Anna of the Five Towns

My fondness for this book is tempered by my feeling that the novel doesn't tell enough.  I'm not sure I understood Anna's feelings for the male characters. I found myself saying "really?" at the end. If a maternal instinct grows into love, I didn't visualize it during the story. I found myself wanting more closure or at least more at the end about Anna's relationship to her father and her fortune. There were also times in the novel's early stages that I thought the story was a bit tepid.

However, these detriments are counterbalanced by Bennett's writing style and especially his descriptions of the setting and residents. I especially appreciated the "walk-through" of the pottery process. I enjoy being in Bennett's world. Another review here described this as a Victorian novel. It does have the feel of a Victorian novel even though it was published a year into the Edwardian era. Even though this book wasn't quite as good as I hoped, I liked it enough to read more of Bennett someday, possibly the Clayanger novels.

This was my second Bennett. Although I have rated The Old Wives' Tale and Anna of the Five Towns both at 4 stars, I rated TOWT at 4.3 rounded down to 4 stars and AOTFT at 3.7, rounded up to 4 stars. I consider TOWT the better, more complete story. I read TOWT during a time I was reading the Modern Library 100 best English Language novels of the 20th Century. Among the other 20th century novels, The Old Wives Tale stood out as a pleasant Victorian style read

I loved this novel because, as I heard somewhere, it raised the ordinary to extraordinary.
And that's exactly what makes this a thrilling novel. Nothing exceptional goes on, just what life for a young woman in an industrial village at the end of the XIX century might have been like. Unadorned and real.

Anna is an ordinary girl, who leads a simple existence with her tyrannical father and her younger half sister. She performs her duties without complaint, without any fuss or expectations. She is humble and austere and shy and not sure of what religion or love means, even though society imposes them on her.
When she turns 21, her oppressive father announces that she 's come into a great inheritance left to her from her deceased mother which makes her a wealthy and eligible woman. But that doesn't change anything, she is still depending on her miserly father.
Although Anna consents into everything imposed to her, she kind of starts making her own decisions to thread her future. While receiving constant attention from Henry Mynors, a young promising businessman, who wants to marry her, she can't help thinking of poor and humble Willie Prince, one of her tenants who is in deep debt. Her first own decision might change life as she had known it.

The end of the story left me breathless, so many emotions in such a few lines, without great passion, only with open sincerity, only with the pouring hearts of two people who are destined not to be together, and their cold acceptance to take life as it is. Hard, unfair and sad.

Great first experience of Bennett's writing. I'll read more by him definitely!

⭐️ 3.5 stars ⭐️

Having read a little about Arnold Bennett and knowing, roughly, the story of Clayhanger, I decided to give this a go. I have had this book for years having bought it as a part of a set of 3. Brighton Rock being the book I bought the set for originally. I couldn't believe how great this slight novel is. I couldn't put it down. Bennett counjours up the grim beauty of Stoke-on-Trent at the turn of the century really vividly. His characters are extremely vivid, especially Ephraim Tellwright and of course Anna herself. I would certainly count this as one of my top 10 books of all time. If anyone has has thoughts on further Bennett reading, please give me a shout.

Good solid series opener. Not quite up to the level of The Grand Babylon Hotel but good enough to make me want to continue with the series.

Leído para el club del lectura del Salón de té de Jane Austen.
Es la primera vez que leo a Arnold Bennett y me ha gustado.
La novela, editada en castellano por dÉpoca editorial, es siempre un placer leerla en una cuidada edición con ilustraciones y prólogo.
Y que decir de la historia: la vida de la joven Anna, en una provincia que se dedica al negocio de la alfarería. Viviendo con un padre tiránico y una hermana pequeña. Aún disponiendo de dinero la protagonista, la educación y la religión pesan en ella y el autor nos describe cómo es una esclava de la sociedad en la que le ha tocado vivir. Hace un retrato muy interesante de varios personajes masculinos.
Describe muy bien, la decadencia moral del cambio de paisaje del campo inglés al pueblo industrializado en el carácter de sus personajes.
El ser humano es único, para estar rodeado de belleza y vivir una vida, ayudar a sus congéneres y destrozar toda bondad y belleza a su alrededor.
Es un libro triste, oscuro, melancólico, sobre una jovencita que en su mayoría de edad va descubriendo el mundo que la rodea y que no va a poder cambiar.

