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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
Her quill was truly magical. She laid down beautiful sentences. Felix Holt: the Radical is full of them. The characters are vivid and the scenes boil with action. That being said, it is quite important to understand (and ideally care about) the reform movement in 19th c english politics before embarking on this novel. Sure, you can get through it without a deep understanding. All I knew was that "radicals" were working to allow the citizenry, not just the landed gentry, to have the vote. But I am ignorant of the subtler aspects of the movement As a result, the details relating to government, politics and reform, were tedious for me. I expect political grandstanding from Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens, but not from George Eliot.
And then, after spending much of the middle on the political fight, the story progresses with the reform movement really quite a minor aspect to the love story. It was good. Very good. But in my library of classics, its not a favorite. That being said, there are some scenes that read with the clarity of a dutch master painting.
And then, after spending much of the middle on the political fight, the story progresses with the reform movement really quite a minor aspect to the love story. It was good. Very good. But in my library of classics, its not a favorite. That being said, there are some scenes that read with the clarity of a dutch master painting.
My only previous experience with George Eliot was an abortive attempt to read Middlemarch back in the day, so Eliot has since become one of my literary white whales, if you will. So: yo. I finally finished an Eliot. I didn’t even mind it! That’s already a success.
And granted, Felix Holt: The Radical may not be the typical way in to Eliot, but the rich-man-turned-standing-Radical-for-opportunistic-reasons vs. the stolidly-working-class, disaffected-grumpy-good-man-with-high-morals kinda had me as a draw. The book also started off with a great depiction of Mrs. Transome, a jaded harridan of a mother and old lady, so it started off strong.
But man, the pacing was sloooow. The elements of the plot (Esther & her heritage & all the secrets & the election/riots) started taking actual form far too late in the novel, and sadly I did not jive with George Eliot’s writing the way I’ve connected with other classic novelists. There are some great lines and she draws characters quite well, but it feels almost didactic in tone, and there’s so much detail about religion/Dissenters/the political machinations of the time that I didn’t know enough about to fully enjoy, so it feels markedly less ~fun and entertaining than the VE authors I enjoy. If I had to give comp titles, this is a bit North & South and a bit A Tale of Two Cities?? And I liked both of those better than this.
So while I didn’t love it, I’ll probably give George Eliot another chance someday. Just... not yet.
And granted, Felix Holt: The Radical may not be the typical way in to Eliot, but the rich-man-turned-standing-Radical-for-opportunistic-reasons vs. the stolidly-working-class, disaffected-grumpy-good-man-with-high-morals kinda had me as a draw. The book also started off with a great depiction of Mrs. Transome, a jaded harridan of a mother and old lady, so it started off strong.
But man, the pacing was sloooow. The elements of the plot (Esther & her heritage & all the secrets & the election/riots) started taking actual form far too late in the novel, and sadly I did not jive with George Eliot’s writing the way I’ve connected with other classic novelists. There are some great lines and she draws characters quite well, but it feels almost didactic in tone, and there’s so much detail about religion/Dissenters/the political machinations of the time that I didn’t know enough about to fully enjoy, so it feels markedly less ~fun and entertaining than the VE authors I enjoy. If I had to give comp titles, this is a bit North & South and a bit A Tale of Two Cities?? And I liked both of those better than this.
So while I didn’t love it, I’ll probably give George Eliot another chance someday. Just... not yet.
I was LOVE LOVE LOVing Felix Holt, the Radical, till the end.
In Felix, Eliot is as observant as and funny as Trollope, as sharp and satirical as Austen, but also reveals a serious vein generally absent from Trollope and Austen.
Trollope and Austen express great sympathy for what is oft summed up as “the lot of women,” but Eliot, through one character in particular, rages against patriarchy, though of course, she does not use the term. And she does so in a skillful way that flows naturally from the narrative, as opposed to the didacticism of, say, Kingsolver.
Eliot does a great job of examining church politics—like Trollope in Barchester Towers—but looks at the issue of state-sponsored religion (Trollope deals with The Oxford Movement). She doesn’t look into Parliament or the development of policy, but she does a great job of capturing the rough and tumble of parliamentary campaigns.
