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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
This is a collection of three stories set in and around a fictional town in the middle of England somewhat resembling Nuneaton, where the author grew up. There can be no doubt when you read them that you are being treated to something very different and very special. They are intensely literary and the author’s genius shines through in every sentence. Her confidence is apparent from the start and it’s obvious that the short story form is too confining for her. As she develops her themes she craves more space. She has too much to say. Each story is longer than the last, and the range and depth increase so rapidly that the fourth “scene” that she planned to write will no longer fit and instead becomes her first novel, Adam Bede.
George Eliot makes it very clear what her ambition is. She aims to present “the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy” of “commonplace people”. Her work is entertaining, funny, sarcastic but it is also a superior form of social commentary, a vehicle for teaching us how to use our imagination to deepen our understanding of the lives of ordinary human beings. It’s a blueprint for the future direction of fiction and the English literary novel.
Her sarcasm can be withering. When the widowed Countess Caroline Czerlaski is forced to walk out of the comfortable house she was sharing with her brother and settle in a room in the vicarage, she flatters herself that in “gracefully overlooking the deficiencies of the accommodation” she was “really behaving charmingly.” We are then treated to a paragraph which is heavy with irony.
Countess Czerlaski’s delusions are shattered by the bold and outspoken criticisms of her host’s Nanny, “the maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper.”
It’s significant that it is the use of her imagination, stimulated by Nanny’s plain speaking, that finally propels the Countess to do the right thing.
It is Amos Barton’s deficient imagination that gets him into trouble with his parishioners, for he is unable to see how his friendship with the Countess might be construed. He is blind, too, to the offence he is causing the most influential of them with his “fertile suggestiveness as to what it would be well for them to do in the matter of the church repairs.”
George Eliot underlines this lack of imagination tellingly when she tells us how he was forced to leave his parish. His poor imagination makes his plight even harder to bear.
The next “scene” takes us back to the latter end of the eighteenth century. It tells the story of a young clergyman and a pretty Italian orphan who is adopted by Sir Christopher Cheverel and brought to live in his manor house in Shepperton. There is a melodramatic twist in Mr Gilfil’s Love-Story, which comes as a shock to the characters and to the reader. Nevertheless Mr Gilfil, the clergyman, draws from it a deeply philosophical conclusion. We are not evil, he tells Caterina, unless we do evil. The utterance is not entirely free of George Eliot’s irony, for Mr Gilfil’s behaviour throughout the story has demonstrated restraint. He hides his feelings until he is at last able to express them without causing harm. Is his behaviour in the end harmful to Caterina Sarti? George Eliot ultimately suggests not. The tragedy for Caterina is that, in spite of her passionate feelings and strong sense of self-worth, everyone in the story treats her to a greater or lesser extent as a ‘black-eyed monkey’, and a ‘little simpleton.’ But George Eliot’s empathy, humanity and compassion are everywhere in evidence. For her, deep passionate love, early sorrow and quiescent old age are just part of the human landscape. Mr Gilfil, we are told, “had been sketched out by nature as a noble tree” and his love for Caterina is presented as a bright spot in a wholly respectable and good life.
The third “scene”, Janet’s Repentance, is really a short novel. It is dense with ideas and characters. Some of these ideas can be hard for us to understand since they are to do with variations in Christian teaching that fractured the Church of England in the nineteenth century. These doctrines are the cause of deep divisions even in the small town of Milby, where dissent was “of a lax and indifferent kind” and where “many of the middle-aged inhabitants, male and female, often found it impossible to keep up their spirits without a very abundant supply of stimulants.” The factions engage in a “sort of warfare”, “poisoned with calumny”, which causes “ugly stories” to circulate and much of the story is told through the gossip of its characters.
The catalyst for the events in the story is the arrival of Mr. Edgar Tryan, who is the first clergyman to bring the infection of Evangelicalism to the town. The town divides into “two zealous parties, the Tryanites and the anti-Tryanites.”
