I really enjoyed this book about Muriel who grows up in a Yorkshire town in the early 20th century thinking that doing your duty is the most important thing a young woman can do and that involves getting married, but she is constantly feeling that she's failing at that. It takes ten years, the Great War and its changes to attitudes to women's abilities, a tragedy involving her sister and a friend needing help before she can see a way out to become a person in her own right. ( )

Another odd but interesting book, this time the painstaking account of a life in which almost nothing happens, identity is passivity, resistance to convention is futile and unimaginable, and everything is inutterably dreary and worthless...until nearly the final chapter (of the book - not necessarily of the life!). Details to follow.

Muriel Hammond is the odd one out; neither handsome, clever, nor rich, it would appear; the girl brought up to be the wife that nobody wants. The Crowded Street is mostly both sad and frustrating, as Muriel fails to escape and really fails to do anything very much other than to be a severe disappointment to her mother. Hope comes in the end with female solidarity and empowerment - thankfully, as otherwise the stultifying air of bourgeoise disappointment would be utterly unreadable. An awful warning, but not without an open window at the end..

I'd listened to the BBC radio adaptation of The Crowded Street a few years ago and thought it a really good story about the plight of girls who have been brought up thinking there isn't any life worth living without marriage. I read it then as an interesting piece of women's history in fiction form - it was vivid and beautifully written but not something that resonated with my personal life.
I've just finished reading the book now that I find myself in a situation very similar to that of Muriel, the main character, as I'm about to end the most fulfilling relationship I've had to pursue a career.
The end of the novel is particularly poignant as Muriel realizes that happiness, not marriage, should be her goal in life 'I can't be a good wife until I've learnt to be a person, and perhaps in the end I'll never be a wife at all. But it doesn't matter. The thing that matters is to take your life into your own hands and live it, following the highest vision as you see it.' I hope I too will 'have the courage to face the happiness I might have known' and follow my vision as I see it, for better or worse.
This book is really dear to me, I'm very grateful I was able to finish it at this moment of my life. In a way, I like to think that The Crowded Street closes a chapter of my life and that South Riding picks up right after. That I had Muriel's realization that one must follows one's dreams only to become Sarah, fulfilling her vision of education as a headmistress. Only time will tell. ( )

The Crowded Street was Winifred Holtby’s second novel published when the author was 26. In it Winifred Holtby examines closely the lot of young women, expected to marry, and watched endlessly by society. At the centre of the novel is Muriel Hammond the eldest of two daughters, her mother’s one ambition for her is that she marries. Muriel firmly believes that
“Men do as they like” while women “wait to see what they will do” The rather sad figure of her unmarried Aunt Beatrice is a warning of what awaits her should she not manage to achieve the ultimate prize of a husband.

When we first meet Muriel she is 11 – attending her first party with almost breathless anticipation – where she must fill her dance card and behave beautifully in front of the watching eyes of Marshington’s mothers.

“All the way to Kingsport, dangling her legs from the box seat of the brougham – she always rode outside with Turner, because to ride inside made her sick – Muriel had watched the thin slip of a moon ride with her above the dark rim of the wolds, and she had sung softly to herself and to the moon and to Victoria, the old carriage horse, “I’m going to the Party, the Party, the Party.” And here she was.”

Unfortunately Muriel’s first taste of Marshington society is not a success – and the poor girl goes home in disgrace. This disastrous beginning sets the tone for the next 20 years. Muriel is shy, lacking confidence she worries too much what society thinks of her. At the start of the first world war Muriel falls for local god Godfrey Neale – but he seems to remain forever just out of reach. Meanwhile Muriel’s younger sister Connie strains to break free of the ties that bind her to the suffocating atmosphere of home and Marshington by taking a job as a land girl on a farm. It is here however that Connie’s attempt to make a life for herself brings potential scandal to the Hammond’s door and leads ultimately to disaster.

Winifred Holtby’s story of Muriel Hammond in Yorkshire at the beginning of the twentieth century – is not dealt with in the conventional way. Like Connie – although in a different way – Muriel is allowed to be master of her own destiny. Her fate is different to that of her aunt and sister, but not what her mother has spent years dreaming of. Writing in the 1920’s Winfred Holtby believed that women should have their own work, be allowed to strike out and create lives for themselves.
Winifred Holtby’s great friend Vera Brittain’s work Testament of Youth is said to have been great inspiration for The Crowded Street. I’ve not read Testament of Youth – one day I must. I love Winifred Holtby – and although I had read this one once before – a long time ago – I remembered little of it, except for poor Muriel’s first party. This is a wonderful novel and I found Muriel an engaging and sympathetic character. ( )