North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

I finished this beauty yesterday afternoon. I came to this novel, as it is the case for many readers through the BBC TV adaptation, which I watched a couple of years ago. There are so many words to say about it, way more than is need to simply tell the tale and the tale itself has its share of sentimentality and melodrama. Still, I loved every word of the book and every feeling I experienced that those words expressed. At the heart of the novel we have the relationship between two main characters: the ex-parson's daughter Margaret Hale and the mill owner and industrialist John Thornton. They come from different backgrounds, they have different attitudes and sensibilities. They represent two different worlds of England, Margaret is the world of the gentry from the agrarian south of England, and John is the self-made man of the industrial north. The difficulties in the relationship of Margaret and John are played out against turmoil of the Victorian England. Gaskell weaves into the novel the differences in attitude between the north and the south of the country as well as the conflict between capitalists and labour and the shifts in class and gender relations.