Janet is married to the anti-Tryanite ringleader, Robert Dempster, a drunken lawyer who breaks out into violence and drives his carriage too fast, “flogging his galloping horse like a madman.”
Janet, who married him in spite of the opposition of her friends, is seen as a good woman even though she, too, needs to drink. “When a woman can’t think of her husband coming home without trembling, it’s enough to make her drink something to blunt her feelings…” Even Mr. Tryan has noticed that Janet “is really an interesting-looking woman” and “goes among the poor a good deal.”
The tragic circumstances that are to come are already foreshadowed in the gossip of the townsfolk but George Eliot unfolds the details of the plot with extraordinary insight, sensitivity and skill. The story is laced with dark humour and her authorial voice can sometimes be surprisingly sharp and almost cruel. But the warmth of her compassion always comes to the fore in the most poignant parts of the story and we are reminded, in the end, of her purpose to reveal the poetry as well as the tragedy in the lives of ordinary people.
George Eliot often addresses us as her equals. Of course, we are not. Even such notable writers as Elizabeth Gaskell felt humbled by the forceful imagination George Eliot unleashed in these stories. “I think I have a feeling,” she wrote in a letter in 1863, “that it is not worth while trying to write, while there are such books as Adam Bede and Scenes of Clerical Life — I set Janet’s Repentance above all, still.”
I think Elizabeth Gaskell was right. This is a very fine book and a truly astonishing debut.
George Eliot makes it very clear what her ambition is. She aims to present “the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy” of “commonplace people”. Her work is entertaining, funny, sarcastic but it is also a superior form of social commentary, a vehicle for teaching us how to use our imagination to deepen our understanding of the lives of ordinary human beings. It’s a blueprint for the future direction of fiction and the English literary novel.
Her sarcasm can be withering. When the widowed Countess Caroline Czerlaski is forced to walk out of the comfortable house she was sharing with her brother and settle in a room in the vicarage, she flatters herself that in “gracefully overlooking the deficiencies of the accommodation” she was “really behaving charmingly.” We are then treated to a paragraph which is heavy with irony.
“So, though she lay in bed till ten, and came down to a separate breakfast at eleven, she kindly consented to dine as early as five, when a hot joint was prepared, which coldly furnished forth the children’s table the next day; she considerately prevented Milly from devoting herself too closely to the children, by insisting on reading, talking, and walking with her; and she even began to embroider a cap for the next baby, which must certainly be a girl, and be named Caroline.”
Countess Czerlaski’s delusions are shattered by the bold and outspoken criticisms of her host’s Nanny, “the maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper.”
“The Countess was stunned for a few minutes, but when she began to recall Nanny’s words, there was no possibility of avoiding very unpleasant conclusions from them, or of failing to see her position at the Vicarage in an entirely new light. The interpretation too of Nanny’s allusion to a ‘bad name’ did not lie out of the reach of her imagination, and she saw the necessity of quitting Shepperton without delay.”
It’s significant that it is the use of her imagination, stimulated by Nanny’s plain speaking, that finally propels the Countess to do the right thing.
It is Amos Barton’s deficient imagination that gets him into trouble with his parishioners, for he is unable to see how his friendship with the Countess might be construed. He is blind, too, to the offence he is causing the most influential of them with his “fertile suggestiveness as to what it would be well for them to do in the matter of the church repairs.”
George Eliot underlines this lack of imagination tellingly when she tells us how he was forced to leave his parish. His poor imagination makes his plight even harder to bear.
“O, it was hard! Just when Shepperton had become the place where he most wished to stay — where he had friends who knew his sorrows — where he lived close to Milly’s grave. To part from that grave seemed like parting with Milly a second time; for Amos was one who clung to all the material links between his mind and the past. His imagination was not vivid, and required the stimulus of actual perception.”
