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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
Country life filled with good people, tragedy, pain, joy.
I feel I’m parting with friends now that I finished the book.
I feel I’m parting with friends now that I finished the book.
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Adam Bede, a carpenter, loves Hetty Sorrel. Hetty is the parish beauty, living with her aunt and uncle who hope to get her married to a respectable young man. Hetty loves Arthur Donnithorne and is under the illusion that he'll ask her to marry him - elevating her status and providing her with the life of luxury she dreams of. These three allow their foolishness to trap them into a triangle.
Adam Bede isn't George Eliot's best work, but it's still pretty amazing. Eliot's powers of psychological insight are unparalleled. Here she's given us an accurate description of the time that was 60 years prior to her time. She's got this pastoral novel filled with scenes of laborers and farmers, religion and class tied up into this story that involves sex and murder. She also has much to say on marriage and love (even if some of it is facetious):
Of course, I know that, as a rule, sensible men fall in love with the most sensible women of their acquaintance, see through all the pretty deceits of coquettish beauty, never imagine themselves loved when they are not loved, cease loving on all proper occasions, and marry the woman most fitted for them in every respect. . . . But even to this rule an exception will occur now and then in the lapse of centuries, and my friend Adam was one.
Adam Bede made it known that George Eliot was a novelist. The story takes some time and you will have to invest yourself in it, but it's easy to do with writing as lovely as this:
Not a word more was spoken as they gathered the currants. Adam's heart was too full to speak, and he thought Hetty knew all that was in it. She was not indifferent to his presence after all; she had blushed when she saw him, and then there was that touch of sadness about her which must surely mean love, since it was the opposite of her usual manner, which had impressed him as indifference. And he could glance at her continually as she bent over the fruit, while the level evening sunbeams stole through the thick apple-tree boughs, and rested on her round cheek and neck as if they too were in love with her. It was to Adam the time that a man can least forget in after-life, the time when he believes that the first woman he has ever loved betrays him by a slight something - a word, a tone, a glance, the quivering of a lip or eyelid - that she is at least beginning to love him in return. The sign is so slight, it is scarcely perceptible to the ear or eye - he could describe it no one - it is a mere feather-touch, yet it seems to have changed his whole being, to have merged an uneasy yearning into delicious unconciousness of everything but the present moment. So much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood. Doubtless that joy wrought up into our nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot, but it is gone for ever from our imagination, and we can only believe in the joy of childhood. But the first glad moment in our first love is a vision which returns to us to the last, and brings with it a thrill of feeling intense and special as the recurrent sensation of a sweet odour breathed in a far-off hour of happiness, it is a memory that gives a more exquisite touch to tenderness, that feeds the madness of jealousy and adds the last keenness to despair. (p.229-230)
Adam Bede isn't George Eliot's best work, but it's still pretty amazing. Eliot's powers of psychological insight are unparalleled. Here she's given us an accurate description of the time that was 60 years prior to her time. She's got this pastoral novel filled with scenes of laborers and farmers, religion and class tied up into this story that involves sex and murder. She also has much to say on marriage and love (even if some of it is facetious):
Of course, I know that, as a rule, sensible men fall in love with the most sensible women of their acquaintance, see through all the pretty deceits of coquettish beauty, never imagine themselves loved when they are not loved, cease loving on all proper occasions, and marry the woman most fitted for them in every respect. . . . But even to this rule an exception will occur now and then in the lapse of centuries, and my friend Adam was one.
