So—what did people think?  I enjoyed this book a lot; I don’t think it was a structural masterpiece or that it all hung together perfectly, but the book had a lot of fun energy to it, and I certainly liked reading about a woman taking the publishing world by storm.  I was most struck by Fern’s short chapters and the disjointed feel of the book—did you like that or find it jarring?

I found the book only so-so. I didn’t find it disjointed at all, though I did find the short chapters made it hard to want to keep reading for any length of time. Combined with the depressing middle section of the book it got kind of hard to keep going for a bit. As if Ruth being reduced to poverty wasn’t enough, Katy had to be taken away and Nettie and Ruth made to live on bread and milk! I did like the drama of Ruth sweeping in and rescuing Katy. That was fun. I only wish Ruth would have slapped Mrs. Hall, that would have been icing on the cake of that scene!

It did get very dark in the middle there.  I guess I began wondering just how far she would take all the tragedy and just how she would turn things around, and that made it interesting for me.  To me, it seemed to be a serious novel and not a serious novel at the same time.  I thought Fern was very serious about Ruth’s writing and her critique of the newspaper publishing world.  But so much else was comic—there was so much satire of how ridiculous people can be. All the horrible in-laws and family members—they were really horrible and Ruth suffered because of them—but overall I thought their portrayal was funny and another part of the satire.  Even all the suffering Ruth experienced was a little hard to take seriously, as I knew it would end at some point.  I thought the most serious bit was about the power Ruth found when she began writing.

Ruth certainly did find power when she began writing. Do you think though that Fern undermines that power when she has Ruth say (when Mr. Walker suggests the punning Nettie might be a writer like her mother) “God forbid” because “no happy woman ever writes.” It seems an odd thing to say given Fern’s own fame. It implies to me that women only write out of necessity otherwise they are happily married which is the preferred state of being. It undermines the whole message of the book, that a woman can take care of herself and her children without anyone’s help.

Hi all! I’m definitely going to post on this book - I’m enjoying it a lot, and I agree with so much that’s been said here - particularly about this being serious and not serious at the same time. I also found the tragic middle section very sad and kept skipping ahead to see how long it would be before the wheel of fortune turned for poor Ruth! The writing question is interesting as it certainly doesn’t arise as an artistic vocation, only as something Ruth physically could do within the constraints of her society. Then she seems to find her niche, as it’s a place where she can be honest and she evidently needs to pour her heart out and (implicitly) have her suffering witnessed. In this way she touches her audience (I wish my copy had some articles by Fanny Fern in the back - I’d love to know what she actually did write). Where I’m more confused is the religious angle. It may be that God takes pity on Ruth and her children out of their goodness, but He certainly doesn’t send any thunderbolts to those who are mean-spirited and just plain mean. The religious context must be very much of its time - any idea how I should understand it?

I’m still reading, but I hope to finish in a day or so.  I thought I would just be able to fly through it seeing how short the chapters were, but I did sort of find them a little jarring.  The story is uniform, yet each chapter is really almost complete in itself, and I found it very easy to set this aside and pick something else up instead.  I wasn’t sure how I felt at first about the story, but now that I am reading more steadily I am enjoying it.  Those families are awful though.  They are almost caricatures, but I guess that is the satire coming through.  Just out of curiosity--and you probably know Dorothy since you’ve read so widely in this period--how does this story compare to British books?  Is the heroine pretty typical for period?

I’m looking forward to seeing Ruth fight back (I take it none of the nasty people get any sort of comeuppance?), as she is still on the weepy side. 

How could her husband leave her so ill equipped to survive on her own?!  I guess his sickness was too quick?

I’ve just finished it, and I’m a bit hazy about certain details - like the poverty Ruth encounters after Harry’s death. Is the idea that his business affairs happen to go bad whilst he is ill? And can someone tell me who the Millets are? I know they are family but I have no idea how they are related.

Stefanie—yeah, Ruth’s statement about writing is odd and does seem to undermine other ideas in the book.  I suppose this contradiction could express some ambivalence Fern felt about writing?  For me, the power and money and satisfaction Ruth got from her writing stood out more strongly than her statement about no happy woman writing, so the overall thrust of the book is more about how writing can empower women.  But there is definitely some ambivalence there.

Hmmm ... I just read in my introduction that Fern argued that women shouldn’t be too quick to give up financial independence for marriage.  Perhaps she gave that line to Ruth to make conservative critics happy?  I’m not sure. 

Danielle—Ruth seems similar to other British heroines in her modesty, her happiness with family, her vulnerability, her sentimentality.  She has a business sense that seems atypical, though—it takes her a while to start earning what she’s worth, but she does make some decisions along the way that show she can be business savvy.  I don’t think there are many heroines that become famous writers either—maybe I’m forgetting some, but it seems like too public a profession for a novel heroine (in spite of the fact that many of the novelists were women!).

Litlove—well, I didn’t give a thought to religion while I was reading, which is interesting in and of itself, I suppose, but I’m not sure if it says more about me or the book!  My very useful introduction has this to say about religion:

“[Fern’s father] was a strict Calvinist and deacon of the Park Street Church, called ‘Brimstone Corner’ in part because of the fiery sermons that issued from its pulpit.  Deacon Willis, as he was commonly called, frowned on dancing and other ‘ungodly’ pursuits, and worried that his spirited daughter Sara [Fanny Fern] was not sufficiently serious or fearful of God’s wrath.  In later years she wrote ‘The God my eyes see, is not a tyrant, driving his creatures to heaven through fear of hell’.  Her God was a nurturing maternal figure rather than a wrathful patriarch.”

So I guess this God is not the sort to send any thunderbolts!

I agree Dorothy that the God in the book is not the kind to send thunderbolts even to the two sets of parents for whom attending church and being godly is all about appearances rather than faith. But Ruth get help from God and the rest of the family doesn’t. They are rich but they are really miserable and always afraid of what they might lose. Ruth is also painted as rather saintly and I think if the bad people got thunderbolts it would force Ruth into the position of having to be kind and giving to them and then we’d have an entirely different book because of it.

Sorry I’m late to the discussion but I finally finished the book. I liked it for the most part but I had some questions and thoughts about while I was reading it.

The main thing is that I wish we’d had a sample of one of the stories Ruth published. It was interesting to see her rise to fame in the literary world but I kept wishing we could read these articles that were even bringing her marriage proposals and such!

The other thing is does anyone know how long of time between Harry’s death and the end of the book? At times Katy & Nettie sound so young but I’m assuming it was several years that passed by…

I wish there had been an example or two of Floy’s articles or at least a character or two talking about them in more detail. I got the impression that Harry’s death and the end of the book was perhaps a year or two.

Yeah, it seems that any editor of this book should at least include some of Fanny Fern’s articles, which I suppose are supposed to be like Ruth Hall’s, although it does seem like Fern’s writing is a little too rambunctious and daring for Ruth Hall.  Since it’s such an autobiographical book, it’s amusing that Fern is praising herself, essentially, through Ruth Hall and does it so blatantly.  But good for her!

I think, as I mentioned on Litlove’s post, if I had been able to keep in mind as I read this was an autobiographical novel, I would have found the humor in it as you did Dorothy. That phrenology chapter instead of dragging on and on probably would have had me laughing as Fern gave an assessment of her character via Ruth’s reading. Okay, maybe not laughing, but at least mildly entertained