Ep 720 - Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell

Summary

Overdue Podcast: Ep 720 - "Cranford" by Elizabeth Gaskell

Host: Headgum (Andrew & Craig)
Date: September 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Andrew and Craig dive into Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford," a classic, often-overlooked work of Victorian literature. They discuss Gaskell's background, "Cranford"'s structure and legacy, and the peculiar humor and sociopolitical undercurrents of the novel. The conversation shines light on Gaskell’s gentle satire and social observations about the changing world of genteel women in a small English town.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Elizabeth Gaskell: Author Context

[06:41–17:23]

• Gaskell was born in 1810 and died in 1865.
• Her fiction often focused on poverty, class, and industrialization in Victorian society.
• Gaskell is less well-known than contemporaries like Austen and the Brontës (“It’s not an Austen, it’s not a Brontë, it’s a Cranford.” — Craig, 05:47).
• She promoted the Brontës’ posthumous fame, notably writing a controversial biography of Charlotte Brontë.
• Gaskell’s work had faded in the early 20th century but has been critically reappraised since the 1950s by feminist and socialist thinkers.
• “She makes some powerful aggressive points about the unfairness of life, the cruelty of manufacturers, the boorishness of wealth, people.” — Andrew, quoting house restorer John Williams, 21:40.

Memorable biographical facts:

• Gaskell's childhood in Knutsford directly inspired Cranford’s setting.
• She had six children, four of whom survived.
• Her first major novel, "Mary Barton," was written after the death of her infant son and earned immediate critical praise.
• Relationship with Dickens: He published her work but sometimes altered it without her approval, leading to strains.

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2. Cranford’s Literary Place and Style

[17:26–21:21]

• "Cranford" was published serially in Dickens’s "Household Words" between 1851-1853, later as a collected novel.
• The book is structured as a series of vignettes about the women of Cranford. It lacks a singular plot, focusing instead on character and community.
• Its popularity has endured thanks to both standalone adaptations and a 2000s BBC mini-series.
• The novel’s appeal (and adaptation history) is compared to the soothing nostalgia of "Downton Abbey" or the early seasons of "Sherlock."

Contextual insight:

• The book’s focus on fading social systems was, according to UConn professor Thomas Rechio, harnessed by later readers for nationalistic nostalgia in response to social change and immigrant influxes in England.

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3. Cranford: Structure, Plot, and Vibe

[26:20–68:51]

The Premise & Social Order

[26:20–32:33]

• The novel centers on a small English town where “all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women.”
• The focus is less on “running the town” and more on women’s social maneuvering, “elegant economy,” and adaptation to decreased status.
• “It’s girl town.” — Andrew, 31:01

Narrative Form & “Serial Novella” Approach

[31:33–34:53]

• The narrator, Mary Smith, serves as an insider-outsider observer. She has social ties to Cranford but is also apart from it.
• Mary is present for major events but “not really a character” — she’s more an elegantly omnipresent chronicler (“Can we prove conclusively that this is not a Sixth Sense situation where Mary Smith is a ghost?” — Andrew, 35:02).

Character Continuity Over Plot

[34:53–37:40]

• The story is built from episodes focused on recurring characters, mainly the Jenkins sisters (Deborah and Maddie), Mrs. Jameson, Mrs. Forrester, and Ms. Pole (the town’s top gossip).
• The novel narrows its focus over time, centering increasingly on Maddie Jenkins’ well-being.

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4. Genteel Poverty & Social Rituals

[37:40–43:55]

• The women maintain dignity despite reduced circumstances, strictly observing class rituals (e.g., 15-minute social calls, careful management of help).
• They create an insular, rules-bound society where men are, for the most part, “off at sea” or otherwise peripheral.
• “Their dress is very independent of fashion, as they observed. ‘What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us?’” — Read aloud by Craig, 41:46

Notable Comic Moment: The Orange Sucking Ritual

[49:00]

• Ms. Jenkins and Ms. Maddie would retire in silence to their rooms to privately suck oranges:

  “Sucking, only I think she used some more recondite word, was, in fact, the only way of enjoying oranges. But then there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone through by little babies. And so, after dessert in orange season, Ms. Jenkins and Ms. Maddie used to rise up, possess themselves, each of an orange in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges.” — Craig quoting the novel, 49:06

• Both hosts note the surprising modernity and humor of Gaskell’s writing here:
  “She knew that we knew that she knew that we knew… she had been busy all morning making tea, bread, and sponge cakes.” — Craig, 42:08

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5. Serial Events, Humor, & Community

[43:55–56:33]

• Gentle satire abounds: The community agrees it “doesn’t need men,” but the arrival of Captain Brown (and later Mr. Holbrooke) disrupts the social order briefly before returning to the status quo — often because these men die.
• Comic misunderstandings, awkward meals (no one knows how to eat with “old forks”), social anxiety over fashion, and reactions to magic shows punctuate the narrative.
• “A magician comes to town, stuff starts disappearing, who am I gonna blame first, you know?” — Andrew, 63:19

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6. Transition & Crisis: Maddie’s Struggles

[47:40–61:12]

• After her sister’s death, Maddie Jenkins is adrift; a possible late-in-life romance evaporates when Mr. Holbrooke, her “Don Quixote,” dies abroad.
• The town’s fragile stability is broken by the collapse of the local bank, which wipes out Maddie’s income.
• Maddie’s friends orchestrate a secret community support effort, with donations arranged through Mary’s father, to preserve Maddie’s dignity and financial survival.

Notable Quote:

“Her talent is being nice and… assuming the best about people. But she also has trouble shaking deference to her late sister’s commandeering ways.” — Craig, 48:04

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7. Resolution: Community and the Return of Peter

[61:12–62:54]

• Maddie’s long-lost brother Peter returns from India, restoring her fortune and status; his exaggerated tales charm the local women.
• A lingering melancholy: the novel affirms the goodness of community and mutual care, but also recognizes that “the world must be very bad”—the safety and kindness of Cranford is circumscribed and fragile in the face of broader social and economic changes.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This is not interested in having a tight plot structure.” — Craig, 07:48
• “I was not ready for [the TV adaptation] at the time...maybe I still wouldn’t be ready for it.” — Andrew, 05:39
• “[Gaskell] makes some powerful aggressive points about the unfairness of life, the cruelty of manufacturers, the boorishness of wealth, people.” — Andrew (quoting John Williams), 21:40
• “I have never read this book before.” — Craig, the recurring intro, 05:12
• “It’s girl town.” — Andrew, 31:01
• “Can we prove conclusively that this is not a Sixth Sense situation where Mary Smith is a ghost?” — Andrew, 35:02
• “I have to go be a dirty trash man in my room while I suck on my orange, because nobody could look at me like this.” — Andrew, 49:52

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Segment Timestamps

• Introduction & Gaskell Context: 03:15–17:25
• Cranford’s Publication & Adaptation: 17:26–21:20
• Literary Context and Comparison: 21:21–24:45
• Novel’s Structure & Narrative Voice: 26:20–34:53
• Characters & Community Rituals: 34:54–43:55
• Humor & Social Satire: 43:55–56:33
• Maddie’s Crisis & Community Response: 56:33–61:12
• Resolution & Closing Themes: 61:12–68:22
• Listener Reviews & Reflections: 64:34–68:51

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Concluding Thoughts

• "Cranford" is less a novel with a conventional plot and more a patchwork of anecdotes, illustrating the comfort and constraint of an insular world.
• The book stands out for its subtle wit, its focus on female solidarity, and its gently melancholic view of a society in transition.
• As the hosts note, it might not be “the coolest book ever” (63:44), but it’s quietly meaningful and endearingly funny.

Final Takeaway:
“Community of women who are not of the social status they used to be—which is a precarious position for them—finding community with not malevolent but outside forces beyond their control, kind of encroaching on their way of life. All told through this narrator voice that can really dip in and out of the stakes of the novel as she so places to kind of move us along.” — Craig, 67:45

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Listener Highlight (Discord/Goodreads):

• Listeners found the orange-sucking scene memorable for its humor.
• Some readers found the story charming but "insubstantial"—like finishing candy floss.
• Lacy (Goodreads): “What stood out was female friendship and the loyal support the ladies offered each other when hardship struck.”
• Marquis (Goodreads): “There's no traditional character arc...one is left wondering what is the point of this?”

