Showing 1-4 out of 4 reviews.

• 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 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!

  4.00 out of 5

  Eyejaybee

• I can't imagine Arnold Bennett has ever been fashionable to like. He was (unfairly, I believe) roundly criticised by Virginia Woolf, and her derision still lingers. It all depends what you want from a novel, and - indeed - if you want the same thing from every novel you read. Arnold Bennett gives us a time, a place. He packs in detail after detail to recreate his world (in particular, the Potteries - the 'Five Towns' - of Stoke on Trent).In 'Clayhanger' we have the story of Edwin Clayhanger, just left school, ambitious to become an architect. His domineering father (Darius Clayhanger) has other ideas, and sets Edwin to work in the family printing business. Darius is a self-made man, rescued (together with his family) from the workhouse by Mr Shushions, the Sunday school superintendent who'd previously taken a shine to the boy. Having himself begun long hours of hard, back-breaking, soul-destroying work at the tender age of seven (and the details of the work he was set to do are extremely sobering for the modern reader) he is impatient with Edwin's lack of appreciation for what his father has achieved; but he also realises that Edwin has no idea what his father's childhood was like, nor does he try to tell him.The reader expects Edwin to rebel against his father, but Edwin's attempts to follow his dreams are half-hearted and come to nothing. We might criticise his inaction, but at his father's death he finds himself the well-respected owner of a thriving business.Quite early on it seems that Edwin will fall for the charms of Janet, the daughter of a family friend. She is an intelligent, attractive, charming girl, and yet it is Janet's friend Hilda who captures his heart. At their first meeting, "Edwin was confirmed in the impression of her obdurate ugliness. He just noticed her olive skin and black eyes and hair." Hilda represents the exotic, the 'Other', compared with the comparative ordinariness of Janet.Edwin is very human. Sometimes he seems cowardly. Not all his decisions are good ones. But he is an interesting character study of the man who 'makes the best of a bad job', as he tries to find his place in a world he doesn't feel entirely comfortable in. Hilda represents a different world - a frightening world, a world where risks must be taken and hardships endured. And yet it is to Hilda - to this 'other' world - that he is drawn, even though it seems this world is beyond his grasp. [June 2006]

  4.00 out of 5

  scarletslippers

• 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 and gave a real feel for the pressures of Methodist religion and social expectation against glimpses of a newer more liberal world.

  4.00 out of 5

  NeilDalley

• I can't imagine Arnold Bennett has ever been fashionable to like. He was (unfairly, I believe) roundly criticised by Virginia Woolf, and her derision still lingers. It all depends what you want from a novel, and - indeed - if you want the same thing from every novel you read. Arnold Bennett gives us a time, a place. He packs in detail after detail to recreate his world (in particular, the Potteries - the 'Five Towns' - of Stoke on Trent).In 'Clayhanger' we have the story of Edwin Clayhanger, just left school, ambitious to become an architect. His domineering father (Darius Clayhanger) has other ideas, and sets Edwin to work in the family printing business. Darius is a self-made man, rescued (together with his family) from the workhouse by Mr Shushions, the Sunday school superintendent who'd previously taken a shine to the boy. Having himself begun long hours of hard, back-breaking, soul-destroying work at the tender age of seven (and the details of the work he was set to do are extremely sobering for the modern reader) he is impatient with Edwin's lack of appreciation for what his father has achieved; but he also realises that Edwin has no idea what his father's childhood was like, nor does he try to tell him.The reader expects Edwin to rebel against his father, but Edwin's attempts to follow his dreams are half-hearted and come to nothing. We might criticise his inaction, but at his father's death he finds himself the well-respected owner of a thriving business.Quite early on it seems that Edwin will fall for the charms of Janet, the daughter of a family friend. She is an intelligent, attractive, charming girl, and yet it is Janet's friend Hilda who captures his heart. At their first meeting, "Edwin was confirmed in the impression of her obdurate ugliness. He just noticed her olive skin and black eyes and hair." Hilda represents the exotic, the 'Other', compared with the comparative ordinariness of Janet.Edwin is very human. Sometimes he seems cowardly. Not all his decisions are good ones. But he is an interesting character study of the man who 'makes the best of a bad job', as he tries to find his place in a world he doesn't feel entirely comfortable in. Hilda represents a different world - a frightening world, a world where risks must be taken and hardships endured. And yet it is to Hilda - to this 'other' world - that he is drawn, even though it seems this world is beyond his grasp. [June 2006]

  4.00 out of 5

  startingover

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