Sylvia's Lovers

This is a mature and engaging work by a fine novelist. Taking the operations of England's press gangs around the turn of the eighteenth century as a point of departure, the author builds a suspenseful and moving story. (The story is not as lurid as the title might imply to today's sensibility.)

In spite of the racy title, this book has no sex in it whatsoever. It was written in a simpler time (the Victorian age), when Lovers meant people who loved someone and desired to court them in a purely innocent way. So, if you're looking for salacious writing, you've come to the wrong place. I've recently developed a keen interest in Elizabeth Gaskell. I saw two mini-series based on her books "Wives and Daughters" and "Cranfield" (I immediately bought the DVDs). Since then I've read a few of her novels: Wives and Daughters, North and South, and now Sylvia's Lovers. I love the way this author looks into the hearts of her characters. There are no villains, just people who struggle to find happiness. Sometimes in the process, they might harm others, but it is rarely malicious. Some of her characters are truly saintly in their efforts to do the right thing. You go away feeling as if you know every character better than you know yourself. Elizabeth Gaskell has amazing human insight. This story is not a romance. It is a redemption tale, beginning with establishing relationships and dynamics between characters, it progresses through tragedy and unexpected character development, to the end when moral courage triumphs over romance. This is not a story that could be told today, when romance always triumphs, but it is far wiser than any mere romance. It is a tale of moral courage.

classic female lit. Sylvia's Lovers sounds lurid, but it is 1800's innocent. A woman has to choose between two men.

In this bleak novel Elizabeth Gaskell deftly weaves a dark thread of history into her narrative tapestry. While war hovers on the margins of the novel, no one is left unaffected by its horror. After a sometimes painfully slow setup of domestic life in the seaside town of Monkshaven in the first third of the book, the sense of doom grows increasingly palpable. Sylvia, the novel's heroine, is isolated by her supposedly protective domestic sphere, but Gaskell shatters the delicate domestic circle that surrounds her. While Sylvia is left to bear emotional scars, becoming an impassive, hardened woman, Charley Kinraid, her true love, returns from war a ghost, haunting the margins of Monkshaven to hide his terrible physical scars. The full realization of the blight on Sylvia's life comes when the novel spirals down to its inevitable conclusion, where even reconciliation and understanding brings a powerful sense of loss.