This has been on my to-read list most of my adult life and fearing it might come into the category of ‘worthy but dull’ , I remained a ‘ Ragged’ virgin until last month. What I have missed! It is such an inspirational book. I read the original edition and yes, it is a little repetitive at times but it is written with such a force of passion that I found it a very emotional experience. Set in the late Edwardian period, raging against appalling inequality and injustice, its theme resonates across the century. How very depressing!
There is no room for any post- modernist alternative reality in this book although it is no mere tract, but a novel with vivid characters and literary merits. That Tressell wrote it in the evenings while working 50+ hours a week as a painter/decorator and in poor health since contracting TB a few years earlier, makes it an achievement of Herculean dimensions. He died before finding a publisher and went to a pauper’s grave but at least it provided for his beloved orphaned daughter, Kathleen. On publication, the book was subject to some savage editing and did not appear as written until the 50s.
The novel draws on many autobiographical details as it concerns a group of painter/decorators working in a town in the South. A new worker Owen(Tressell) joins Rushton’s firm and as a committed socialist, tries to persuade his workmates not to believe the lies in their ‘ Obscurer’ newpaper and that their lives can be better. These are the philanthropists who work hard in dreadful conditions only to suffer deprivation and suffering in the cause of great profits for an ungrateful, abusive employer. Tressell/Owen rails against the stupidity and perversity of such philanthropists. At his most despairing, Owen contemplates suicide and the mercy killing of his beloved (and impossibly precocious) son rather than continuing to exist in such a life. When the book was first published, this is how the novel ends but Tressell wrote a more hopeful ending with Owen looking forward to the future when the heartless system would surely implode.
It is clear that Tressell admired the work of Dickens and he tries to emulate his use of name caricatures for the villainous characters. There is a a decent upper class character, Barrington in the novel – also reminiscent of Dickens. I found these homages very endearing.
As the British electorate have just chosen a Government that promises to be the most ruthless and efficient at cutting their public services, there are still many philanthropists around; their trousers are badly-fitting, cheap and from Primark rather than ragged. Some progress!
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Moira this has been on my to-read list as well for as long as I can remember. I have an early hardback copy with a beautiful dust jacket and illustrated boards which, from what you say, must be an edited version. I didn’t know there was a later, more complete edition. I have always found myself putting off reading it partly because I have always had the notion it was a very ‘worthy’ novel, an illusion your review goes a long way to dispel, and partly because people I know who have read it seemed to have had very mixed reactions to it. If only someone had suggested there was a Dickens connection earlier I might have read it by now.
Richard – nice to hear from you. You might be outraged that he deigns to aspire to Dickensian devices. I didn’t say he gives a good account of himself in this regard., only that I found it touching in its naive enthusiasm. As always, I would value your opinion.