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Next Episode Tease

• Andrew will read "The Buddha in the Attic" by Julie Otsuka, followed by "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling.

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Closing

[68:51–End]
Hosts riff on podcast traditions, reflect on their experiences reading “Cranford,” and encourage continued listener engagement, especially on deeply important questions:
“What food can’t you eat in front of other people? And what video game would you show Benjamin Franklin to convince him that games are art?”

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Transcript

[Andrew]

Craig, I know you love audiobooks.

[Craig]

I do love audiobooks.

[Andrew]

So the good news for you and for anybody else who likes audiobooks is that this episode of Overdue is brought to you by Audible and the Audible original Pride and Prejudice. You want to know more about this thing?

[Craig]

Please tell me more.

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

This new adaptation, Andrew, is vibrant. It sounds like to me you're just telling me about it. It's vibrant and it's modern. With an original new score by Grammy nominated composer. Whether you're fresh to Pride and Prejudice or you want to revisit a cherished favorite, you're in for a new and delightful listening experience. Before Enemies to lovers, there was Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Pride and Prejudice is globally recognized as one of the greatest romance novels ever written. So listen to the new Pride and prejudice@all audible.com janeaustin that's audible.com J A N E A U S T E N.

[Andrew]

This is a Headgum podcast. While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any.

[Craig]

Well told tale, they will not shy.

[Andrew]

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Craig]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig. My name is Andrew and we are here to talk about books. Believe it or not. Not books. Again, anything else. I'm sure we will not talk about anything other than books.

[Andrew]

We're not going to talk about anything other than books. I was, I mean I was even trying to think what's a, what's an intro? And the only thing I could get to was what if there was a cartoon for babies where Elizabeth Gaskell and like the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen were all little kids and they had adventures and it was called Little Gaskells and it doesn't. It's not. And that's not anything. No. But when you lay. But when you lampshade it by saying, I know this isn't anything. It's just a bunch of stuff that my brain did. Then it's still. Then it's still be. Then it's still a bit.

[Craig]

We're going to.

[Andrew]

Just a bit about how it's not a bit.

[Craig]

We're going to talk about the novel Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell that I. For this year book podcast, where each week one of us reads a book and tells the other person about it. But, Andrew, I think I have to give you credit for what?

[Andrew]

For Gaskell's.

[Craig]

I don't have to. For being the person who drilled home what lamp shading means to me. Like, I know you didn't. You are. No, no, this is years ago. Like, I feel you are. It is a term that you like, is a term you like to deploy. I don't know how you feel about lampshading as a practice.

[Andrew]

I think I got, as a writer, got in the practice of doing it defensively because they have comments turned on. On the bottom of all my articles.

[Craig]

I have, like, I have memories of you using it in conversation. Conversations I've been a part of for a long part of our friendship, often about, like, you know, TV or movies where, you know, they feel like they're trying to get away with something by calling attention to it. And I don't think I knew what it meant until I listened to you use it a bunch.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

So thanks. You're welcome. Thank you.

[Andrew]

I'm glad to teach you words.

[Craig]

And if folks at home are similar, great. And if you already knew what it was, well, great.

[Andrew]

There's one point a long, long time ago where somebody sent us a full list of words that they had learned through our podcast. Some of them were real words, and I think a couple of them were once we made up. But it was flattering.

[Craig]

Oh, man. I did use our patented I have ever at. At my new job recently. No one mentioned anything. No one called.

[Andrew]

Nobody ever says anything about it. And so they just make you feel like it's a normal thing to say. But then you get. Then you do a live stream in front of a bunch of people and they're like, why do you talk weird? I'm like, I didn't know I was talking weird, but now I'm self conscious about it. What's.

[Craig]

I have never read this book before.

[Andrew]

I knew that's the.

[Craig]

Yeah, it was on. It was on a list of kind of, you know, classic novels. I was looking for some, I think Gaskell. I don't really remember how Gaskell got on my list. This has come up before. It's been circle. I've been circling this one. I know you had watched a TV adaptation years ago, many, many years. Stick with you.

[Andrew]

No, it did not.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I was not, I was not ready for it at the time and maybe I still wouldn't be ready for it. But yes, especially at the time, I was not ready for it.

[Craig]

But it is a beloved novel or at least a well read novel. And so I was interested to read it and find out what it is. And it is like it's not an Austin, it's not a Bronte, it's a Cranford. Like, you know, and I don't mean, I don't mean to disparage Gaskell that way. Like I know north and south is a big deal, but as well. But like, certainly in the kind of pantheon of these, you know, Regency into Victorian era women authors from England, like the Bronte sisters in Austin are cut above, you know, at least in name recognition. And then Gaskell's down here doing her thing a few years later. Right.

[Andrew]

And Gaskell had her, her part in the, the Bronte Sisters notoriety. So we'll, we'll talk about that a little bit, please.

[Craig]

What do we know about her?

[Andrew]

Elizabeth Gaskell. She was born in 1810, she died in 1865. She's an English, English novelist whose work often focused on the plight of the poor in Victorian society. And yeah, she is often a little overlooked relative to other contemporaries like Austin, like the Brontes, including by our podcast so far. Yeah, but there are people out there pulling for her. Her work kind of faded a little bit in the late 19th into early 20th centuries. But Cranford was always kind of enduringly popular, had a lot of adaptations. I think it's kind of my understanding of it as a, as a book. Like the structure of it is that it is sort of told in tolden vignettes. It's very character focused. It's a kind of story that is well suited to being kind of, you know, you can try and do kind of a whole adaptation of it or you can pick out like specific scenarios or characters and do an adaptation based on that. Like I think a lot of the early 20th century adaptations were doing that, that second thing. They were just choosing a thing to focus on and then like drawing it out.

[Craig]

It does not have the coherent. Coherent is too strong of a word. But it does not have the self contained plotting of an Austin, which we'll talk about its publication history that's part of it. And just the vibe. Plenty of things could be published serially and have a much more tighter plot structure than this does. This is not interested in having a tight plot structure.

[Andrew]

Well, and even the. The adaptation of Cranford that you mentioned, which is a BBC adaptation that ran from 2000 to 2000. Yeah. Mainly in 2007. And then there was, like, a movie in 2009 that used. Used to be just how the Brits made tv. But now everybody makes tv. You do, like, one very short season, and then you do a little movie.

[Craig]

We were all like, wow, Sherlock is only six episodes. They must all be wonderful. And, yeah, here's. Here we are.

[Andrew]

But that show, it's, you know, it's based on the book Cranford, but then it also is drawing stuff from, like, three other Gaskell books.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

It's doing the opposite. Is. It's. It's bringing in stuff from outside just because the Cranford narrative is so kind of wiggly in that way.

[Craig]

Yeah, sure. Okay.

[Andrew]

She was born Elizabeth Cleghorn Foghorn Cleghorn. Am I right?

[Craig]

Wow.

[Andrew]

The youngest of eight children in London, though only she and one brother made it out of infancy. Her mother died when she was around a year old, and she was sent by her father to live with his wife's sister in Cheshire, where she grew up in the town of Knutsford. Which is the town that inspired Cranford.

[Craig]

Correct. Southwest of Manchester, which is kind of like, its proximity to the industrial city is relevant, I think, to this book.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And we'll. We'll talk about. Well, yeah, yeah, there are a lot more facts to talk about.

[Craig]

Yeah, I just.

[Andrew]

I read. I didn't read a lot about facts. The thing about Knutsford is, like, the first written record of this town existed is in, like, the middle of the 1000s. Like, the 11. Yeah. Like, towns in England just be. Like, towns in Europe just be old.

[Craig]

They just be old people been there.

[Andrew]

It's like, why does this town have to be this old?

[Craig]

People, like, they have records of it that are like, you know, nobody came and colonized it. They had different things going on.

[Andrew]

And even, like. And even on the east coast, like, a friend from the west coast was out here a couple of years ago, and we were driving to go see a movie, and she was. She was marveling because everything on the west coast is even. Even newer in a lot of ways. And she.

[Craig]

Eddie Izzard bit from the 90s, and.