The next “scene” takes us back to the latter end of the eighteenth century. It tells the story of a young clergyman and a pretty Italian orphan who is adopted by Sir Christopher Cheverel and brought to live in his manor house in Shepperton. There is a melodramatic twist in Mr Gilfil’s Love-Story, which comes as a shock to the characters and to the reader. Nevertheless Mr Gilfil, the clergyman, draws from it a deeply philosophical conclusion. We are not evil, he tells Caterina, unless we do evil. The utterance is not entirely free of George Eliot’s irony, for Mr Gilfil’s behaviour throughout the story has demonstrated restraint. He hides his feelings until he is at last able to express them without causing harm. Is his behaviour in the end harmful to Caterina Sarti? George Eliot ultimately suggests not. The tragedy for Caterina is that, in spite of her passionate feelings and strong sense of self-worth, everyone in the story treats her to a greater or lesser extent as a ‘black-eyed monkey’, and a ‘little simpleton.’ But George Eliot’s empathy, humanity and compassion are everywhere in evidence. For her, deep passionate love, early sorrow and quiescent old age are just part of the human landscape. Mr Gilfil, we are told, “had been sketched out by nature as a noble tree” and his love for Caterina is presented as a bright spot in a wholly respectable and good life.
The third “scene”, Janet’s Repentance, is really a short novel. It is dense with ideas and characters. Some of these ideas can be hard for us to understand since they are to do with variations in Christian teaching that fractured the Church of England in the nineteenth century. These doctrines are the cause of deep divisions even in the small town of Milby, where dissent was “of a lax and indifferent kind” and where “many of the middle-aged inhabitants, male and female, often found it impossible to keep up their spirits without a very abundant supply of stimulants.” The factions engage in a “sort of warfare”, “poisoned with calumny”, which causes “ugly stories” to circulate and much of the story is told through the gossip of its characters.
The catalyst for the events in the story is the arrival of Mr. Edgar Tryan, who is the first clergyman to bring the infection of Evangelicalism to the town. The town divides into “two zealous parties, the Tryanites and the anti-Tryanites.”
Janet is married to the anti-Tryanite ringleader, Robert Dempster, a drunken lawyer who breaks out into violence and drives his carriage too fast, “flogging his galloping horse like a madman.”
Janet, who married him in spite of the opposition of her friends, is seen as a good woman even though she, too, needs to drink. “When a woman can’t think of her husband coming home without trembling, it’s enough to make her drink something to blunt her feelings…” Even Mr. Tryan has noticed that Janet “is really an interesting-looking woman” and “goes among the poor a good deal.”
The tragic circumstances that are to come are already foreshadowed in the gossip of the townsfolk but George Eliot unfolds the details of the plot with extraordinary insight, sensitivity and skill. The story is laced with dark humour and her authorial voice can sometimes be surprisingly sharp and almost cruel. But the warmth of her compassion always comes to the fore in the most poignant parts of the story and we are reminded, in the end, of her purpose to reveal the poetry as well as the tragedy in the lives of ordinary people.
George Eliot often addresses us as her equals. Of course, we are not. Even such notable writers as Elizabeth Gaskell felt humbled by the forceful imagination George Eliot unleashed in these stories. “I think I have a feeling,” she wrote in a letter in 1863, “that it is not worth while trying to write, while there are such books as Adam Bede and Scenes of Clerical Life — I set Janet’s Repentance above all, still.”
I think Elizabeth Gaskell was right. This is a very fine book and a truly astonishing debut.
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Once again, Eliot does not disappoint. This one stands out within her (their?) canon for its tongue-in-cheek humour. Eliot revels in poking fun at gender stereotypes by conflating her third-person narrator and the author figure. Very enjoyable.
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is a collection of 3 short stories that go in order of worst to best and shortest to longest.
The shortest story told is about the Reverand Amos who isn't really a fit for the community he serves and is just a sad story that gets sadder. There's a Countess and her brother living in the community who aren't liked by the people of the parish but the Reverand and his wife socialise with. After a falling out with her brother, the Countess moves in with the Reverand, putting an extra toll on their limited income, not helping out and the parish gossips take a mean-spirited view of the Reverand's charity. Thankfully it was the shortest at around 60ish pages so didn't take too long to get through.
