Challenge Tuesday – 45

I have to admit that this week I deliberately picked a light book for the blog post as I am back on the Robert Jordan train and wanted something I could tell you about!

Book 45 – Mr Harrison’s Confessions, by Elizabeth Gaskell. This is a short story, in which the eponymous Mr Harrison tells a friend the story of how he met, and managed to win, his wife.

Mr Harrison is a young doctor, just moved from London to a small town in the early Victorian period. He is taken into the hearts of the town – and into the hearts of some of the women a little too forcefully. Despite falling deeply and decidedly in love with one women, somehow he manages to convince the locals that he has given his heart to not just one but three others… Being seen as a cad and a charlatan damages his reputation and his business, and soon he is spurned as a doctor by many of his previous patients. When the woman he loves becomes so ill as to be thought beyond saving, this lack of trust becomes potentially fatal.

I was given this book in a compendium recently, The Oxford Library of Short Novels, and chose to start with this story because I enjoyed reading Elizabeth Gaskell earlier in the year.  For those who have watched ‘Cranford’, this is part of the same world;  have not but I found it rather attractive.

You could of course see that Mr Harrison was getting himself into all sorts of trouble with the various ladies, although his alleged fiancées were actually quite innocent too: that’s the power of gossip for you!  All the characters served their purposes well, even if the object of Mr Harrison’s affections – Sophy – seemed a little to sugar-sweet perfection for me.

This was a speedy read, and despite a terribly sad incident at the start it was actually light and fluffy for the most part, amusing and engaging.  I have found Gaskell a thoroughly comfortable writer to read and will seek out more of her work over the coming months.

I have noticed that with just 4 Tuesdays left this year (yes – we are that close to 2016!) I am unlikely to reach my 52 books without relying on a few short stories so I will be reading some more from the Oxford Library at the same time as my Robert Jordan’s. That way I might not fall too horribly short!

Happy reading,

EJ

🙂

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