[Andrew]

She was just like, oh, look that Wendy's is in like an old bank. Like all the. All the buildings on the west coast are new Bay are just. They're all just what they were designed to be still.

[Craig]

Yeah yeah.

[Andrew]

They haven't had time for the Wendy's to move into the bank.

[Craig]

They don't. Do they not have used to be a Pizza Huts on the west coast. Is that not a thing?

[Andrew]

I'm not sure. I probably probably somewhere but her back to Elizabeth Gaskell not our friend who.

[Craig]

Was amazed at old.

[Andrew]

Her aunts and her father provided her books and encouraged her to read. She marries William Gaskell in 1832. Moves to Manchester with him where he was a minister. They're Unitarians and so just very primed to be concerned about the plight of the poor. So that plus these kind of indust setting really helps to inspire Gaskell's writing and sort of crystallizes what she's known for. She gave birth to six children of whom four survived. She began writing a diary about her daughter Marianne in 1835. Then a book of poems with her husband in 1837 and then a couple of her first solo written short stories published in 1840. But she's not really start writing professionally until 1845. Her infant son William died. Dies I think of scarlet fever. And with her husband's encouragement she starts writing a book that is published in 1848 as Mary Barton.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Which is a social novel. That's you. It's concerned with working people in industrializing industrialized England. This earns her critical recognition and success pretty pretty much instantly.

[Craig]

1848 is also that like I remember from my AP Euro class is like the year of revolutions. Like it's a big. I think there's. There are people who are plugged into like current events who are like oh in a union class strife murder novel is like hitting while all these other revolutions are happening, you know.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So this is Gaskell from the preface to Mary Barton. She says I had always felt a deep sympathy with the care worn men who looked as if doomed to struggle through their lives and strange alternations between work and want. The more I reflected on this unhappy state of things between the those so bound to each other by common interests as the employers and the employed must ever be. The more anxious I became to give some utterance to the agony which from time to time convulsed this dumb person.

[Craig]

Oh wow. Okay.

[Andrew]

Dumb. I assume in this case meaning like somebody voiceless somebody who can't speak for themselves. Not. Not just like some idiot.

[Craig]

She's not just slamming on People, come on, Elizabeth.

[Andrew]

The. The family moved to the house still known as Gaskell house today in 1850. And we're just. They rub shoulders with lots of, Lots of artists, a lot of literary types. Two of the big ones are Charles Dickens, who nicknamed her Scheherazade after the character from 1001 Nights because she told so many stories.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

He helped publish Cranford north and South. A lot of her ghost stories, lots of other things.

[Craig]

Cranford appeared in his magazine Household Words.

[Andrew]

Household Words, Yeah. Took the word how? Took the household words out of my mouth.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And also was friends with Charlotte Bronte. Her relationship with Dickens was. Became sort of fraught, later, strained. Later. This. I read an article from 2014 in the BBC about restoration of her house that had happened. It cost like 2.5 million pounds. Some guy named John Williams. I don't think that John Williams put up the. Put up the money for it. But yet, while they were. While they were friends, she and Dickens sort of had issues every now and again because she had trouble sticking to deadlines and writing to length. I have no, no idea what that must be like. And then he sometimes changed things in her stories without telling her.

[Craig]

Oh, no.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's, that's.

[Craig]

I, I, I feel would know what that's like.

[Andrew]

I feel for. I feel for Elizabeth Gaskell. And she writes novels, short stories, nonfiction, until she died. Her last novel, Wives and Daughters, was still being published in serialized format when she died of a heart attack in 1865.

[Craig]

Did you mention she also did the Charlotte Bronte.

[Andrew]

I'm getting. I have all this stuff in there. All this stuff is in there. Household Words. Charlotte Bronte. I'm just reading down.

[Craig]

You just told me she died. I wasn't sure if you were going to tell me what she did while she was alive.

[Andrew]

I got more stuff. I got more stuff. I was going to lead into it by saying in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, again, like we talked about, she's. She's not held as in high esteem as some of these other authors. She was looked down on for being a woman. Obviously was great. Good job, everyone. One guy named David Cesel Cecil wrote of her in a 1934 book about early Victorian novelists that she is, quote, all woman. And I don't think he means like, oh, she's all.

[Craig]

No, he's saying that in a bad way. Like, how dare she not have the head, like the brain of a man or something.

[Andrew]

Like, he says, quote, that she makes a creditable effort to overcome her natural Deficiencies, but all in vain. Her natural deficiencies, obviously, being a woman. And then, like, new, newer critics, like fe. Feminist critics, socialist critics, Revi revisited and reevaluated her. Starting in, like, the 1950s, she became a little better.

[Craig]

I like that.

[Andrew]

Recognized after that.

[Craig]

Great.

[Andrew]

But, yeah, part of her legacy, while we're talking about her Legacy, is this 1857 biography, the Life of Charlotte Bronte. Charlotte had died two years before, and then Emily Anne and then Branwell. It all died in kind of the late 40s. So she is approached by their father, Patrick, who asks her to write this biography. And I gather it's, you know, I don't know. I don't have a ton about the biography itself. I gather that it was controversial because it focused a lot on her, like, personal life as well as the professional end of things, which was, like, kind of not done in biographies much. But it helps. In the Bronte episodes, I'm sure we talked about what their, like, path to fame and critical recognition was like, but it does help kind of cement them in the firmament and draws more. Draws more attention to where they had lived, to the relationship between the sisters, to all the stories that they had written. So part of her thing is elevating the Brontes. And then she kind of gets forgotten herself for a little bit.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But then she comes. Then she comes roaring back. Cranford is generally held as her best novel and the one that persisted even when interest in her other work was kind of at a low ebb. We talked about the adaptations already in the. The early 20th century. It's published in installments between 1851 and 1853 as a complete, slightly revised volume in 1853. And then we already talked about the BBC adaptation.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So my last thing is just a thing about, like, contrasting her approach to writing about poverty with Dickens. But what was you. What were you gonna say?

[Craig]

Well, there's a few other notes here is that it's. So it started as, like, one story, Our society in Cranford in the Dickens magazine in 1851. And then Mr. Dickens is like, this is good. Write more, please. Like, so, like, it is written down that she was not starting this as a novel. She was concurrently working on a novel called Ruth that also came out completely.

[Andrew]

Which also came out. Her second published novel.

[Craig]

Yeah, I think this came out collected after Ruth, but I could be wrong. So that's interesting. The other thing I read was a bit about how various illustrated editions of Cranford became very popular. I did not read one of those, but it did, like, help cement it in the late 19th and early 20th century. Just both in, like, a. Depending on the illustrations. Like, what your vibe of the book is, was apparently a whole thing. And there is a work out there by a UConn professor, Thomas Rochio, who's a. I think, a professor emeritus of philosophy at UConn and a expert in this era of literature, specifically Gaskell, who writes about the way that this book got deployed in the late 19th and early 20th century as, like, it is a book about a fading, like, social system. Yeah. If you think about something like Downton Abbey, too. Like, I think folks who like Downton Abbey might also like Cranford Cranford. Not Cranford.

[Andrew]

Cranford.

[Craig]

Cranford. They might also like the parts of Cranford that are about, like, women from an upper class who do not have full access to what that class is supposed to offer them anymore, and there are, like, social forces coming for them sort of thing. And Rechio writes about how this book kind of got popularized among folks trying to cement a, like, specific version of English culture that might meet the needs of people who are, like, a little uncomfortable with the multiculturalism that's exploding in the immigrant waves of the late 19th, early 20th centuries. Like, it's just something to think about. Like, who is interested in reading and teaching a book about a quaint English town in the, you know, 50 years after it's published.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And why it might be, like, of interest to people who are not in the mid-1800s when it gets published. And it's, like, actually speaking to the experience of, like, people from the last 15 years. So just interesting stuff that I thought, Like, I didn't. Hadn't even thought about what I was thinking about. Like, why are we interested in, like, this era of English literature and what it might teach us?

[Andrew]

Yeah. I think we, you and I, have a little easier time reaching for context with. With American authors just because we're a little more familiar with the. The timeline and the. And the forces at play.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

For. I don't know, for something like Gone with the Wind, like, we can.

[Craig]

We can identify.

[Andrew]

We can. We can identify what the function of that book at that time in history was.

