North and South, like most Victorian novels, originally came out in serial form. Having read a few other things that originally came out in serial form, I know some authors really relied hard on the cliffhanger endings or other brilliant and/or blatant efforts to get you to buy the next installment. (Check how many times Dickens uses prolepsis in Great Expectations. He loves to remind you of the things you don't know yet and that you'll have to read the next chapter to find out. He's a tease.)
However, it seems to me that Gaskell doesn't really lean on these sorts of tricks. Instead, she seems to count strongly on the reader's interest in the persistent questions of the plot (ex: Will John and Margaret get together? How will the strike issues resolve? Will anyone survive this book?) though she doesn't call over-much attention to those either.
Is anyone else noticing an absence of cliff-hanger-iness? Am I expecting a little too much sensationalism and/or attenting-grabbing?
No comments:
Post a Comment