"Anna of the Five Towns" by Arnold Bennett

 

The 'five towns' are a fictional representation of the towns that later amalgamated to become Stoke-on-Trent, at the heart of England's pottery industry. This story follows Anna as she comes of age. Living with her young sister in a household dominated by her rich but miserly father, Anna comes of age and into an inheritance. But the demands of wealth, such as squeezing rent out of businesses on the brink of failure, are at odds with the teachings of her Methodist upbringing. There's a young businessman wooing her too. Both father and church have brought her up to see personal sacrifice and duty as more important than personal fulfilment. Should she follow her head or her heart? 

But it seems to me that the author's message is fundamentally a religious one. Towards the end of the book, one of the characters, Willie Price, is described thus: "His eye had the meek wistfulness of Holman Hunt's Scapegoat." (Ch 12) The painting is shown above.  The scapegoat was a real animal that the early Jews used to metaphorically load with their sins and cast out into the wilderness. Some people see the crucified Jesus as a human version of a scapegoat. Is Willie Jesus? That doesn't seem likely, given that he confesses to having committed a crime. And yet, he and his father are persecuted by the Methodist businessmen of the Five Towns, who are hypocrites, like the Pharisees, being somehow able to be religious on church days and ruthless businessmen on others. Anna's father is one of these, a capitalist who makes his money through investments and loans. But when Anna comes of age she discovers that it is she who owns the Price's factory, and she is bullied by her father into demanding the rent of them even when they protest they cannot pay. She regards Willie's father, Titus, as a hypocrite because he says he can't pay and then he finds the money after she threatens him with bankruptcy; she regards him as a hypocrite because, despite owing her money, he is Superintendent of the Sunday School. But isn't Anna the hypocrite? Tempted by her father, she tightens the screws on the Prices. The only thing that can be said in her favour is that, after the tragedy, she has a feeling that perhaps what she has done isn't good. But she has done it.

At  the end of the first quarter, Anna is shown as going to a revivalist meeting and there finding herself unable to embrace Jesus, perhaps because she is at least aware of her sinfulness (there are degrees of hypocrisy). This inability to convert is contrasted, close to the end of the book, in chapter 11, when there is a scene between Willie Price and Anna in which something transcendent occurs. He is crying, he tells her she is an angel. "He was her great child, and she knew that he worshipped her. Oh, ineffable power, that out of misfortune canst create divine happiness." The next paragraph starts: "Later, ..." One wonders what went on in those missing moments. It seems to me that this is the moment when Anna is converted. But it's too late, at least for Willie. He is going to Australia, loaded with dishonour, and driven out of this world. Just like the scapegoat.

The five towns are described as "mean and forbidding of aspect - sombre, hard-faced, uncouth; and the vaporous poison of their ovens and chimneys has soiled and shrivelled the surrounding country" (Ch 1). Sounds like a vision of Hell. 

The plot is simple enough and, apart from the protagonist, Anna, and perhaps her wooer, Henry, the characters are scarcely complex: the father is miserly and domineering ("sinister and formidable", Ch 1), the best friend Beatrice is a flibbertigibbet with a heart of gold, sister Agnes is a cheerful and willing workhorse etc. It's very much a Victorian novel, despite being written in 1902. There are hints of melodrama ("without the support of the walls she might have fallen"; Ch 2)and there are passages of stodgy prose ("The latter, boasting lineage and a large house in the aristocratic suburb of Hillport, gave to the society monetary aid and a gracious condescension. But though indubitably above the operation of any unwritten sumptuary law ..."; Ch 1)). Its only real concession to the twentieth century is the careful depiction of the industrial landscape which invites comparison with, for example, Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Germinal by Emile Zola and The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell. 

The situation of the miser and his daughter seems derived from Balzac's Eugenie Grandet, which was published in 1833. 

In terms of socialist fiction, the obvious comparison is with H G Wells, not as a science fiction writer, but as the writer of Love and Mr Lewisham (1900) and Kipps (1905) which were published at around the same time as 'Anna ...' but seem rather less formal in style, less Victorian, more modern.

Once one has drudged through the first chapter, the pacing picks up. There are two triggers: firstly, in the first chapter when there are the first hints of a romantic relationship between Anna and Henry, but principally in the third chapter when Anna receives her inheritance and all the moral responsibilities that go with it. The first quarter ends with a revivalist prayer meeting in which Anna resists being converted. The mid-point is the School Treat, presided over by Mr Price, who has to leave the event suddenly; it is the last time we meet him. Henry's long-expected proposal is at the 75% mark. The final twist comes in the very last lines.

Selected quotes:

• "Her mind, stimulated by the emotions of the afternoon, broke the fetters of habitual self-discipline, and ranged voluptuously free over the whole field of recollection and anticipation. To remember, to hope: that was sufficient joy." (Ch 1)
• "She had never looked beyond the horizons of her present world, but had sought spiritual satisfaction in the ideas of duty and sacrifice. ... she had rather despised love and the dalliance of the sexes. ... Now she saw, in a quick revelation, that it was the lovers, and not she, who had the right to scorn. She saw how miserably narrow, tepid and trickling the stream of her life had been ... Now it gushed forth warm, impetuous and full, opening out new and delicious vistas." (Ch 2)
• "On the grey distempered walls hung a few Biblical cartoons depicting scenes in the life of Joseph and his brethren - but without reference to Potiphar's wife." (Ch 4)
• "She was lovable, but had never been loved. She would have made an admirable wife and mother, but fate had decided that this material was to be wasted." (Ch 7)
• "The mysterious begetting of money by money ... The elaborate mechanism by which capital yields interest without suffering diminution from its original bulk is one of the commonest phenomena of modern life, and one of the least understood. ... to Anna ... the arrival of moneys out of space, unearned, unasked, was a disturbing experience, affecting her as a conjuring trick affects a child, whose sensations hesitate between pleasure and apprehension." (Ch 8)
• "The blunger crushed the clay, the sifter extracted the iron from it by means of a magnet, the press expelled the water, and the pug-mill expelled the air." (Ch 8)
• "He belonged to the great and powerful class of house-tyrants, the backbone of the British nation, whose views on income-tax  cause ministries to tremble." (Ch 9)
• "Anna tried to be at ease, but she was not. She could not for a long time dismiss the suspicion that all these people were foolishly blind to a peril which she alone had the sagacity to perceive." (Ch 10)
• "Anna had noticed that in families the youngest, petted in childhood, was often sacrificed in maturity. It was the last maid who must keep her maidenhood, and, vicariously filial, pay out of her own life the debt of all the rest." (Ch 11)
• "It's a sign of a hard winter ... when the hay runs after the horse." (Ch 12)
• "After fifty years of ceaseless labour, she had gained the affection of one person, and enough money to pay for her own funeral." (Ch 12)
• "She had sucked in with her mother's milk the profound truth that woman's life is always a renunciation." (Ch 13)

Some words I had to look up:

• eleemosynary = charitable
• shardrucks; A 'shord' is a a faulty piece of pottery, and a 'ruck' is a rubbish tip.
• saggar: a box or container which can have a variety of shapes whose purpose is to protect the pottery from excessive heat during firing
• pug-mill: a machine containing rotating knives in a metal barrel to chop up the clay and force it through a grid into a vacuum chamber
• blunger: a mixer and blender to mix clay and water to ensure homogeneity
• peddling = small, paltry, petty. Presumably it comes from the fact that peddlers sold small goods. This word is nowadays pronounced and spelt 'piddling'.

January 2024; 245 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God