[Craig]

Yeah. My notion of, like, you know, at what point where. Where in their fall are the gentry. Yeah. It's like, I have to do a little reading each time I encounter it. It's just. I don't have quick access to it. It's not in my ram.

[Andrew]

You know, speaking of the fall of the gentry, Just talking about how Dickens writes about poverty versus.

[Craig]

Oh, Gaskell.

[Andrew]

Gaskell does.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

This is John Williams again. Probably not that John Williams, the, the house guy.

[Craig]

I almost just did the Lord of the Rings theme. But that's somebody else. That's not John Williams who did that one.

[Andrew]

I want you. Why don't you.

[Craig]

I was singing the Jaws one Lord of the Rings music.

[Andrew]

Howard Shore Williams says he is much more like a sledgehammer about poverty. Whereas Elizabeth is subtle, but if you read her carefully, she makes some powerful aggressive points about the unfairness of life, the cruelty of manufacturers, the boorishness of wealth, people. Yeah, he's just on a first name basis with Elizabeth. But not Charles, my buddy Elizabeth, whose house I just spent two and a half million pounds restoring.

[Craig]

Yeah, people will be that way.

[Andrew]

But yeah, that's what I got though. I find I'm at the end of my note.

[Craig]

Okay, I think I'm at the end of my notes except for the notes about the novel itself. So maybe let's take a break and then we'll come back.

[Andrew]

Craig Andrew, this podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Oh, the website that helps me make websites. Craig, you know, social novels are all about drawing attention to the plight of people who don't have enough attention drawn to them.

[Craig]

Sure, that's how that works.

[Andrew]

The way you do, the way you did that in like 1850 was to published in Charles Dickens magazine. The way you do it in 2025 is you gotta get a website.

[Craig]

Gotta get one.

[Andrew]

And that's why Squarespace is important. Squarespace gives you easy to use drag and drop tools, 24, 7 customer support, all the stuff that you need to build a great looking great, working great, informin website without needing to know anything about how to actually make a website. Okay, you do not need to be doing the cascading style sheets. You don't even know what that is.

[Craig]

I don't know what that is.

[Andrew]

I could be making stuff up, right?

[Craig]

Probably are. But you don't have to do it with Squarespace.

[Andrew]

You don't have to do that. You don't have to open any sockets, you don't have to forward ports, none of that stuff.

[Craig]

No, Squarespace gives you.

[Andrew]

Craig, here's some things, please. Squarespace, cutting edge design. I already talked to us about this a little bit, but they have this collection, Craig, of cutting edge design tools that anyone can use to build a bespoke online presence that perfectly fits their brand or business. Squarespace offers a complete library of professionally designed and award winning website templates. With options for every use and category. No matter where you start, your website is flexible to what you need with intuitive drag and drop editing, beautiful styling options, unrivaled visual design effects, and more ways to list what you offer. No experience required. You can also Please sir, may I have some more? You can collect donations, fundraise directly on your website and grow your impact with built in donation tools. Create a professional on brand website that makes it easy to accept one time or recurrent contributions and engage supporters. With built in email campaigns and marketing tools you can connect with your community, inspire more people to support your cause and then Craig Every Dream Needs a Domain Squarespace Domains makes it easy to find the best name for your business at one fair all inclusive price. No hidden fees or add ons required. Every spare Every Squarespace domain comes with advanced privacy and security tools included to ensure your domain remains online and protected. It don't wait to claim your name. Invest in your dream domain today. Craig I know this all sounds very upper class, very fancy, but you do not need to be a member of the landed gentry to use Squarespace.

[Craig]

Put that pinky down and put all your fingers on the keyboard.

[Andrew]

Yep, you can just go to squarespace.com for a free trial that's that's free. The trial free. Then when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.com overdue to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com overdue to save ten percent off your first purchase of a website OR domain.

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[Craig]

Andrew who runs the world?

[Andrew]

The shadowy cabal of dark money billionaires.

[Craig]

Sorry, I should have been doing a crossword form. Five letters, one word beyond, as Beyonce said, elon girls who runs the world Girls? Yes. Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

This is a novel in which a small town in England is largely run socially, at least by women. Isn't that a kick?

[Andrew]

Women.

[Craig]

Women. Are you sure they run a town? I was. That was, like, the pitch that I had heard about this novel. And I will say I was a little surprised that, yes, the social life of the women of Cranford is the focus, but them running the town is not the focus. I was a little disappointed. I thought that this was gonna, like, be a little bit more of a. Like, well, what it would it be like if this, you know, British town in the mid-1800s were, like, functionally run by women? But that's not quite what's going on here.

[Andrew]

We're watching HBO's the Gilded Age.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah, sure. Huh.

[Andrew]

And there's a plot line that we. That we encountered recently. And I'm. It's. I feel like it's not possible to spoil this show because, like, the stuff.

[Craig]

No, it's not.

[Andrew]

Happens in it.

[Craig]

It's so silly. It's a silly show.

[Andrew]

It's. It's a silly show about people being horrible to each other, mainly. But some of them are from old money, and some of them are from new money, and.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

But there's a plot line where the Brooklyn Bridge is opening.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And it comes to light that the. The architect's wife did a lot of the work. And there are some people who are worried that, like, if it comes out that a woman did a lot of this, no one's gonna want to walk across that girl.

[Craig]

Wow. They're doing, like, DEI bridge on the Gilded Age.

[Andrew]

A little bit. Yeah. Wow. In that way.

[Craig]

But.

[Andrew]

But it comes out that. But it's fine. Everything's fine.

[Craig]

Again, what. Honestly, a Julian Fellows. A Julian Fellows reference feels appropriate here because, again, I said, like, Cranford does. The parts of Cranford that work for me work in the way that something like Downton Abbey works, where it is not quite a social structure that I am used to. So that gives it some novelty. There is surprising humor in, like, little behavioral tics and little human observances within this larger social backdrop. And we have a story of people of means being reduced or having been reduced through, for most of them, no explicit fault of their own. And so it is interesting to think about her first novel being Mary Barton and being like, that's like a murder. And there's union stuff and tradespeople stuff. Stuff. This is much more about the genteel poverty and women who, you know, were of means or had social connections and now they're on like tighter budgets and they are on their own.

[Andrew]

A fixed income.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

As my grand. As my grandmother started saying around Christmas after they both retired.

[Craig]

The phrase that is deployed in this book is elegant economy.

[Andrew]

Same.

[Craig]

And they've kind of created a culture around this practice where like, you know, spending is vulgar sort of type of thing. Yeah. And yeah, they are certainly the most important people in the town. They're not the only people in the town. They all live without men in some way, shape or form. Though men do exist in the world and they have to deal with that.

[Andrew]

Right. Because it's not like in a post apocalyptic sort of setting.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

Where all the men have died.

[Craig]

No.

[Andrew]

From a man virus.

[Craig]

But quote, all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. So that. That tells you right there too that this is a book about a certain social class. We do hear about like workmen and children and like the doctor is a man and things like that. But people of a certain social status who remain in town for any length of time are all women.

[Andrew]

It's a girl town.

[Craig]

It's girl town.

[Andrew]

So my question about this, like reading my big questions about the book, reading about it.

[Craig]

You're allowed to have big questions.

[Andrew]

Is like it is. It does not have like a shiny bright through line.

[Craig]

It does not. But I have an idea also.

[Andrew]

But it also. But it also is not like no plot. Vibes only.

[Craig]

Correct.

[Andrew]

So draw the line for me between the. The plot and the vibes and let me. What's the balance of plot to vibes?

[Craig]

I want to borrow a term from a review I read on the Silver Petticoat review by, I believe, Bailey Callender. Was that their name? I want to make sure I get it right. Silver Petticoat Review Cranford Bailey Cavender not calend your iOS note. Please refer to the book.

[Andrew]

It loves all these iOS apps, love to autocorrect like the names of Apple stuff. I cannot talk about the fruit and Apple without it being like you're talking about the company though. Right. Like I need to. I.

[Craig]

Can I capitalize this for you referred to it. Bailey referred to it as a serial novella, which is I think is an interesting way to think about it. It is not a very long book. 300ish pages, which feels short. Maybe under 300 depending on the edition you're reading. My E edition claimed it was only 100 pages, but those were long individual pages.

