South Riding

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South Riding (1936) was Winifred Holtby’s last and best known novel and it’s a fascinating depiction of a time and place. Returning to the world of her Yorkshire upbringing, Winifred Holtby created a moving portrait of a rural community struggling with the effects of the depression. I don’t know where to begin and what to put down about this book. I will say that about a third of the way through I was comparing it to Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg Ohio, which I loved. And thinking to myself “This is going to be a 5-star book...a book I would give 7 stars to if I could”.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby | Goodreads

Sarah Waters, a well-respected UK author, who said, ‘I can’t say enough good things about this book.’ Robert Carne of Maythorpe Hall stands for everything Sarah despises: his family has farmed the South Riding for generations, their position uncontested. Yet Sarah cannot help being drawn to this proud, haunted – and almost ruined – man. In her first novel, Anderby Wold, she explores the impact of radical politics and social change on a traditional farming community. Describing the fictional Wolds village of Anderby in winter, Winifred takes inspiration from the landscape of her youth. I think the greatest strength of South Riding is its sincerity. There is not a cynical bone in this book's body. Some of the characters express cynical views, some of the characters are deceitful and crooked, but Winifred Holtby writes about all of them without passing judgment. All people are good and bad and right and wrong. Sarah Burton realizes at the end of the book that the answer to Mrs. Beddows’s question “Who pays?” (in response to Sarah’s favorite quotation from Lady Rhondda: “Take it and pay for it”—also the epigraph of the novel) is that everyone pays. Everyone is connected; everyone’s experience benefits someone else, someone’s sacrifice is somebody else’s gain. We’re all in this together.Reissued to tie in with the forthcoming Andrew Davies adaptation for the BBC, Winifred Holtby's last and best-known novel is a sprawling portrait of provincial life in England between the wars. The great war still casts a long shadow – most of her characters have lost something: a limb, a lover – the economy is floundering and times are difficult for everyone in her fictional northern town. Tiene un claro trasfondo, se ve de lejos que lo que la autora pretende es dejar un mensaje y escribe el libro con cierto propósito.

South Riding (Virago Modern Classics): Holtby, Winifred South Riding (Virago Modern Classics): Holtby, Winifred

This book is set in the early 1930s in the fictional South Riding of Yorkshire. It’s an ensemble piece, structured around the activities of local government and the ways they intersect with the characters’ lives. Most versions of the cover feature Sarah Burton, the fiery, progressive new headmistress at the local girls’ school, and she’s one of the most important characters, but there are others: the elderly alderwoman, Mrs. Beddows; the gentleman farmer, Robert Carne, and his troubled daughter, Midge; the bright but impoverished teenager, Lydia Holly; the hedonistic but devout preacher, Councillor Huggins. South Riding follows these characters (and more*--it’s a story about an entire community) over two years, with chapters alternating among various characters. These residents and politicians are wonderful creations. Holtby populates the book with realistic people with both good and bad traits that cover a broad spectrum of the community. There is a 70ish female alderman, Mrs. Bellows, who’s friends with Carne and champions Burton, which is an especially effective and warm portrayal. Holtby peppers the book with insightful and, at times, sharp, even savage, observations of these South Riding denizens.

A wide range of characters means a wide range of relationships, and here too Winifred Holtby excels. Whether two people are cooperating or at loggerheads they always act in a way that is so appropriate and well described that I experienced everything along with them. Tom and Lily’s relationship broke my heart time and time again, and they are relatively minor characters (if there can be said to be such a thing in this novel). Not only does she write scenes tightly focused on one individual or group, she also writes the best, most effective crowd scenes I’ve ever read. The outside performance put on by Madam Hubbard’s girls, at which cast and audience alike spend more time focusing on their own individual thoughts and agendas than the show, is an absolute masterpiece. Her writing reveals a wealth of life experience put to very good use. Much like Middlemarch by George Eliot and The Warden by Anthony Trollope. Which commentate on social institutions such as church, and small town government. I would argue, South Riding falls into the same category. Having suffered from poor health for several years, Holtby was diagnosed with Bright’s disease in 1932 and died in London in 1935, aged just 37.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby | Goodreads South Riding by Winifred Holtby | Goodreads

This is the story of a multitude of characters, flawed and imperfect as may be' yet with an undeniable charm. Be it Carne, a traditionalist who doesn't want to be pitied for his crumbling finances or Sarah Burton, the fiery headmistress who has modern reforms in mind yet hopelessly in love with her fiercest opponent, or Lydia Holly, who has to give up her education or Madame Hubbard who teaches young girls to dance ti ridiculous songs, every character will earn a place in your heart. I must add this is the first book I have read on local government and workings of the village council in the countryside, hence was refreshing and informative. Como digo los personajes abundan y he de admitir que no fue tarea fácil asentarme. A veces resultaba lioso y confuso, pero finalmente si te dejas llevar acabas situándote. A pesar de esto, son uno de los elementos más importantes y fascinantes de la novela, ya que todos y cada uno de ellos están dotados de mucha profundidad y complejidad. A través de los diferentes capítulos en los que se te introducen estos personajes vemos explorar su psicología con lupa y somos capaces de ver toda su riqueza interior. Personajes como Lily que al principio me causaban rechazo terminaron despertándome cierta empatía por todas sus contradicciones y matices. This was a book of meta-fiction. Her mother wouldn’t read the book and tried to stop its publication. Holtby grew up in a prosperous farming family, under the shadow of the Neolithic Rudston Monolith. She would have walked through fields littered with barrows, villas and earthworks, and witnessed centuries-held local farming traditions.Explora muy ricamente diversos temas y personajes, centrándose especialmente en los conflictos políticos y sociales, y por ello la considero una novela digna de estudio. Somehow, though, they embarked on their passionate friendship: a falling in love, of a kind. After Oxford, they flatshared in Bloomsbury, and for the rest of Holtby’s life, they more often lived together than not, an arrangement that didn’t change even after Brittain married and had children; eventually, Holtby moved in with her and Catlin, taking over the childcare when they were away. She was happy to do this, for all that she was now a published novelist and a prolific journalist, but what amazes is that Brittain was so casual about her generosity, accepting it as her due. Bishop, Alan (26 May 2005). "Holtby, Winifred (1898–1935), novelist and feminist reformer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/37563 . Retrieved 4 January 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)