Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Classics (1989), Paperback, 528 pages
Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Romance / General; Fiction / Romance / Contemporary; Juvenile Fiction / Family / Parents; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh;
User reviews
LibraryThing member baswood
Arnold Bennett - [Clayhanger]
Published in 1910 Clayhanger belongs to the previous century in in its themes and subject matter. One could trace its development from the novels of Jane Austen through the Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy. Published just three years before D. H Lawrence's Sons and
Many of Bennetts novels are set in what has become known as the five towns, the five towns where pottery was king. Bursley the hometown of Edwin Clayhanger is modern day Burslem. It was a hard working industrial town and against the odds Darius Clayhanger; Edwins father had hauled himself up by his bootstraps, to become one of the leading printers in Bursley and a proud owner of a steam printing machine. He ensured his son Edwin had a decent education, but when he left school he expected him to work in the printing shop and learn the business. The novel is told through Edwin's point of view as he struggles against his autocratic father and with his own diffidence. Darius keeps Edwin poor, hardly allowing him any money and Edwin although resentful comes to accept his position. He is a man who lives very much in his own head with few if any contemporary friends, things happen to him rather than him making things happen, but there are rare occasions when he takes command and surprises his family. He realises that he will one day own the business and trains himself in the aspects of the work in which he feels comfortable, and being comfortable rules Edwins existence and it is only when he shakes himself out of the rut that he feels truly alive. The novel follows Edwin's progress; he becomes master of the printing shop when his father succumbs to Alzheimer's disease and inherits it on his death, He falls in love with the mysterious Hilda Lessways, but is jilted, meanwhile the eldest daughter: Janet Orgreave, of his neighbour; a wealthy solicitor waits for Edwin to make a move.
Edwin's character is a very fine creation; he strives to better himself through his reading and his association with the better educated Orgreave family. He has a good heart and is contemptuous of men in his own society, that do not try and better themselves. He is naive and clumsy around women, but is not unattractive, he becomes comfortable with his position as one of the leading business men in Bursley and takes an interest in politics; voting socialist in the National elections more to spite his conservative colleagues as much as his own views on a more equitable society. Arnold Bennett shows his readers the industrial town of Bursley, through Edwin's eyes: the eyes of the son of a self made man, who will never know poverty, but will see it all around him and will be sympathetic when his own life style is not threatened.
Bennetts descriptions of printing works and the tawdry central square of the town is drawn down, as though from a still life. He peoples his tableau with convincing characters and some brilliant scenarios. At the age of 16 Edwin is taken to the large central Hotel and public house by big James his fathers master printer. He hears big James sing as part of a four man choir and sees a female clog dancer, an image that stays with him all his life. He looks after his father unselfishly in his final illness and does not shy away from his duties, witnessing the horror of his death. Edwin's brief romance with Hilda is pent with possibilities and his relationship with Janet is full of warmth and diffidence. The celebrations in the town of a century of chapel going is vividly portrayed as is the sorry state of the striking pottery workers. Bennett captures the atmosphere of a dirty industrial town either celebrating or carrying out the daily grind. Edwin's exertions to create his own little world in his families house, and the characters around him that pull him out of his easy lifestyle are a feature of the novel.
Edwin is surrounded by strong female characters, who are not able to break free from their traditional roles, although Hilda might be the exception. There is nothing in Bennett's writing that hints at social change, but his observations enable the reader to feel the difficulties under which the women must labour to carve out a worthwhile life in the patriarchal society. The grime, the labour, the struggle to keep ones position are all part and parcel of this novel but its central character lends it a warm heart, which never approaches being over sentimental or kitsch. At the end of the novel Edwin is nearly forty, unmarried, comfortable, but still wondering how he can improve himself and perhaps seize upon that one chance that would make him feel more happy and more alive (there are two sequels). This is an excellent novel and one that I thoroughly enjoyed - a five star read.
