How December Got Awesome.

Hello,
So I was catching up on my Google Reader (isn't it great how once you reach 1000+ they stop keeping track?) and thanks to fellowette my December got awesome. Apparently this month PBS will be reshowing Cranford! Originally shown last year Cranford is a mini-series based on the books of Elizabeth Gaskell. The plot revolves around the relationships in a rural English village in 1840. The mainly female populace of the town is thrown for a loop when a young male doctor arrives.

Okay I'll admit it sounds pretty stuffy (and really not for males who like explosions) but it's hilarious. And touching. These spinsters are happy being in their own company. Unlike Austen or Bronte these females lives are not centered around romance or marriage. They worry about progress, money, and proper etiquette. The oncoming modernity of a railway is feared because of how much it will change these women's lives. They do not want the world to encroach on their simple pleasures. Gaskell, and the writers of this series, realized that the paradox of technological development is that it makes our lives more complicated not easier.

On the other hand the series also does a great job commenting on the inequalities that still exist even in a pastoral paradise. I was captured by the subplot involving the foreman Edmund Carter and his young charge Harry Gregson. Rather than just the usual 19th century reward of money and status, Harry wants something more lasting: knowledge. Money and status can be lost, (prime example: Lady Ludlow) but education sticks. It's lovely how education can help anyone transcend class in this world. Prior to a public education system the poorer classes had to fight to even gain literacy. Edmund Carter represents a positive sociological change.

Whereas Dickens often forced a character's innate goodness down our throats, Gaskell recognizes that positive change needs to be incremental. Otherwise it is feared and rejected. It should be noted that it took 2 World Wars for England to finally get over it's class system. The English don't change easily. But the world keeps moving forward, even in small rural villages.

Cranford is a place where I would love to live. And I can't wait to return.