North & South

I needed a good, lazy, at home day. And an escape. Mostly an escape. I've been reading the buzz about North & South for awhile now, and Angie mentions it affectionately every few sentences so it must be something. It just so happened to be available for instant play on Netflix and I had the house to myself. It was as if the story gods had planned it all out for me alone and I curled up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and pressed play.

Four hours later, I've lost count of the number of times I've cried, laughed, fumed, wrung my hands, and breathlessly sighed "Oh how wonderful!" It was uncommonly good. A sad, complicated story, full of that politely restrained English passion that my dear friend Jane first made me fall in love with. I love this period in history, in literature, where so much feeling is bubbling under the surface but decorum and class dictate that you squash it, and let is silently simmer and suffer for it! I am such a sucker for a brooding, tortured, tall dark and handsome Englishman. I love that there is never any stupid chase, no frilly, silly courting, just immediate, and all encompassing, soulwrenching TORTURED LOVE. Quietly contained, conveyed only in smoldering glances and scowls. No one says anything! They just sit there and ooze passion and feeling! It's marvelous!

"Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections?" -Sense and Sensibility

Yes Marianne, you twit, he can. Which you too learned. What is the fun in "I like you a lot can we go out?" when he can silently pine and long for you!



The story is about a Miss Margaret Hale, daughter of an ex-minister of the church who moves his family to the northern part of England to become a teacher. Their new surroundings differ drastically from their slow, leisurely, sunny life in the south. The new town, Milton, is cold and harsh, with a fast-paced, money driven society. At the heart of it are the cotton mills. One of Mr. Hale's new pupils is the master of one of the city's more prosperous mills, Mr. Thornton, whom Margaret instantly can't stand. And well you know what THAT MEANS. True love. Never doubted it for a second.

You must go and watch this! As soon as it was finished I ordered my own copy and I anxiously await its arrival because I want to force it upon other people. I've also put the book North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell on my to-read list.

I informed Beloved of his failure to be like the heros of my English historical fiction and told him he needed to start being made pitiful by love for me. He politely informed me that he suffers every day because of his love for me, and that in fact he was suffering right now as he was having to cook dinner. So he is indeed, tortured, all be it not to the extent of Mr. Thornton, but with our busy schedule, it's just enough to suit me.