Published in 1910 Clayhanger belongs to the previous century in in its themes and subject matter. One could trace its development from the novels of Jane Austen through the Bronte sisters and Thomas Hardy. Published just three years before D. H Lawrence's Sons and
Show More
Lovers it seems to have little connection to the modernist themes found in Lawrence's work. The influence of Sigmund Freud was not felt by Bennett: his characters do not have sex they get married and have children. Bennett's Clayhanger is set in the Victorian era and has Victorian values: the story starts with Edwin Clayhanger's last day at school in 1872 and finishes some twenty five tears later, as he approaches forty, but the modernist literary period is not even on the horizon. Perhaps this is why Arnold Bennett has been largely overlooked and is missing from many timelines showing the development of British Literature. However Bennett at his best is a very fine writer indeed and his novels get right down amongst the vagaries of the human condition, certainly as it applied to the late Victorians with their traditions, conventions and phobias.Many of Bennetts novels are set in what has become known as the five towns, the five towns where pottery was king. Bursley the hometown of Edwin Clayhanger is modern day Burslem. It was a hard working industrial town and against the odds Darius Clayhanger; Edwins father had hauled himself up by his bootstraps, to become one of the leading printers in Bursley and a proud owner of a steam printing machine. He ensured his son Edwin had a decent education, but when he left school he expected him to work in the printing shop and learn the business. The novel is told through Edwin's point of view as he struggles against his autocratic father and with his own diffidence. Darius keeps Edwin poor, hardly allowing him any money and Edwin although resentful comes to accept his position. He is a man who lives very much in his own head with few if any contemporary friends, things happen to him rather than him making things happen, but there are rare occasions when he takes command and surprises his family. He realises that he will one day own the business and trains himself in the aspects of the work in which he feels comfortable, and being comfortable rules Edwins existence and it is only when he shakes himself out of the rut that he feels truly alive. The novel follows Edwin's progress; he becomes master of the printing shop when his father succumbs to Alzheimer's disease and inherits it on his death, He falls in love with the mysterious Hilda Lessways, but is jilted, meanwhile the eldest daughter: Janet Orgreave, of his neighbour; a wealthy solicitor waits for Edwin to make a move.
Edwin's character is a very fine creation; he strives to better himself through his reading and his association with the better educated Orgreave family. He has a good heart and is contemptuous of men in his own society, that do not try and better themselves. He is naive and clumsy around women, but is not unattractive, he becomes comfortable with his position as one of the leading business men in Bursley and takes an interest in politics; voting socialist in the National elections more to spite his conservative colleagues as much as his own views on a more equitable society. Arnold Bennett shows his readers the industrial town of Bursley, through Edwin's eyes: the eyes of the son of a self made man, who will never know poverty, but will see it all around him and will be sympathetic when his own life style is not threatened.
Bennetts descriptions of printing works and the tawdry central square of the town is drawn down, as though from a still life. He peoples his tableau with convincing characters and some brilliant scenarios. At the age of 16 Edwin is taken to the large central Hotel and public house by big James his fathers master printer. He hears big James sing as part of a four man choir and sees a female clog dancer, an image that stays with him all his life. He looks after his father unselfishly in his final illness and does not shy away from his duties, witnessing the horror of his death. Edwin's brief romance with Hilda is pent with possibilities and his relationship with Janet is full of warmth and diffidence. The celebrations in the town of a century of chapel going is vividly portrayed as is the sorry state of the striking pottery workers. Bennett captures the atmosphere of a dirty industrial town either celebrating or carrying out the daily grind. Edwin's exertions to create his own little world in his families house, and the characters around him that pull him out of his easy lifestyle are a feature of the novel.
Edwin is surrounded by strong female characters, who are not able to break free from their traditional roles, although Hilda might be the exception. There is nothing in Bennett's writing that hints at social change, but his observations enable the reader to feel the difficulties under which the women must labour to carve out a worthwhile life in the patriarchal society. The grime, the labour, the struggle to keep ones position are all part and parcel of this novel but its central character lends it a warm heart, which never approaches being over sentimental or kitsch. At the end of the novel Edwin is nearly forty, unmarried, comfortable, but still wondering how he can improve himself and perhaps seize upon that one chance that would make him feel more happy and more alive (there are two sequels). This is an excellent novel and one that I thoroughly enjoyed - a five star read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
For much of the 20th Century, Bennett's work was tainted by the perception of being old-fashioned and too traditional, written at the end of an era and looking backward rather than forward (cf. Virginia Woolf); it was not until the 1990s that a more positive view of his work became widely accepted.
Show More
The noted English critic John Carey was a major influence on his rehabilitation. He praises him in his 1992 book, The Intellectuals and the Masses, declaring Bennett to be his "hero" because his writings "represent a systematic dismemberment of the intellectuals' case against the masses" (p. 152). Show Less
LibraryThing member edella
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Bennett's masterpiece, 1 Feb 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Clayhanger (Paperback)
This book is the crowning achievement of one of the most under-rated writers in the English language. The characterisation, the pain and
5.0 out of 5 stars Bennett's masterpiece, 1 Feb 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Clayhanger (Paperback)
This book is the crowning achievement of one of the most under-rated writers in the English language. The characterisation, the pain and
Show More
the sheer intuitive understanding of the human condition combine to make this truly a masterpiece. Snobs may look on Bennett as 'middle-brow' or dated; this book proves he is no such thing. Finer than Old Wives Tales, it entrenches the realist style he learned from France (Zola,Flaubert etc) within a setting that brought out his best; the potteries. And throughout you find the eye for detail, the joy in the 'interestingness of existence' (his own phrase). Show Less
LibraryThing member NeilDalley
A thoroughly good read. I've enjoyed Bennett in the past and this one lived up to expectations. I don't feel it has as good a structure as "Anna of the Five Towns" but I felt very much part of the world of the Five Towns again. As a study of the sociology of the rising middle-class it was superb
Show More
and gave a real feel for the pressures of Methodist religion and social expectation against glimpses of a newer more liberal world. Show Less
LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
I think that Arnold Bennett has been most unfairly overlooked by history. This is a fine, "coming of age" novel, set in the latter half of Queen Victoria's reign in the "five Towns" of Staffordshire, which would gradually merge into the present-day city of Stoke On Trent. (Of course, in real life
The central theme of the novel is the development from recently-released schoolboy Edwin Clayhanger, who temporarily dreams of becoming an architect) into an eminent local businessman and free thinker.