[Andrew]

The editions.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Yeah. You can't use page count. I learned when I was reading Kaiju.

[Craig]

Society that there isn't a driving plot, but there's a continuity of character. And the circumstances of the characters continue throughout each. You know, kind of like every two or three chapters is like a new little mini arc of sorts. And so you wonder what happens next to them. Even though there is not. There's not often an explicit like cliffhanger.

[Andrew]

Or.

[Craig]

You know, what. When are they going to get to the fireworks factory? Or when will they find the cure for XYZ problem. Right. But I also think that sort of shifts about halfway through the novel. So big picture, it is narrated by this woman, Mary Smith, who is sort of a. She's like a. She's a young woman who does not live in Cranford. She has family connections to the women of Cranford. Her father is friendly with many of them. They live in a place, I think it's called Drumble, which is a stand in for Manchester.

[Andrew]

Huh. That's a play. That's like a town made out of like hollowed out boulders where a bunch of trolls live.

[Craig]

Like, that's a trumble Drumble. And she will, you know, throughout the book she is recounting her time in Cranford where she regularly visits when she is invited. And so she's got like a.

[Andrew]

She's got like an insider, outsider perspective. She's linked to people there. So she would be kind of taken into their confidence. But then she also can see it from the. The perspective of a busy city gal.

[Craig]

Well, and she's also not really a character like she is sort of. She helps one of our main characters, Maddie Jenkins, a lot. But there is not. I can't think of a single scene that like turns on Mary's point of view on events or. There are lots of scenes where characters are concerned about different people's like social status or behavior. Not a single person remarks on Mary Smith whatsoever.

[Andrew]

She's.

[Craig]

She's really there to be an observer and to write down the events of this novel. I'm just.

[Andrew]

Did you. Can we prove conclusively that this is not a Sixth Sense situation where Mary Smith is a ghost that only one of the other characters in the book can see?

[Craig]

You're right. There are scenes where characters other than Maddie talk to Mary. But I suppose.

[Andrew]

But it just. Does it just look like that? And if we read it from a different perspective, it would seem a different way.

[Craig]

There were jokes in this book. Book that I thought were like. I didn't think went back this far. So like maybe she's also ahead of the Game on. What if it were a ghost?

[Andrew]

What if it was a ghost?

[Craig]

What if it was. Okay, so earlier chapters also have this kind of like. And then I was in Cranford and I. I wouldn't see this character for another few years when such and such happened or back in the day they told me this other thing. So there's like a little bit of. Of kind of time jumping backwards and forwards through memory that starts to die away as the second half of the book starts, you know, to really get rolling. And some. The book really narrows in its focus in the characters that we care about. And so, like, I don't know, I think is these first couple chapters, she's writing them in the Dickens magazine. And the first two in particular are like the one story she wrote where she's like, this is sort of based on the town I grew up in and the women I was raised by. And my father was a pastor, and these women's father was a pastor, and their brother went off to India and my brother went off to India. And then, like, it really narrows in about halfway through on this one woman, Maddie Jenkins, and all the stuff that's happening to her. And so, like, it's not a real plot driven book. But you are. At least my experience reading it. I was like, okay, we're gonna find out what happens to Maddie Jenkins. Like, that's gonna be the book. And that is to your point. It is not a. You know, this is. It's not even a romance. It's not. It's not something like an Austin where it's like, how will this relationship shake out? It's just like, will this woman be okay by the end of this novel? And how will our narrator, like, help her or not is really kind of what is going on here. So the book opens telling us that a group of quote unquote Amazons live in Cranford. They are the women in gentile poverty that we've been talking about. Some of whom, you know, have been disinherited in some way, shape or form, some of whom are widows. The main people to worry about are the Jenkins sisters. Jenkins spelled with a Y, which I wasn't expecting.

[Andrew]

Sort of fun, like in. Instead of the I. Yeah, instead of.

[Craig]

The E. Instead of the I.

[Andrew]

Okay. Because you could do it instead of the E. Jenkins.

[Craig]

Yeah. No, this is Jenkins, Deborah and Maddie. Deborah is the older. There's Mrs. Jameson, there's Mrs. Forrester, there's Ms. Pole, who's the gossipiest one of them all. The Jenkins sisters, you know, live Together they are daughters of the late Rector of Cranford. And it's through them that we learn about the social practices. There's like, stuff in the beginning that feels a little like it's not stand up, but it is. Let's explain the virtuous frugality of these women. It's a little silly. They're all basically poor, but they are maintaining there's some version of impoverished relative to their status. And they're all, like, trying to keep up appearances that at best they are of modest means and they have a. Still, like holding on to really entrenched customs.

[Andrew]

Like, do they have help?

[Craig]

They do have help, but most of them have maybe one servant.

[Andrew]

Okay, all right.

[Craig]

Like, maybe two.

[Andrew]

That's still.

[Craig]

That's. No.

[Andrew]

I know any more servants than I had. It's the thing, though.

[Craig]

But also many of them are paying rent inside. Like, they don't own their land, they don't own their house. Many of them. So that maybe they.

[Andrew]

The. The unlanded gentry.

[Craig]

Yes. Well, and I think the Jenkins, you know, they. It was a rector situation. So like, maybe they were living on the church's land and then now they're not. There's also references later in the novel to the fact that the Jenkins may have sold some of their property to a bank so they would have steady income. That does become a problem.

[Andrew]

Corporate raider kind of.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Venture capital kind. What's. What? Oh, what's the exact kind of thing?

[Craig]

What thing are you thinking about?

[Andrew]

The people who killed, like, Red Lobster and Toys R Us. They come because they come in and they buy your. They buy. They sell you property and then they rent it back.

[Craig]

It is. It's not venture capital, is it? Venture capital?

[Andrew]

It's vulture. Vulture.

[Craig]

Vulture. Voodoo economics. Not sure what you're going for.

[Andrew]

Oh, man, I'm. I'm going to look at. I'll keep going.

[Craig]

Okay. So also, you know, so like, we get, like, rules that. And this does not really factor into the novel. This is part of the opening story, which I think you're reading it in the Dickens magazine. You think it's kind of funny that there's a lot of rules around, like. Well, even though you are not somebody of like, you know, you don't live in a castle anymore, you still have calling hours. If somebody calls on you, you still have to answer within three days when you go to their house to talk to them, because this is before telephone. So calling means like having a courier deliver a note when you call on them and you go to their house. You can't talk to them for more than 15 minutes. And when it's what you. You not allowed to look at your watch. You got to know when the 15 minutes are up and you have to leave. So you can't have conversations of any import. It's just all small talk, baby. Like, you got to get in and get out, and then you go home, and then maybe you have a party where you play whist or patience or whatever card game you just learned. Did you figure out what you're looking for?

[Andrew]

It's just private equity.

[Craig]

Private equity. Those are the words we were looking for. I guess it's a little bit private equity here. Like, we didn't have equity for this. We just had kings, I suppose.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Also, quote, their dress is very independent of fashion, as they observed. What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us? And if they go from home, their reason is equally cogent. What does it signify how we dress here where nobody knows us?

[Andrew]

So I'll start using that one. I dress. I dress independently of fashion, thank you very much.

[Craig]

Yes. So they all kind of know. There's also this thing, like, Mrs. Forrester, who has one kind of underwhelming servant, will invite people over and, like, serve them cakes, but, you know, clearly helps make all the cakes because her servant isn't up to it. And then when this cakes arrive, she pretends to not know what cakes were being made. Because, quote, though she. And we knew and she knew that we knew and we knew that she knew that we knew. She had been busy all morning making tea, bread and sponge cakes. Well, and I was not prepared to read a. Like, she knew that we knew that we knew that she knew.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

In a novel from 1850, like a.

[Andrew]

More modern construction of thing. Yeah.

[Craig]

But they are all in agreement that they don't really need men. Men just muck everything up. Men get in the way in the house. If there are men in their lives, it's because they are off at sea in the Napoleonic wars, I suppose. But their world is flipped, turned upside down, Andrew, by the arrival of Captain Brown, who has retired from service. He has two daughters, a late wife, and he works in railroads. So he is kind of a symbol of coming technology. And he will talk about poverty, which they don't talk about. They don't actually talk about money at all. And so, like, he's kind of a little. He will touch on verbose, potent topics. You know, what's.

