Book Review: The
Dwelling, by Catherine Cookson.
Review by Melody Scott
The Dwelling is a story about how it’s possible to overcome
an adverse life.
I loved the “voice” of the story, which includes the
“gutter” dialogue between half the characters.
It seemed
to have several stories interlaced into one book. The beginning of a family of 18 children and
two parents in early England
The story
begins after nine of the children, the mother and the father have all died from
the current rash of Cholera. Nine
children, the oldest one 14 are huddled together in a house where they were
evicted from, since the father held the use of the house as long as he was
alive. With his death went the rights to
the company house.
The options
the children had were all awful--from workhouses to indentured servants, and
the gallant eldest, Cissie, refused to separate the family. It seems the elder boys who worked alongside
the father were among the nine who died.
Two boys, nine and ten were useable, but only for conditions like death
traps.
It seemed
to be constant winter with the second main goal was to figure a way for the
last nine to not freeze. Cissie found a
cave in the side of the “fells,” which I never figured out. I assume a cliff face above swampland. She took everything from the house they
children could manipulate and moved into this cave. It was very tiny for nine, but it was deep
and rather out of the weather.
The
kindnesses they received were few and far between, the cruelty and selfishness
they confronted daily was rampant.
The fellow
who saved them from starvation pinched foods from the mill-owner’s daughter,
who was homely and about whom he didn’t care for particularly. They just had good manners with each
other. This Matthew sacrificed himself
to marry the millowner’s daughter in order that he could keep his true love
(Cissie) from starvation. I think this
guy was the hero of the story, even though things changed regarding that issue
later in the book.
As soon as
the reader felt these people are going to be okay, something else would happen
to make things even worse, as life sometimes spins out of control.
The hard to
believe part was how a person who had actually raped a young girl and caused a
pregnancy could end up being the one the girl fell in love with.
Even if he had
supposedly grown up to be a decent man. The child from the rape became as a pawn between divorcees--who
would raise him, who would have what rights, etc. Cissie, for her part, agreed to never see the
child again in exchange for keeping her brat sister out of jail for stealing,
and sealing a deal for pay to keep the rest of them alive, clothed and in a
house of her choice.
Well, life
became full circle. The huge number of
conflicts, with no outcome being a good choice but only the best of the worst,
Cissie bumbled through, keeping all the children together as she had said, in a
cave the children shored up with rocks
mud and industry, i.e. the Dwelling.
This story
brought out the class differences, the hardscrabble life with a dirt floor.
You were either born into the gentry or you were not claimed
by them as humans with needs. They were seen
as somewhere between a dog and a slave.
How could a fine
family even live with a homeless person in their house? Yet the unfortunates waited on them hand and
foot, with ten more ready to take their places if they messed up or even looked
like they might mess up.
It was an
excellent read, though the premise I mention above seemed unlikely.
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