His father, Darius, has laboured long and hard to create a successful business, on the back of which Edwin and his sisters are born into relative affluence. However, unknown to them, their father had a deep dread of poverty after having worked long shifts in the pottery works as a very young boy, and even spending one night with his parents in the workhouse, whence they were rescued by the good offices of Sunday School teacher Mr Shushions, simply because he had spotted potential in the young Darius and his early eagerness to learn to read.
On the day on which Darius attends the funeral of his old patron he suffer a stroke-like episode and sinks into a protracted mental and physical deterioration.
Meanwhile Edwin takes control of the business which he runs without Darius's all-pervading ruthlessness, giving way, instead, to his Liberal leanings in the matter of fair wages and working conditions for his staff.
However, Edwin's life is not one of unsullied success. Early in life he falls headlong in love with Hilda Lessways, but is sundered from her before they can marry. Memories of Hilda stay with him all his life, and her gentle yet assured radical ideology steers Edwin's own mental, cultural and political development.
This all sounds very dry, but the novel is actually wholly engaging. Bennett writes with a deft, light touch, and offers a scintillating insight into the later Victorian period from the perspective of a swelling industrial provincial town.
I was also intrigued, in a novel published in 1910, to see the use of the phrase, "Bugger the lot of you!" That must have seemed very risque at the time.
I had owned a copy of this book for years but, for reasons I can't adequately disinter, had been reluctant to pick it up and read it. That was definitely a mistake - I rather feel I have now been bitten by the Bennett bug!
Show More
there were six towns, but Bennett chose not to have a cognate for Fenton, "the forgotten town".)The central theme of the novel is the development from recently-released schoolboy Edwin Clayhanger, who temporarily dreams of becoming an architect) into an eminent local businessman and free thinker.
His father, Darius, has laboured long and hard to create a successful business, on the back of which Edwin and his sisters are born into relative affluence. However, unknown to them, their father had a deep dread of poverty after having worked long shifts in the pottery works as a very young boy, and even spending one night with his parents in the workhouse, whence they were rescued by the good offices of Sunday School teacher Mr Shushions, simply because he had spotted potential in the young Darius and his early eagerness to learn to read.
On the day on which Darius attends the funeral of his old patron he suffer a stroke-like episode and sinks into a protracted mental and physical deterioration.
Meanwhile Edwin takes control of the business which he runs without Darius's all-pervading ruthlessness, giving way, instead, to his Liberal leanings in the matter of fair wages and working conditions for his staff.
However, Edwin's life is not one of unsullied success. Early in life he falls headlong in love with Hilda Lessways, but is sundered from her before they can marry. Memories of Hilda stay with him all his life, and her gentle yet assured radical ideology steers Edwin's own mental, cultural and political development.
This all sounds very dry, but the novel is actually wholly engaging. Bennett writes with a deft, light touch, and offers a scintillating insight into the later Victorian period from the perspective of a swelling industrial provincial town.
I was also intrigued, in a novel published in 1910, to see the use of the phrase, "Bugger the lot of you!" That must have seemed very risque at the time.
I had owned a copy of this book for years but, for reasons I can't adequately disinter, had been reluctant to pick it up and read it. That was definitely a mistake - I rather feel I have now been bitten by the Bennett bug!
Show Less
LibraryThing member starbox
Increasingly compulsive read: Edwin Clayhanger is the put-upon son of a rather dictatorial printer father, in Victorian Staffordshire. With never-to-be fulfiled aspirations of avoiding the family business to study architecture, Edwin is ground down.
His one romantic interlude with the strange and
But as the years roll by, some things change...
The second volume in series- Hilda Lessways- will, I hope, clarify that lady's mysterious history. All set to start reading.
Recommended.
His one romantic interlude with the strange and
Show More
unknowable Hilda Lessways comes to nought.But as the years roll by, some things change...
The second volume in series- Hilda Lessways- will, I hope, clarify that lady's mysterious history. All set to start reading.
Recommended.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1910
1954 (first Penguin ed.)
Physical description
528 p.; 7.56 inches
ISBN
0140182691 / 9780140182699