Eliot sets a terrific course for the narrative. My issue with it is that she gives up on it. She sets up a great pair of dramatic turns but abandons them with a kind of fast-forward so that although we know the results of the resolutions to the problems, we have no clue as to how they were resolved.
I still think it is worth reading for the expressions of feminism and other progressive views.
In Felix, Eliot is as observant as and funny as Trollope, as sharp and satirical as Austen, but also reveals a serious vein generally absent from Trollope and Austen.
Trollope and Austen express great sympathy for what is oft summed up as “the lot of women,” but Eliot, through one character in particular, rages against patriarchy, though of course, she does not use the term. And she does so in a skillful way that flows naturally from the narrative, as opposed to the didacticism of, say, Kingsolver.
Eliot does a great job of examining church politics—like Trollope in Barchester Towers—but looks at the issue of state-sponsored religion (Trollope deals with The Oxford Movement). She doesn’t look into Parliament or the development of policy, but she does a great job of capturing the rough and tumble of parliamentary campaigns.
Eliot sets a terrific course for the narrative. My issue with it is that she gives up on it. She sets up a great pair of dramatic turns but abandons them with a kind of fast-forward so that although we know the results of the resolutions to the problems, we have no clue as to how they were resolved.
I still think it is worth reading for the expressions of feminism and other progressive views.
3.5* — wished there was more focus on Felix and Esther with less on the town politics. Still enjoyable, though!
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
funny
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you read just one George Eliot, read this. A great story, with plot twists and turns, and characters along with an historical background.
Towards the end of this long but intensely interesting narrative, the reader is told exactly how much time has passed since the first of the many events of the story. The narrator sounded surprised at how brief a period it had been, and I was surprised too because I'd been reading this book for quite a while and I'd come to associate it with the passing of a considerable period of time. That was partly due to the many events that occurred in my own life while I'd been reading about Felix Holt's life, but also to the fact that I'd read two books by Ali Smith in the meantime. [b:Felix Holt|866301|Felix Holt The Radical|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348177400s/866301.jpg|1513414] had had to wait calmly in the background while I helterskeltered through Smith's [b:Autumn|28446947|Autumn|Ali Smith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1456560519s/28446947.jpg|48572278] and [b:Winter|34516974|Winter|Ali Smith|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1498905680s/34516974.jpg|55647867].
The contrast between Smith's twenty-first century urban Britain and the rural world of George Eliot's 19th century Loamshire couldn't be more stark at first glance but it has occurred to me on finishing [b:Felix Holt|866301|Felix Holt The Radical|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348177400s/866301.jpg|1513414] that it and Ali Smith's Seasonal series are not so very different after all. One of the key events in Eliot's novel concerns the election of a candidate to parliament. This was a time before universal suffrage so only the small number of men who owned land or property had votes. However election agents often roused great mobs of landless people to demonstrate in favour of a particular candidate. In this way, people with no vote managed to have an influence on the outcome of elections. The mobs might have had only the barest notions about the candidate's policies, but, inflamed by free drink and scurrilous handbills circulated by the election agents, they could make such a clamor in support of the agent's favourite, and against the opposition, that they could sway the course of the voting.
Ali Smith's Seasonal series touches on a voting issue too, the referendum that resulted in Britain leaving the European Union. Though every adult citizen in Britain now has a vote, it could be argued that many of the voters had only a partial understanding of what they were voting for and were manipulated by the twenty-first century equivalent of the 'election agent' and their clever use of media. We have come a long way from handbills and free drinks but people are still as open to influence from misleading headlines as ever they were. Election results are still controlled by small groups of powerful people.
