Reviews for Clayhanger

The average rating for Clayhanger based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-04-30 00:00:00 John Gladman This is a coming-of-age story although it takes our young man, Edwin, up to about age 30, after his father's death, to break out of his childhood,. We're told he's finished with school at age 16 in 1872 so that gives you a timeframe for the story --Victorian England. It's a long novel with a lot of plot so I'll just briefly mention the story line and focus on samples of his writing, so you know what you are signing up for if you decide to read it. The novel is the first of a four-part series. The others are Hilda Lessways (the woman that the main character falls in love with in volume one); These Twain (about their married life) and Roll-Call. This reminds me a lot of a Dickens novel. I decided to read something by Arnold Bennett because I had read somewhere that he was one of Iris Murdoch's favorite authors and I had never heard of him! Like Dickens he published much of his early work serially in newspapers, so the plot has some soap-opera twists, especially in regard to his young love, Hilda, subject of the second volume in the series. Part of her attraction seems to be her ability to shock him and shock him she does in several surprising plot twists. For quite a while he doesn't like her and doesn't find her attractive, but she grows on him. And like Dickens, when we close the book we remember vividly drawn quirky characters. The author's main topic, as we are told in the introduction using Bennett's own words, is "the interestingness of existence." He likes details and strings of adjectives. We watch Edwin remain under the domination of his strict father cultivating him to go into the family printing business. Edwin has great artistic talent and wants to be an architect but it is not to be. A lot of the story is about class. Even though his father grew up in Oliver Twist-type poverty, forced to work full-time at age 7 to help get his family out of the poorhouse, he managed to leave that behind. He turns against the working class as he acquired wealth. Edwin has liberal leanings, but he can't show them until after his father's death. (The author refers to the opposing political parties in shorthand - blue and red!) The incredibly descriptive writing: "On their right was the astonishing farm, with barns and ricks and cornfields complete, seemingly quite unaware of its forlorn oddness in that foul arena of manufacture. In front, on a little hill in the vast valley, was spread out the Indian-red architecture of Bursley - tall chimneys and rounded ovens, schools, the new scarlet market, the gray tower of the old church, the high spire of the evangelical church, the low spire of the church of genuflections, and the crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amber chimney-pots, and the gold angel of the blackened Town Hall topping the whole. The sedate reddish browns and reds of the composition, all netted in flowing scarves of smoke, harmonized exquisitely with the chill blues of the checkered sky. Beauty was achieved, and none saw it." "Edwin, like Big James [a worker in his father's printing plant] in progress from everlasting to everlasting, was all inchoate, uninformed, undisciplined, and burning with capricious fires; all expectant, eager, reluctant, tingling, timid, innocently and wistfully audacious. By taking the boy's hand, Big James might have poetically symbolized their relation." [Edwin's father] "Some of his scanty hair was white; the rest was gray. White hair sprouted about his ears; gold gleaned in his mouth; and a pair of spectacles hung insecurely balanced half-way down his nose; his waistcoat seemed to be stretched tightly over a perfectly smooth hemisphere. He had an air of somewhat gross and prosperous untidiness. Except for the teeth, his bodily frame appeared to have fallen into disrepair, as though he had ceased to be interested in it, as though he had been using it for a long time as a mere makeshift lodging." [His father's death bed] "The bed was in an architecturally contrived recess, sheltered from both the large window and the door. Over its head was the gas-bracket and the bell-knob. At one side was a night-table, and at the other a chair. In front of the night-table were Darius's slippers. On the chair were certain clothes. From a hook near the night-table, and almost over the slippers, hung his dressing-gown. Seen from the bed, the dressing-table, at the window, appeared to be a long way off, and the wardrobe was a long way off in another direction. The gas was turned low. It threw a pale illumination on the bed, and gleamed on a curve of mahogany here in there in the distances." How's this for a spot-on description of town politics? It describes the local gentlemen's club which could be a modern-day Kiwanis Club: "And down the long littered tables stretched the authority and the wealth of the town - alderman, counselors, members of the school board, guardians of the poor, magistrates, solid tradesmen, and solid manufacturers, together with higher officials of the borough and some members of the learned professions. Here was the oligarchy which, behind the appearances of democratic government, effectively managed, directed, and controlled the town. Here was the handful of people who settled between them whether rates should go up or down, and to whom it did not seriously matter whether rates went up or down, provided that the interest of the common people were not too sharply set in antagonism to their own interests. Here were the privileged, who did what they liked on the condition of not offending each other." Some other snippets I liked: "But the fellow was only a decent, dull, pushing, successful ass, and quite unable to assimilate Mr. Orgreave…" "Time passed, like a ship across a distant horizon, which moves but which does not seem to move." "He could never be intimate with Tom, because Tom somehow never came out from behind his spectacles." "I must hold an inquisition upon my whole way of existence. I must see where I stand. If ever I am to be alive, I ought to be alive now. And I'm not at all sure whether I am." We learn a lot about the geography of the area which the author called the Five Towns (it was actually called Six Towns then). It was still a major pottery manufacturing center when Bennett was alive. The towns later consolidated into today's Stoke-on-Trent, located in the English Midlands about midway between Liverpool and Manchester. One good thing about Bennett (1867-1931) is, if you want to binge on an author, it will probably take you a year to get though all his stuff. He was a prolific writer producing 42 novels, about 20 non-fiction works; and a dozen plays. Six of his novels were made into films in Britain (in black and white days) but more recently (up till 1988 anyway) six of his novels have been made into BBC TV serials. One serial, the Clayhanger Family, has 26 shows. So, that's evidence that he tells a good story. (And this book is fairly highly rated on GR, more than 4.0) There's even an omelette featuring smoked haddock named after him. You can find the recipe on the web. Top photo of Bournville (near Manchester), 1926 from cam.ac.uk Painting from an exhibition celebrating the author at the Potteries Museum in 2017 from staffslive.co.uk The author's childhood home near Hanley from pinterest.com Statue of the author from live.staticflickr.com Photo of the author from bbc.co.uk

Review # 2 was written on 2011-06-14 00:00:00 Luis Fuentes [I don't know anything about Bennett's politics perhaps the remark could be the beginning of an interesting study into attitudes towards class and empire in late Victorian/Edwardian writing (hide spoiler)]