The scapegoat is a painting by Holman Hunt. It shows the animal that the early Jews used to load with their sins and cast out into the wilderness. Some people see the crucified Jesus as a human version of a scapegoat. In this book, Willie Price could be regarded as a scapegoat (in chapter 12, we are told that "His eye had the meek wistfulness of Holman Hunt's Scapegoat.") and the theme of the book would then suggest that he is Jesus, persecuted by the Pharisaical Methodist businessmen of the Five Towns. Only Anna, who rebels against their teaching, who sees their hypocrisy, and who refuses to be converted during the revivalist meeting, is charitable towards Willie and his father.

The 'five towns' are a fictional representation of the towns that later amalgamated to become Stoke-on-Trent, at the heart of England's pottery industry. This story follows Anna as she comes of age. Living with her young sister in a household dominated by her rich but miserly father, Anna comes of age and into an inheritance. But the demands of wealth, such as squeezing rent out of businesses on the brink of failure, are at odds with the teachings of her Methodist upbringing. There's a young businessman wooing her too. Does she follow her head or her heart?

The tension between church and business is one of the themes of the book. Anna considers Titus Price a hypocrite because, despite being Superintendent of the Sunday School, he lied to her when he said he couldn't pay the rent she demanded and then found the money. Her father once helped the church, he "reduced the cost per head of souls saved" (Ch 2). Her wooer, Henry, is another prominent churchgoer who doesn't seem to care when people face hard times. The men seem to be able to compartmentalise their religious and business lives; at least Anna feels her unworthiness.

It is also the tragedy of a woman who has been dominated by her father, growing up to believe that duty and sacrifice are more important than personal fulfilment.

In chapter 11 there is a scene between Willie Price and Anna in which something transcendent occurs. He is crying, he tells her she is an angel. "He was her great child, and she knew that he worshipped her. Oh, ineffable power, that out of misfortune canst create divine happiness." The next paragraph starts: "Later, ..." One wonders what went on in those missing moments. Did they make love? It seems unlikely. This is a profoundly spiritual book and my choice of the word 'transcendent' was deliberate. I think this is supposed to be a moment of religious, rather than bodily, passion.

The plot is simple enough and, apart from the protagonist, Anna, and perhaps her wooer, Henry, the characters are scarcely complex: the father is miserly and domineering ("sinister and formidable", Ch 1), the best friend Beatrice is a flibbertigibbet with a heart of gold, sister Agnes is a cheerful and willing workhorse etc. It's very much a Victorian novel, despite being written in 1902. There are hints of melodrama ("without the support of the walls she might have fallen"; Ch 2)and there are passages of stodgy prose ("The latter, boasting lineage and a large house in the aristocratic suburb of Hillport, gave to the society monetary aid and a gracious condescension. But though indubitably above the operation of any unwritten sumptuary law ..."; Ch 1)). Its only real concession to the twentieth century is the careful depiction of the industrial landscape which invites comparison with, for example, Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Germinal by Emile Zola and The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell.

The situation of the miser and his daughter seems derived from Balzac's Eugenie Grandet, which was published in 1833.

In terms of socialist fiction, the obvious comparison is with H G Wells, not as a science fiction writer, but as the writer of Love and Mr Lewisham (1900) and Kipps (1905) which were published at around the same time as 'Anna ...' but seem rather less formal in style, less Victorian, more modern.

Once one has drudged through the first chapter, the pacing picks up. There are two triggers: firstly, in the first chapter when there are the first hints of a romantic relationship between Anna and Henry, but principally in the third chapter when Anna receives her inheritance and all the moral responsibilities that go with it. The first quarter ends with a revivalist prayer meeting in which Anna resists being converted. The mid-point is the School Treat, presided over by Mr Price, who has to leave the event suddenly; it is the last time we meet him. Henry's long-expected proposal is at the 75% mark. The final twist comes in the very last lines.

I really loved this and despite the fact she had a pretty unhappy life - tyrannical father, loveless marriage, death of the man she loves - I still think it is an uplifting story as even while she is pragmatic she never really let go of her morals and values and I think she will be strong enough to survive on her own terms. So loved this.