The second is another tragedy but at least this one starts with the ending and then goes back so you know how its going. It centres around another Reverand but back centres around his ill-fated love interest from his youth. Can't remember the characters names off hand, but the girl he loves is in love with another who has led her on with no intention of marrying. She spends the novel in emotional distress and although she eventually moves on, she is too 'damaged' from the stress she experienced and dies in childbirth.
The final and longest story is sort of two stories in one. First is about the divisive aspect of a new preacher in town and his different evangelical take on sermons that is not well received by some of the people and then the other story around Janet and her abusive marriage. Although its called Janet's Repentance, Janet doesn't really make an appearance for a good portion of the book.
Although the stories get better as they go along, neither are really that good. As per the title of the novel, they all revolve around characters in a parish, focusing on the clergy leaders. The blurb on the back of the book is pretty misleading, takes a tiny part of the books and acts like its the central focus. Particularly with the second when it talks about the girl walking around with a dagger making it seem like this is a thing she is constantly doing. In actuality she picks it up once in a passionate rage, never uses it and it quietly gets taken from her pretty quickly.
The first two stories are just sad and I'm not someone who likes to read tragedies. The final story at least has a happier ending. The abusive marriage is viewed obviously from a very historical and Christian lens so its not like Janet is just peacing out of there. Her 'repentance' which I hate as a concept, is more just her finding hope and comfort in her religion so that she can deal with her awful husband.
Not really my sort of book but its well written and easy to follow. If the subject matter interests you, you'll probably enjoy it.
The shortest story told is about the Reverand Amos who isn't really a fit for the community he serves and is just a sad story that gets sadder. There's a Countess and her brother living in the community who aren't liked by the people of the parish but the Reverand and his wife socialise with. After a falling out with her brother, the Countess moves in with the Reverand, putting an extra toll on their limited income, not helping out and the parish gossips take a mean-spirited view of the Reverand's charity. Thankfully it was the shortest at around 60ish pages so didn't take too long to get through.
The second is another tragedy but at least this one starts with the ending and then goes back so you know how its going. It centres around another Reverand but back centres around his ill-fated love interest from his youth. Can't remember the characters names off hand, but the girl he loves is in love with another who has led her on with no intention of marrying. She spends the novel in emotional distress and although she eventually moves on, she is too 'damaged' from the stress she experienced and dies in childbirth.
The final and longest story is sort of two stories in one. First is about the divisive aspect of a new preacher in town and his different evangelical take on sermons that is not well received by some of the people and then the other story around Janet and her abusive marriage. Although its called Janet's Repentance, Janet doesn't really make an appearance for a good portion of the book.
Although the stories get better as they go along, neither are really that good. As per the title of the novel, they all revolve around characters in a parish, focusing on the clergy leaders. The blurb on the back of the book is pretty misleading, takes a tiny part of the books and acts like its the central focus. Particularly with the second when it talks about the girl walking around with a dagger making it seem like this is a thing she is constantly doing. In actuality she picks it up once in a passionate rage, never uses it and it quietly gets taken from her pretty quickly.
The first two stories are just sad and I'm not someone who likes to read tragedies. The final story at least has a happier ending. The abusive marriage is viewed obviously from a very historical and Christian lens so its not like Janet is just peacing out of there. Her 'repentance' which I hate as a concept, is more just her finding hope and comfort in her religion so that she can deal with her awful husband.
Not really my sort of book but its well written and easy to follow. If the subject matter interests you, you'll probably enjoy it.
3 novellas, and the fourth that was to make up the book became the full length novel, "Adam Bede". After years of reviewing, editing, writing essays, and translating, this was Eliot's first fiction, at age 38. Written over a year, you can see her becoming more comfortable with the form - each story stretches out longer than the previous story - and finally she realizes she needs to go full bore with a novel.
An Evangelical since pre-teens (the word had different meaning/connotations then than it does now), she had become a Rationalist thanks to her extensive reading in the groundbreaking theological studies of the time.
