Monday, January 26, 2009

Gaskell's The Half-brothers

I have started a new project on my website, and if you like Gaskell I invite you to drop in from time to time and read her short stories as I post them. I started with The Half-brothers, primarily because it's short and also because it's not readily available in an easy to read format. I've added some footnotes, and hope to add illustrations as well as an audio recording of the story.

I thought The Half-brothers to be a fairly conventional Victorian story--death of an innocent facilitates the redemption of those who have fallen astray. Certainly the narrator is not as guilty of misdeeds as many of Gaskell's wayward fictional sons, but he is a typical Gaskell creation insofar as he is callous, self-centered, and adored by at least one parent.

4 comments:

  1. hi there - I've not read any Gaskell short stories but I will certainly do so now. Thanks for coming by so I could find your blog!

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  2. Glad you stopped by Bells! Hope you enjoy Gaskell's shorts as well as her novels.

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  3. I'm a big fan of Gaskell's short stories, and blogged about one of her ghost stories at Christmas (http://justine-picardie.blogspot.com/). We've obviously got lots of shared interests. Come and check out my blog -- I've been really enjoying yours!

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  4. Thanks for stopping by, Justine. I have your blog bookmarked, and really enjoyed your review of Gaskell's The Old Nurse's Story: http://justine-picardie.blogspot.com/2008/10/bibliotherapy-what-to-read-on-halloween.html. Your comments about Edith Wharton's criteria for what makes a good ghost story point to what I found lacking in The Haunted House--I didn't get either the shiver or the glow, except with Collins's story and Sala's story, to a lesser degree.

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