The other overlap between this Eliot novel and the Smith books concerns the role of women in the narrative. Readers who are familiar with Ali Smith know that her main characters are invariably woman - but making the main character a woman is not a given in the case of George Eliot. She has several books in which the main focus is on a male character: [b:Silas Marner|54539|Silas Marner|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347323528s/54539.jpg|3049535], for example, and [b:Adam Bede|20563|Adam Bede|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1167298252s/20563.jpg|21503633] and [b:Daniel Deronda|304|Daniel Deronda|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320432000s/304.jpg|313957]. But while this book is named after a male character, Eliot's story is predominantly about a female character, Esther Lyon. Felix Holt is essential to the plot but it is Esther who makes the key choices and decisions that influence all the outcomes.
There are two other important characters in this novel, the parliamentary candidate, Harold Transome, and his mother, the doyenne of Transome Court. Harold strides through the book as if he owns it but it is his mother who holds the controls of his life. His decisions become meaningless in the face of hers.
We know that in the mid-nineteenth century, women, even if they owned land or property, didn't have the right to vote, and that they had little power over their own lives. Husbands were chosen for them by their fathers and everything thereafter was chosen by their husbands, or eventually by their sons. George Eliot presents us here with two rare cases of women who refuse to let fathers, husbands or sons decide for them - for better or for worse...
The contrast between Smith's twenty-first century urban Britain and the rural world of George Eliot's 19th century Loamshire couldn't be more stark at first glance but it has occurred to me on finishing [b:Felix Holt|866301|Felix Holt The Radical|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348177400s/866301.jpg|1513414] that it and Ali Smith's Seasonal series are not so very different after all. One of the key events in Eliot's novel concerns the election of a candidate to parliament. This was a time before universal suffrage so only the small number of men who owned land or property had votes. However election agents often roused great mobs of landless people to demonstrate in favour of a particular candidate. In this way, people with no vote managed to have an influence on the outcome of elections. The mobs might have had only the barest notions about the candidate's policies, but, inflamed by free drink and scurrilous handbills circulated by the election agents, they could make such a clamor in support of the agent's favourite, and against the opposition, that they could sway the course of the voting.
Ali Smith's Seasonal series touches on a voting issue too, the referendum that resulted in Britain leaving the European Union. Though every adult citizen in Britain now has a vote, it could be argued that many of the voters had only a partial understanding of what they were voting for and were manipulated by the twenty-first century equivalent of the 'election agent' and their clever use of media. We have come a long way from handbills and free drinks but people are still as open to influence from misleading headlines as ever they were. Election results are still controlled by small groups of powerful people.
The other overlap between this Eliot novel and the Smith books concerns the role of women in the narrative. Readers who are familiar with Ali Smith know that her main characters are invariably woman - but making the main character a woman is not a given in the case of George Eliot. She has several books in which the main focus is on a male character: [b:Silas Marner|54539|Silas Marner|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347323528s/54539.jpg|3049535], for example, and [b:Adam Bede|20563|Adam Bede|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1167298252s/20563.jpg|21503633] and [b:Daniel Deronda|304|Daniel Deronda|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320432000s/304.jpg|313957]. But while this book is named after a male character, Eliot's story is predominantly about a female character, Esther Lyon. Felix Holt is essential to the plot but it is Esther who makes the key choices and decisions that influence all the outcomes.
There are two other important characters in this novel, the parliamentary candidate, Harold Transome, and his mother, the doyenne of Transome Court. Harold strides through the book as if he owns it but it is his mother who holds the controls of his life. His decisions become meaningless in the face of hers.
We know that in the mid-nineteenth century, women, even if they owned land or property, didn't have the right to vote, and that they had little power over their own lives. Husbands were chosen for them by their fathers and everything thereafter was chosen by their husbands, or eventually by their sons. George Eliot presents us here with two rare cases of women who refuse to let fathers, husbands or sons decide for them - for better or for worse...
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Somewhat similar to Adam Bede, which surprised me since most of her novels are quite different.
My ranking of Eliot’s novels, from best to worst:
My ranking of Eliot’s novels, from best to worst:
- Middlemarch
- Daniel Deronda
- Silas Marner
- The Mill on the Floss
- Adam Bede / Felix Holt (tie)
- Romola
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Misogyny, Sexism