A warning that from the very first pages of "Amos Barton" we are immersed in the world of mid 19th C British church and theological issues. Not the funnest thing in the world to read about, or decipher. I used the Noble/Billington "Oxford World Classics" edition. The Introduction and Notes are extremely useful in explaining the nuances of this clerical world. At times the Notes are "Why did you bother explaining this?", and others "OK, why is there no Note here?", and also reading as a physical book instead of an ebook, you may have to make use of a Dictionary at times.
Besides the obscure church history/conflict presented here, as her first effort in fiction there are times when she "preaches" or "states" more than "shows" as she would in her later, better, work. These sections are dense, boring, and difficult to read (see Chapter 10 of "Janet's Repentance" - a real chore to make it through!).
Despite being a recent ex-Evangelical herself, not only does she write about the milieu, she does so sympathetically. And unlike Trollope, she also does so sarcastically at times!
But the point she makes, and in "Janet" the most strongly, is that human sympathy is a gateway to true religiosity and God.
BTW, reading this, I don't see how anyone could have imagined that the author was a man! Evans/Eliot had to reveal herself sooner than she would have liked to - a man from her region was thought to be the author (even though he was a mediocre, minor writer himself - showing little talent in his few publications - self published?) and refused to deny the rumor! How low can a person be to ride the coattails of someone else's talent?
"Middlemarch" is a hot text right now, and remembering how much I enjoyed reading that in grad school 30 years ago (and got to teach it in one class session), I decided to go back to Eliot after all these years. And where better to start than at the beginning?
OK, I plan to fall willing down the Eliot rabbit hole. Already have purchased Oxford editions of most of her novels, bought some Victorian Lit critical studies, and downloaded a $0.99 "Complete GE" for my kindle, for the obscure stuff (some essays, her play, poems - appears to be the Pinney edition).
Well, rather for Eliot completists, and those interested in 19th C British Church history. Yet, at the same time, it could be read as an "inspirational" text, more than a century and half later.
An Evangelical since pre-teens (the word had different meaning/connotations then than it does now), she had become a Rationalist thanks to her extensive reading in the groundbreaking theological studies of the time.
A warning that from the very first pages of "Amos Barton" we are immersed in the world of mid 19th C British church and theological issues. Not the funnest thing in the world to read about, or decipher. I used the Noble/Billington "Oxford World Classics" edition. The Introduction and Notes are extremely useful in explaining the nuances of this clerical world. At times the Notes are "Why did you bother explaining this?", and others "OK, why is there no Note here?", and also reading as a physical book instead of an ebook, you may have to make use of a Dictionary at times.
Besides the obscure church history/conflict presented here, as her first effort in fiction there are times when she "preaches" or "states" more than "shows" as she would in her later, better, work. These sections are dense, boring, and difficult to read (see Chapter 10 of "Janet's Repentance" - a real chore to make it through!).
Despite being a recent ex-Evangelical herself, not only does she write about the milieu, she does so sympathetically. And unlike Trollope, she also does so sarcastically at times!
But the point she makes, and in "Janet" the most strongly, is that human sympathy is a gateway to true religiosity and God.
BTW, reading this, I don't see how anyone could have imagined that the author was a man! Evans/Eliot had to reveal herself sooner than she would have liked to - a man from her region was thought to be the author (even though he was a mediocre, minor writer himself - showing little talent in his few publications - self published?) and refused to deny the rumor! How low can a person be to ride the coattails of someone else's talent?
"Middlemarch" is a hot text right now, and remembering how much I enjoyed reading that in grad school 30 years ago (and got to teach it in one class session), I decided to go back to Eliot after all these years. And where better to start than at the beginning?
OK, I plan to fall willing down the Eliot rabbit hole. Already have purchased Oxford editions of most of her novels, bought some Victorian Lit critical studies, and downloaded a $0.99 "Complete GE" for my kindle, for the obscure stuff (some essays, her play, poems - appears to be the Pinney edition).
Well, rather for Eliot completists, and those interested in 19th C British Church history. Yet, at the same time, it could be read as an "inspirational" text, more than a century and half later.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced