Love On The Dole
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Product Description
Times Literary Supplement
...novel...stands very high, but it is in its qualities as a 'social document' that its great value lies
Book Description
'As a novel it stands very high, but it is in its qualities as a "social document" that its great value lies' Times Literary Supplement
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gritty realism from depression era Salford,
By A Customer
This review is from: Love On The Dole (Paperback)
Love on the Dole, published in 1933, was Walter Greenwood's first novel and has never been out of print since. Written on scraps of paper as he tramped the streets looking for work, it has since been made into a film, a play and a musical. Set in Hanky Park, a fictional area of Salford during the depression, the novel was the literary bombshell of its day and the prototype for the 'kitchen sink' school of writing. The gritty realism he depicts of clogged rows of back-to-back houses, pawnshops, gas lights and debt, louse ridden people reveals Greenwoods's burning desire to document the social injustices of the time. He is probably the only English novelist since Dickens who was able to combine true mass appeal with passionate radicalism and bitterly honest documentation with writing of high artistic quality. What makes this book a classic, however, is that simple but elusive art of telling a good story and getting the characters right. The book combines personal documentation and outrage with storylines and situations that belong to the novels of the romantic era. Harry and Sally Hardcastle are growing up in grinding poverty but Sally sees a way out by taking up with local crook Sam Grundy. This beauty and the beast relationship is interwoven with that of Larry Meath, our gallant but doomed hero. Everyone who passes in and out of the storyline, from pawnbrokers to petty officials, are all described in convincing everyday detail and all display universal attitudes and fundamental choices. In Love on the Dole, Walter Greenwood eloquently and amusingly depicts an era that is alien to us today. But in our society of mass consumerism and full supermarket shelves it is too easy to forget that not that long ago people did not even have the means to feed themselves. These injustices should not be forgotten and the book should be required reading for all schoolchildren.
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
not the best edition,
By
This review is from: Love On The Dole (Paperback)
The book is wonderful and should be read. Unfortunately the Vintage edition omits the epigraphs at the beginning which indicate the novel's revolutionary analysis of society. Students buying this edition need to find an older edition and photocopy the relevant page - or, better still, look for a second-hand Penguin copy instead.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Walter Greenwood - Love on the Dole,
By
This review is from: Love On The Dole (Paperback)
I get the impression that this is one of those novels that could easily catch on again soon in a big way, catching the crest of a wave of social malcontent. It has that kind of feel. Certainly it is very interesting to read in light of the recent financial climate - joblessness, hard times, premonited doom; above all, toil, struggle. Certainly, to be worse off now is probably preferable to being worse off during the time of this novel, but still.
Love on the Dole is a fantastic book. It tells of the struggle of ordinary working class people striving endlessly through life. It has that Dickensian feel of being on the pulse of the normal man in the street, and it also proves that Greenwood (like similar writer's like Patrick Hamilton) is able to write very complex emotions and philisophies in simple ways. The common man expresses himself not eloquently but still beautifully - the constant ruings of fate and the way things are are written i such a way as to strike deep in the stomach. It's a novel of the gut and heart, this. It tells a fantastic story - that of the loves of brother and sister sally and harry hardcastle, through an impossible haze of poverty and worry and constant threat of things getting even worse. It is heartwarming and it is occasionally greatly saddening. It's a rich read. One of the things that stands out most is the wonderful dislogue: the vernacular is a joy to read, a pure pleasure. it needs careful reading, but it's a great feeling to be able to hear so distinctly the voices of the characters in your head. I recommend this novel very highly indeed. As a novel it's a great story, and it wrenches, and as a slice of British social history I think it's probably invaluable. Excellent.
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