Michael N. Krugman 2008-11-20

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

I purchased a copy of this book about a month ago and recently started reading. Became very absorbed in this wonderful story until page 114, and then POOF! the book is missing about 100 pages. Upon inspection, I see that there are other errors in the binding (signatures out of order), too.

Returned the first copy, ordered a new one. Same problem. So--reader beware, the batch of books that Amazon has in stock are defective, and utterly unreadable.

C. M Mills 2008-06-18

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Ruth is a tale of redemption set in early nineteenth century England.
Ruth is a young seamstress who is seduced at the age of 16 by a despicable and stupid cad whose name is Henry Bellingham. He deserts her on a holiday in Wales forcing the pregnant Ruth to flee.
Ruth finds a lodging and Christian love at the home of an elderly clergyman the Rev. Benson, his maiden sister Faith and their grouchy but kindhearted maid Susan.
Years pass and Ruth is loved by the community until her secret is revealed through gossip. She remains in Eccleston winning the approbation of the community following her nursing patients in a typhoid fever plague sweeping the village. She rejects the advances of her erstwhile lover who is in Eccleston with a new name "Mr Donne" and a position as the MP in the British Parliament in London.
With her secret made manifest Ruth is able to soldier on in life. She is rejected by the stern Mr. Bradshaw who hired her for years as a teacher to his daughters Jemima, Mary and Elizabeth. Ruth wins favor when she dies nursing Bellingham in the epidemic as well as several other townspeople. Her former enemy Mr. Bradshaw even buys an ornate gravestone.
Ruth is a candid look at the Victorian double standard and the second class citizenship of women in British society. The novel is beautifully written with lyrical passages on bird and animal life and the change in seasons in a small English town in the nineteenth century . This reviewer fell in love with Ruth who reminds one of Esther Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's American classic "The Scarlet Letter." Ruth is one of the best Victorian novels you will read for its compassionate view of the human condition. The sequences in which the major characters have dreams is especially well done. Ruth will win your heart!

B. Batres 2007-07-25

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

the story of that girl, and that "mistake" and how 90% of the world closes their door, and turns their back

N. Thornton 2007-07-09

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

I have read most of Elizabeth Gaskell's books, and like some of her others, this one starts out slow, but builds in interest towards the middle. You really empathize with the main character, and the harsh judgement she receives is shocking by today's standards. The book provided a lot of food for thought and was an enjoyable read.

Robert Muirhead 2006-10-17

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

"Ruth" is one of five books written by Elizabeth Gaskell. It deals with aspects of English life in the first half of the 19th Century.

It is difficult to say much about the plot itself without giving away important details of the story. Suffice to say that Ruth, who is an orphan and from a humble background is put through the wringer of life.

The characters and their actions are often exaggerated to the point of almost being caricatures to modern readers. But this style maximises the emotional content of many of the incidents described in the book and is very typical of "romantic" English literature of the era. The same can be said of Dickens, Thackeray and Jane Austen.

Extended descriptive passages and the drawing-out of emotional scenes can be irritating because it slows down the narrative and is too obvious a device to hook the discerning reader. Presumably readers of the day loved this stuff - much as modern readers go for similar depictions on TV and in print.

However, the narrative itself is gripping, especially towards the end of the book when events reach their climax and the various threads of the plot are drawn together. There are exciting twists and turns in the plot, almost like a modern thriller. This is where Gaskell shines - she is a very skilful constructor of intricate story plots. It is difficult to put the book down as we near the end of the story.

Another area in which Gaskell shines is her depiction of characters, even though they might be standard "types" to readers of the day.

Mr Bellingham, who later changed his name to Mr Donne, is a central figure in the story, yet he is only superficially dealt with by the author. For much of the book he is just a ghostly presence. This appears to me to be such a glaring fault that I assume the handling of Bellingham/Donne was a conscious decision of Gaskell.

I can only assume that by making him such a shadowy, almost trivial, figure Gaskell makes the contrast with Ruth's trials and tribulations even more stark and harrowing. If that is indeed the case, then this book becomes more stylistically sophisticated and modern than a mere tear-jerking romance.

"Ruth", like all Gaskell's books is an enjoyable read for the story alone. One can skip over much of the purple descriptive bits without any loss. The book also gives a valuable insight into attitudes and ways of life in the early 19th century. This will interest readers who love history. Fiction such as this can illuminate social history.