A little light summer reading/viewing

A novel is one of the most powerful ways to get over a point of view, to present a theme, to convince of a truth. It can be a means of allowing you to walk in someone else's shoes. And there's nothing like a good plot that keeps you guessing as to how the conflict will be resolved and enjoying a long, guilt-free read during the summer holidays.

One hundred and fifty years ago, Elizabeth Gaskell published her novel "North and South". Besides being a great story, it offers insight into the experience of crossing the cultural divide - albeit the culture of social class in Victorian England. The novel was brought alive by the BBC's 4-part serial last summer and being available on DVD makes for easy 'reading' this summer. Painterly and pretty - maybe too much so for depicting life in a burgeoning industrial town (When will film companies develop the smell-track for added realism?) - the film brings alive the pride, prejudice, faux pas and pain that's involved when crossing the divide. It struck me then - and has struck me again since re-experiencing African culture ñ that the novel portrays helpful insights about living the cultural divide.

You feel for Margaret who ventures out into the streets and gets accosted and manhandled by the mill-hands who haven't seen such prettiness and cleanliness in a long time. The Congolese children still love to touch White skin and feel White hair that is so different from their own. They and their elders are quite free with their comments about White dress.

Then Margaret missed the clues as to how to greet people appropriately for that context. It's so easy to do, and sometimes one just can't find the energy to want to bother to do it right. There seem to be so many permutations to shaking hands and greeting people.

On occasions she comes across as priggish and superior and prejudiced. You wince when her father checks her unacceptable behaviour and attitudes. What about the tilt of my head, the tone of my voice? Who will check me?

There was the loneliness of not belonging and the pluck needed to go out to make friends among people who were very different from her. She didn't really belong to the world of the workers nor to that of the rich mill owners and tradesmen.

Yet, for all that, there were positive aspects to being different because she didn't fit the prescribed categories. She was able to mingle with the rich mill owners and make friends with the poor mill workers. And in so doing - although not able to change social structures - she was able to change peoples' opinions of each other. She was able to ask the 'whys' of practice and tradition, things that people had always taken for granted whether or not they were moral or merciful. She sowed seeds of suggestion that people might not be as they were rigidly cast in their minds. And in so doing, her own harsh categories were changed.

"Put all things to the test: keep what is good and avoid every kind of evil." 1Thess 5:21-22

Blessings,

Bridget Howard