[Andrew]

And what's he got? What does he have to say about Pop.

[Craig]

He will just talk that it exists. He will just say like, okay, you know, he is on harder times than he used to be sort of thing. And like, you're not supposed to say that out loud. Yeah, we all just.

[Andrew]

We all just pretend that our circumstances are great.

[Craig]

Yes. He gets into it with the Elder Jenkins about authors fact of which she almost barely never recovers. But they do love him. He's very charming. He loves his daughters. After all, his oldest daughter is not well. She's clearly got some sort of wasting illness that is not specifically named. But she is not, you know, she's not gonna make it after so many.

[Andrew]

Of those back then.

[Craig]

Yeah, you know they're coming back though, baby. Well, vaccines were. Vaccines were fun. So he's a fun character. We like him. He kind of ingratiates himself to this community of women who purportedly don't like men or don't need them anyway.

[Andrew]

And yet, and yet one sink kind of handsome, I assume, semi available man comes into town and they're like, well, what's the. What's the deal with this fella? What's this Beefcakes spoiler Andrew.

[Craig]

He dies pretty early. He just dies. There's a lot of early death in this novel.

[Andrew]

Why does he do that?

[Craig]

Well, he was rescuing a child from a trolley or something.

[Andrew]

Oh, I guess that's a good reason.

[Craig]

And so he dies and then his old. His oldest daughter starts to take a real turn for the worst. And his youngest daughter, Jesse Brown is like, well, we're not going to tell her that dad died. She's clearly going to die tomorrow, so we're just not going to tell her. And then as she is dying, Jesse Brown is like, yeah, maybe. Maybe we should tell her and she can know that her father loved her and that she will see him in the afterlife and it will be wonderful. Okay.

[Andrew]

I was prepared for her to get better and then for them to have to do kind of a weekend.

[Craig]

I was too. There's like a weird thing that they allude to. Yeah, there are like one thing about this novel being as short as it is is there are comic quote unquote sequences like that that you can imagine carrying on for the better part of a larger book that just are like alluded to. We're like, well, and then all the women of Cranford thought real hard about how hard it would be to conceal this man's death. And then, and then that was done. That never happened again.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sounds like it would be tough.

[Craig]

His death and Then his daughter's death was very shocking to me. In the early part of this book. I'm trying to figure out what this novel is going to be. And it is like putting people on the board and then just knocking them off.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Why. Why have a. Like a new. A new character comes to town and turns everything upside down thing and then just have him die and then everything like, flips back right side up again. But it's not.

[Craig]

I think.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Some of it is the serialized nature of the story that is not telling a, like, larger plot. It is like, oh, here's the society of women. Oh, here's this guy who comes in. He cares about his daughters, but, you know, he dies for some reason. And these women mourn and feel bad about it and they take. They kind of adopt his remaining daughter as one of their own. And isn't that kind of wonderful and nice?

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure.

[Craig]

But also then the Elder Jenkins sister dies. She was not well either. And that brings Mary back to town. A few years pass and Mary comes back and then the thing that kind of kicks off the rest of the novel is that the younger Jenkins sister, Maddie. Matilda, she can't. She wanted to be called her. Her older sister called her Maddie. She asks people to call her Matilda for a few weeks after her older sister dies, and it doesn't stick.

[Andrew]

We can't give yourself a nickname. Everybody knows that.

[Craig]

Yeah. And the thing about Maddie is like, she is a very pleasant, kind of innocent personality who's simple. Is not. That is a word the book uses. That is not. Does not come with all the connotations. She's kind of pure of heart, let's say.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

But also lacks any particular talent. She's just kind of, you know, her. Her talent is being nice and, you know, assuming the best about people. But she also has trouble kind of shaking deference to her late sisters commandeering ways. Okay, so, Andrew, I'm just gonna. I. I'm gonna do the thing where I send you a clip.

[Andrew]

All right, I'm here.

[Craig]

And so I'll just.

[Andrew]

I'll read it silently and then I'll tell you what I think. No, yeah, got it.

[Craig]

Please do not. So this is not long after the Elder Jenkins has passed and Mary comes back to town. And we're remarking on all the things that, like, Maddie is still clinging to because that's the way her sister did it.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

You know, here you go.

[Andrew]

Okay. You're saying.

[Craig]

Just read this. I'm gonna put in our slide.

[Andrew]

When oranges came in a curious proceeding was gone.

[Craig]

They're having a meal, and they're eating oranges now. Sorry.

[Andrew]

Ms. Jenkins did not like to cut the fruit, for as she observed, the juice all ran out. Nobody knew where. Sucking, only I think she used some more recondite word, was, in fact, the only way of enjoying oranges. But then there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone through by little babies. And so, after dessert in orange season, Ms. Jenkins and Ms. Maddie used to rise up, possess themselves, each of an orange in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges. Love it. The orange sucking scene.

[Craig]

You have to go into a closet and eat an orange because it's shameful.

[Andrew]

It's just shameful to be sucking on an orange like a little baby.

[Craig]

This is what is funny to me about this in particular, is like, I just.

[Andrew]

I have to go be a dirty trash man in my room while I suck on my orange, because nobody could look at me like this.

[Craig]

And the sound of it. And like, you know, as we were kids, you go to a soccer game and, like, everyone's just honking on an orange slice. And here you go. These women cannot.

[Andrew]

They hadn't invented honking yet.

[Craig]

That's true.

[Andrew]

The 1850s.

[Craig]

And this passage is. Hey, I think it's kind of funny. The book has a lot of humor like this, but it is also. What's the quote? A little bit later, Ms. Jenkins rules were made more stringent than ever because the framer of them was gone when there could be no appeal. So, like, in. In honoring her dead sister's memory, Maddie is like, no, I can't suck on an orange because my dead sister would never let me. We can't. I can't even ask her to suck on an orange if she would let.

[Andrew]

She's gone. Yep.

[Craig]

So the. The. The book from here on out, in my estimation, is, you know, what will we do with Maddie? How will we keep her well? How will we help her move through changing times? There's a passage where an old flame of hers, Mr. Holbrooke, comes to town. He's referred to multiple times as a Don Quixote. Kind of a man outside society a little bit. There's an extended sequence where they all eat off of old forks at his house. And nobody knows how to eat off the forks.

[Andrew]

Nobody knows how to eat anything in this book. No, I'm gathering.

[Craig]

It's very funny to me. There's also a scene at his house where people fall asleep while he's reading poetry. Lots of Good beats of people in this book where people just fall asleep. Asleep when it's, like, hot in a room.

[Andrew]

That was one of the main things you could do.

[Craig]

Just go to sleep.

[Andrew]

Just go to sleep.

[Craig]

Of course, you know, he is reconnecting with Maddie. He was not allowed, you know, they were not allowed to pursue each other due to social class reasons earlier. And now she's getting. I think she's 50 or 52 at this point. She's like, why not? I could be with this man. My sister's dead. And he's like, I'm going to go to Paris. Any, you know, any thoughts about what I should do there? She doesn't really know. And a few months later, Mary gets invited back to Cranford because Maddie is not well, because Mr. Holbrooke is dying.

[Andrew]

Oh, boy.

[Craig]

To think of that pleasant day last June when he seemed so well. And he might have had. Might have lived this dozen years if he had not gone to that wicked Paris where they are always having revolutions. One character says.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, yeah, that's why I don't go.

[Craig]

That's why we don't go.

[Andrew]

Always having revolutions that make you sick.

[Craig]

So then we learn a little bit about the backstory of the Jenkins family. Their son Peter, brother to Maddie, ran away after his father. He was a bit of a prankster. He did one prank in particular where he impersonated his sister. I don't really know what he was doing. He was. Was in the flowers dressed as his sister, doing something untoward, and his father flogged him in the street for it. So he ran away and joined the army or the navy or whatever, and wound up in India and disappeared forever.

[Andrew]

We learn Elizabeth Gaskell's brother.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Did that.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Also disappeared to India forever.

[Craig]

And that's the. That's the closest to a mystery that the book has. Like, I. I have heard that this book has mystery in it. That's what that will come back. It will. You know, you can imagine there's, you know, we get introduced. Mr. Jameson, Mrs. Jameson. We get introduced to Lady Glenmure, who is an actual lady. Mrs. Jameson does not like that this lady is kind of slumming it with them. It's kind of a funny thing. A conjurer comes to town. Andrew, a magician.

[Andrew]

What, like, what. What class?

[Craig]

Specifically, though, he does like card tricks. And also, I think he does like tricks where his not twin. Twin brother, like, does, like, you know, disappear, reappear.

[Andrew]

He's just. He's just a bard. Then, like, he's not. He's not one of the, like, hardcore casters.

[Craig]

They do use the term ledger domain or whatever that means they all attend a magic show and they're in the front row. And Ms. Jameson thinks this is all a bunch of bunk. She's read all the tricks in an encyclopedia and is, like, literally reading them out loud while the magic is happening. I love this stuff. This is the good stuff. Like, that is the. That is the stuff that is funny to me about these characters is that they're like, well, I can just do anything. I can just read out loud during a magic show and make the man upset.

[Andrew]

I think magic's kind of like professional wrestling, you know, in that, like, we. Yeah, we can acknowledge that it's. That's not really.

[Craig]

You gotta buy into it.

[Andrew]

It's not really magic. But I can. Yeah, we can appreciate the. The. The craft of it, you know?

[Craig]

Well, and some.

[Andrew]

The way they. The way they make you believe sometimes just for a second, even though you know better.

[Craig]

The flip side of it is that Maddie Jenkins is so unnerved by the magic that she asks Mary to look around the room to make sure that the new rector is enjoying the magic. Okay. Because then it's not a sin to enjoy.

[Andrew]

It's not satanic magic.

[Craig]

The Lady Glenmure goes on to get engaged to the Doctor, which is, of course, a scandal. All the women agree that it is best thought of, like, the Queen of Spain's legs. A fact which certainly exists, but less said about it, the better. That's a quote.

[Andrew]

Wow. Slam on the Queen of Spain's legs.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

What's wrong with the Queen of Spain's game?

[Craig]

I don't know. It's just a funny joke. It's just.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And then the real bad thing of the book happens, where Maddie is out getting ready to buy some new, like, fabric for dresses, and a man is at the same store trying to buy a shawl for his wife. And his banknote is refused. And the shopkeeper says, this bank is no good. I don't want this banknote. And Maddie realizes that that's her bank where she is an investor and where she gets her per annum from. And she gives him, like, gold out of her pocket so that he can buy his wife a shawl because he's lower class than her and she feels bad. And then the next day she learns that, of course, the bank has failed, right? And she has no money. She has barely, like, you know, she's going from over £100 a year or whatever in 1853 money. I don't know how many PS5s that can buy. And she's got 20 shillings a year or, like a month now or something.

[Andrew]

I mean, in 1840 something, it would not have been the PS5. It would have been like the PS2.

[Craig]

Fair. What? You know. You know those things where it's like. If you showed George Washington a phone, it would blow his mind. If you show Ben Franklin a PS5, what would he think, do you think? You know, would he be.

[Andrew]

I think it depends. It depends on what game you're gonna show him. Like, what game do you show Ben Franklin?

[Craig]

Is there a game about firefighters? Didn't he invent firefighting?

[Andrew]

You could show him that Firewatch or whatever it's called, that indie game.

[Craig]

Can you play that on?

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's got backward compatibility with the whole PS4 library, baby.

[Craig]

This might be a PS3 game. What is Firewatch?

[Andrew]

Whatever that. I'm not. I might be.

[Craig]

I know what it is. I'm joking. I know it.

[Andrew]

It's that one with the guy, and you're walking through the woods and it's like, oh, no, there's a fire.

[Craig]

Yeah. I think something happened to his wife. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Or like that game. There's a game where you're, like, shooting lightning out of your hands. I think Ben Franklin would think that was cool.

[Craig]

He would probably like Star wars, the Force Unleashed. You're right.

[Andrew]

Well, because. Because he would be like, in my day, the lightning went into your hands and it hurt. It hurt really bad. And now you're showing me that this man is. He can make the lightning.

[Craig]

I don't know a lot of games that have kites in them. Plenty of games have keys. Be interested to know what Ben Franklin liked to play.

[Andrew]

I just want to watch Ben Franklin play Little Big Planet for a while and see what he makes of it.

[Craig]

Our national inventor. He makes. He makes a. He went. All those people who made calculators and little big planning. He's like, yeah, this is what I would do.

[Andrew]

Or just fortnite.

[Craig]

With, like, this. He's like, oh, Goku, my favorite. I could be Goku.

[Andrew]

What would Ben Franklin think make of Goku?

[Craig]

It's a good question. These are the good questions to ask. Anyway, Maddie is really on hard times now, you know, and she thinks about this whole situation with the bank. It's very. It's not the supernatural. Also kind of romantic. Frank. Cap. It. It's not quite. It's a Wonderful Life. Right? A Wonderful Life stuff does happen where, you know, her servant Is like, you know, I don't want you to fire me. I will find a way where you can actually live with me. I'll bully my boyfriend into marrying me so we can get a house, and then you can be our border. All of the women of Cranford have a secret meeting where they write down in an envelope how much money they can give to Maddie for Mary Smith's dad to figure out and concoct a secret scheme so that Maddie doesn't know that her friends are giving her money. So, like, people are trying to help her. It's very charming. It's very endearing. But she even says, like, my sister would have handled this better than I would like. I do not have the brains for this. I have the heart to understand, like, that there are people suffering worse than me because of this bank, and yet I will, of course, suffer. So Mary works with her father to concoct a plan where they get the secret money together. They let Mary. They let Maddie open up a tea shop in her house. Everyone's going to help her. And what is Mary's father says, how a good, innocent life makes friends all around. Confound it, I could make a good lesson out of it if I were a parson, but as it is, I can't get a tail to my sentences. Only I'm sure you feel what I want to say. You and I will have a walk after lunch and talk a bit about these plans. So, like that. I don't know why I put that in the quote. That was not relevant to the quote. I just copied the whole paragraph. That is one of those things where, like, the book at this point has really zeroed in on. Maddie is a really good person. The world is out to get good people. We, you know, they deserve to be helped if they're good. If they're good enough people, you know, their friends will help them sort of thing. And then there's a deus ex machina thing where her brother comes back from India after Mary Smith, our narrator, kind of like, like hear some clues and then writes a letter to him in India through the magician. The magician's wife makes a casual mention to someone named Jenkins in India.

[Andrew]

I feel like anybody who needs that many intermediary, like, that person does not want to be found. That person doesn't want to come back.

[Craig]

He didn't really want to come back. Well, he. There is a note that, like, he. He was sending letters home, and they were getting returned saying that he was dead. And so he just, like, gave himself.

[Andrew]

You know, he's like, whatever, sure, a likely story.

[Craig]

But so he does come back and he did make money in India, so he is able to, like, save the day. And he likes to tell exaggerated stories of his time in India, and he uses it to kind of woo the women of Cranford to get his sister back in good standing with everyone. But the. The kind of closing note of the book, which I found pretty interesting from Mary's father, is that such referring to Maddie and. And how her, like, simple heart kind of helped win the day for her. Such simplicity might be very well in Cranford, but would never do in the world. Mary says, I fancy the world must be very bad. For with all my father's suspicion of everyone with whom he has dealings, and in spite of all his many precautions, he lost upwards of £1,000 by rotary only last year. So there's this kind of, like, prevailing sentiment that people are good or can be good and that taking care of each other within your community, especially when your community is one of limited circumstance, is good, but that the encroaching modern world is, like, coming for all of us and is not. Not built for these types of relationships.

[Andrew]

We can't all hang out in Cranford forever.

[Craig]

Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, it's an interesting book. Like, I thought that the stuff with the magician was funny. I've. I did not talk about the extended sequence after the Magician where a bunch of robberies occur and everyone blames the fact that a magician came to town.

[Andrew]

That's what they do, man. They make stuff disappear. They make stuff disappear.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's funny.

[Andrew]

So a magician comes to town, stuff starts disappearing. Who am I gonna blame first, you know?

[Craig]

Yeah, it's just an interesting. It's an interesting book. I thought it was neat. I wasn't like, oh, dang, this is like, the coolest book I've ever read. I did. No.

