómo la condición sexual de nacimiento puede condicionar tu vida, pero también de desafiar la imposción social, que es posible salir del encasillamiento obligado, lograr la independencia económica y ser tú misma, con tus intereses y tu vida tuya, y no de un hombre.

Hay un poco de todo porque, al cabo, es un guiso de lentejas.

[Marta entre libros · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro nos cuenta la historia de dos amigas, Hester y Rachel. Una quiere ser escritora, pero al ser mujer en aquella época, lo de emanciparse no está bien visto y va a vivir con su hermano, que es clérigo y le hace la vida imposible.
💜
Por otro lado, Rachel después de pasar grandes penurias económicas, se convierte en una rica heredera que tiene un sueño: casarse por amor. Y, bueno, eso tampoco es tarea fácil.
💜
El argumento es muy interesante, y aunque, a día de hoy, no nos parezca excesivamente reivindicativo, para la época en la que fue escrito sí que rompió moldes a la hora de tratar conceptos como la emancipación de la mujer, que esta se pudiera ganar su sustento sin depender de un hombre y similares. También hace un buen repaso a la Iglesia, o más bien, a sus ministros. Por todos estos motivos, cuando se publicó esta novela tuvo grandes detractores.

Sigue leyendo en
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTWiMOcj7Vf/
https://martaentrelibros.com/2021/09/...

[Ilse Wouters · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I really liked MC´s "Moth and rust", my husband bought me this Amazon reprint of Red Pottage. And this time it´s more than clear that Amazon enabled the reprinting of an out-of-print book alright; helas, no corrections or verifications were made, so the book is full of stupid misprints (half of the time Rachel shows as Hachel, Raehel, etc, for instance) which is not only annoying, but makes it often hard to read. Another incomprehensible thing : no page numbers are printed, which makes it almost impossible to go back to previous passages if necessary.
Although I prefer "Moth and rust", some aspects in MC´s writing are again very important in "Red pottage" : the introductory quote to each chapter, the satirical view on country life and more than ever on clergy, affairs of honour, and even the position of women in late 19th century society.

[Mizzou · Rating 4 out of 5]

An English spinster, living with her brother, a clergyman of mediocre capabilities, turns to writing to fill the lonely days in their small rural parish. After she is urged by a visitor to send her manuscript to a publisher, she is flustered but pleased when it is returned to her for a bit of polishing before being returned and sent to be printed. But her brother feels chagrin that recognition has come to her, for her writing talent, and not to him. He cannot cope with his jealousy and this turn of events in that era when females were "home-bodies" whose lives revolved around father, or husband, or, in her case, brother.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a remarkable book. I like the three interwoven plots concerning Hugh, Rachel, and Hester and the way they were related to one another. The extreme melodrama of the 'wager' that threatens Hugh's life was a strain (rather like the bet in Diana Tempest) but once you swallow that the rest of the book is a fascinating look at ideas about Art, Marriage, and Womanhood in a time of social and intellectual ferment. Highly recommended. It's hard to talk about w/o spoilers, but I hope I've succeeded!

[Kimberly Tilley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by this book! It was dark but very good. The characters were distinct and 3-dimensional. The plot had light and shade. No spoilers but I will say Hester's brother, the vicar, was one of the best fictional characters I've read in awhile.

[Emma Davey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book! It would make a fantastic film or period drama.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmmmm, what to say about this book. I liked it, I really did. And I wasn't sure that I would.

[Ginny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A totally unique plot. Unpredictable throughout. I found much of the prose very effective, but the melodrama and moralizing were not to my taste. Still, worth a read.