[Andrew]

You ever do. If you ever do read a book that makes you feel like that, though, you do need to talk about. You need to mention it.

[Craig]

If I read the coolest book I've ever read.

[Andrew]

If you've read. If you read the coolest book you've ever read, I should probably just check in with you from now on. Every time you read that.

[Craig]

That's a good question. At the end of every podcast, we have to ask each other, is this the coolest. Is this it you've ever read?

[Andrew]

Is this it? We don't do ratings. We just do, like, is this the coolest book, I guess. Or no.

[Craig]

I don't even know what I would say is the coolest book I've ever read. You know, think about that.

[Andrew]

I have to go through the whole library and just like come up with the one at a time Build a power ranking of every book we've ever read.

[Craig]

Boy, if we did Rankings Bonus stream.

[Andrew]

Yeah for do a lot many bonus streams. A lot of books that we've read.

[Craig]

Okay, I have some Goodreads reviews.

[Andrew]

Andrew oh yeah.

[Craig]

To close us out here.

[Andrew]

How many stars?

[Craig]

Not one, not two, not four. Not five.

[Andrew]

You skipped one.

[Craig]

I skipped three star Goodreads reviews.

[Andrew]

You mean three star Goodreads review.

[Craig]

I do mean that. Lacy says nothing really happened in the story, which revolved around the preoccupations of the Village Ladies failed courtship, financial threats, imagined burglaries, traffic act accidents, an unexpected reunion, petty snobbery, and internal gossips. What stood out was female friendship and the loyal support the ladies offered each other when hardship struck. She found that the chaste elegance and propriety became a little tiresome, but found it a heart, you know, heartwarming and enjoyed the oranges bit.

[Andrew]

Everybody likes the oranges bit. Everybody loves the orange sucking bit from Cranford.

[Craig]

Marquis said the story flies by too quickly and ends too soon, however, leaving a taste of insubstantiality. Like when you finish eating candy floss. Cotton candy sucking an orange like cotton candy for the Americans out there. It doesn't tell a story in the in the traditional sense with start, middle and end, and there's no traditional character arc, but it's rather just a more or less linear series of anecdotes protagonized by the same bunch of women folks.

[Andrew]

Protagonist.

[Craig]

Yeah, I'm just. I. I like this review for a lot of reasons. Candy floss and protagonized. One is left wondering what is the point of this? There's likely none, really. Only purpose was to illustrate the country lifestyle of a gone by era. Gone by era, which she tells in a tone tinge with heavy nostalgia and longing for simple life with the Industrial Revolution running full steam on its way to change Britain for good. I suppose that means like for. For then and all. I don't know.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's.

[Craig]

That's what for good and then Emma says even when I read this book five years ago, I had nothing to say about it. So I certainly have nothing to say now.

[Andrew]

Wow.

[Craig]

Italicized part of a series I'm doing in which I review books I read a long time ago. Except I almost never do that. Great job, Emma.

[Andrew]

Thanks. It's Funny that that for your work. That same lady who has all the name pronuncia guides on YouTube.

[Craig]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew]

Doesn't have anything to say about.

[Craig]

That's so funny. From our Discord chat, Mary Garth said. I did not know they made fun size Victorian novels. Surprised to see that it comes in under 300 pages, Jason? I haven't gotten very far into it, but it keeps making me laugh when they talk about how awesome Charles Dickens books are when it was serialized in his magazine. It reminds me of the new War of the Worlds movie on Amazon on Prime where an Amazon delivery saves the day.

[Andrew]

Yeah, no, that's good. That's good product placement.

[Craig]

It is pretty good product placement. Yeah, that's. I had a fun time with this book. I don't know. I'm glad I got. I. I think but it's. But.

[Andrew]

But it's not the coolest book.

[Craig]

Not the coolest book I ever read. And I think like if you're wondering what it's really about, it is community of women who are not of the social status they used to be, which is a precarious position for them. You know, finding community with not malevolent but outside forces beyond their control, kind of encroaching on their way of life. All told through this narrator voice that can really dip in and out of the stakes of the novel as she so places to kind of move us along.

[Andrew]

She can come and get the lay of the land and then just be like, it really helps you next see.

[Craig]

In a couple of years it really serves it being serial, serially published where Mary can just be like. And then I didn't hear from them from a few for a few months. And the next time I heard from them, this bad thing was happening. And then like two or three chapters will be pretty tight chronologically and then there will be like another time jump. So that's just kind of how Mary does. That's it.

[Andrew]

It.

[Craig]

Thanks for us for listening me tell you about the book.

[Andrew]

Yeah, thanks for. Thanks for Cranfording. Thanks for sucking this orange with me.

[Craig]

I'm gonna be thinking about this the next time.

[Andrew]

I mean that's what we're gonna. That's what we do after every recording because we do. We do it on zoom so we can see each other's faces. But then at the end we go to have a snack on orange. We hang up the call so we can't see each other sucking our oranges. It's uncouth.

[Craig]

It would be terrible to do that. We don't know who's recording. We don't know. I don't want anybody to see me. I gotta, you know, gotta hang up the call.

[Andrew]

Yeah, that's Andrew time.

[Craig]

I don't even want my wife to see me eating an orange. No thank you. Disgusting.

[Andrew]

Just come downstairs and see a bunch of binicula orange tusks that you suck the juice out of.

[Craig]

Send us an email overdupodmail.com what food can't you eat in front of other people? We would love to know.

[Andrew]

And what video game would you show Benjamin? Benjamin Franklin.

[Craig]

What video game would you show Benjamin Franklin to? Tell him that games are art because he needs to know that games are art. You could do that. Overdue [e-mail] hit us up on social media at Overdue Pod. We're on Blue sky and Instagram most of the time. Thanks to James, Marissa, Graham, Jeremy Ryan, Nicholas, Meredith Spriggana who Andrew tells us that Scalzi isn't the only author to get Hugo's for books and for writing about books. Apparently Frederick Pol did it in 2010 and author Emma Rosenblum for reaching out and telling us that. We thanking us for not hating her book.

[Andrew]

Very kind of her is like does she send that to everybody who gives her a positive review or do we have some kind of reputation out there?

[Craig]

I don't know. I would like to know if anybody has any insider information on that. Please let us know. Thanks to Nick Landis who composed our theme music. Andrew, if Andrew, if any, if you, Andrew, or anyone else want to know more about our show. Where do they go?

[Andrew]

If I got bonked on the head with a big mallet and I got amnesia and I would need to learn about our podcast, I would go to overdue podcast.com which is the Internet website where we have the schedule for the month and all the books we've read in the past and a little web player that you can use to play the episodes if you like or download an MP3 if you want to put us on your Kids Tony box, please do it. And Also what else? Patreon.com overdue pod is the way that you support the show financially. Give us a little bit, give us a little bit of cash and we will set you up real nice with access to our Discord community bonus episodes, all kinds of other things. Our current long read project, the Silly Marillion about the Silmarillion by Mr. J.R.R. tolkien.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And lots, lots more. Next week I'm reading the Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka.

[Craig]

So tune in for that. I'm excited to hear more about it. After that, I'm going to be talking about the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. I'm sure that will be a very normal episode.

[Andrew]

Normal one. All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to our podcast. And until we suck an orange at you next, next time, please try to be happy. That was a headgum podcast, so I don't know.

[Craig]

Does that answer your question? More or less in between. Excuse me. Oh, can you time coat that awful burp for me?

[Andrew]

Burp? What a bad burp.

[Craig]

A terrible burp. Put me in the terrible timeout.

[Andrew]

How long we've been podcasting. You can't. You can't learn how to mask a burp as a. As a pause.

[Craig]

I didn't get away from the mic.

[Andrew]

It time you lean away from the mic to burp. Chocolate burp.

[Ad Voice]

What do you think makes the perfect snack?

[Andrew]

Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.

[Ad Voice]

Could you be more specific?

[Andrew]

When it's cravinient. Okay. Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right down the street at am, pm. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at a.m. pM.

[Ad Voice]

I'm seeing a pattern here.

[Andrew]

Well, yes, we're talking about what I.

[Ad Voice]

Crave, which is anything from am, pm.

[Andrew]

What more could you want? Stop by ampm, where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience. Am, pm Too much good stuff.