Adam Bede made it known that George Eliot was a novelist. The story takes some time and you will have to invest yourself in it, but it's easy to do with writing as lovely as this:
Not a word more was spoken as they gathered the currants. Adam's heart was too full to speak, and he thought Hetty knew all that was in it. She was not indifferent to his presence after all; she had blushed when she saw him, and then there was that touch of sadness about her which must surely mean love, since it was the opposite of her usual manner, which had impressed him as indifference. And he could glance at her continually as she bent over the fruit, while the level evening sunbeams stole through the thick apple-tree boughs, and rested on her round cheek and neck as if they too were in love with her. It was to Adam the time that a man can least forget in after-life, the time when he believes that the first woman he has ever loved betrays him by a slight something - a word, a tone, a glance, the quivering of a lip or eyelid - that she is at least beginning to love him in return. The sign is so slight, it is scarcely perceptible to the ear or eye - he could describe it no one - it is a mere feather-touch, yet it seems to have changed his whole being, to have merged an uneasy yearning into delicious unconciousness of everything but the present moment. So much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our father's back in childhood. Doubtless that joy wrought up into our nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot, but it is gone for ever from our imagination, and we can only believe in the joy of childhood. But the first glad moment in our first love is a vision which returns to us to the last, and brings with it a thrill of feeling intense and special as the recurrent sensation of a sweet odour breathed in a far-off hour of happiness, it is a memory that gives a more exquisite touch to tenderness, that feeds the madness of jealousy and adds the last keenness to despair. (p.229-230)
I read this for a Victorian England class. I vividly remember sitting on the bed in my dorm, getting so engrossed in this book that my heart was racing and I was reading as fast as possible, waiting to see what would happen! It also has interesting subject matter, examining the advent of female Methodist preachers.
The last 150 pages are a bit weaker. But to think this was her FIRST novel! FIRST! wow. I read Middlemarch (her last) and now I can't wait to read the rest.
So so so many thought provoking sentences, so many hilarious comments from GE, just a joy to read.
So so so many thought provoking sentences, so many hilarious comments from GE, just a joy to read.
Because I was rereading [b:David Copperfield|58696|David Copperfield|Charles Dickens|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461452762s/58696.jpg|4711940] during some of the time I was reading this, I couldn’t help but compare the characters (and situations) of one book to the other: for example, the extremes between the adorable Dora/Hetty and the angelic Agnes/Dinah. And though I know Eliot had reservations about Dickens’ works, I see how she extends -- into realism -- a character like [b:David Copperfield|58696|David Copperfield|Charles Dickens|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461452762s/58696.jpg|4711940]’s Emily.
Also interesting to me is that an arguably sensational theme of Adam Bede is an important theme of the Norwegian [a:Knut Hamsun|18317|Knut Hamsun|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1455562757p2/18317.jpg]’s [b:Growth of the Soil|342049|Growth of the Soil|Knut Hamsun|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420733175s/342049.jpg|2435698], another book I was reading concurrently.
If I'd read this as a young teenager, my sympathies would've been with a minor character, the younger brother Seth. As it is, I still have some of those residual feelings toward him, helped by my agreeing with his comment on the last page, which is opposed to the more traditional view of his brother, the eponymous hero. The latter has left me with a vaguely irritated feeling, though nothing he said beforehand bothered me. With this statement of his, though, Eliot is following history; and her biggest strength in this, her first full-length novel, is that of social historian.
Also interesting to me is that an arguably sensational theme of Adam Bede is an important theme of the Norwegian [a:Knut Hamsun|18317|Knut Hamsun|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1455562757p2/18317.jpg]’s [b:Growth of the Soil|342049|Growth of the Soil|Knut Hamsun|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1420733175s/342049.jpg|2435698], another book I was reading concurrently.
If I'd read this as a young teenager, my sympathies would've been with a minor character, the younger brother Seth. As it is, I still have some of those residual feelings toward him, helped by my agreeing with his comment on the last page, which is opposed to the more traditional view of his brother, the eponymous hero. The latter has left me with a vaguely irritated feeling, though nothing he said beforehand bothered me. With this statement of his, though, Eliot is following history; and her biggest strength in this, her first full-length novel, is that of social historian.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-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
Reader, I ask you, what can be better than a long book full of good sentences?
That was a rhetorical question, of course—I think there is nothing better than good sentences following one on another, and this book is full of them.
But [b:Adam Bede|20563|Adam Bede|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1167298252l/20563._SY75_.jpg|21503633] also offers that extra ingredient readers generally can't resist: intrigue.
The intrigue is centered on the curious nature of the rules of attraction, which is no surprise as variations on the classic love triangle often feature in George Eliot's books. However in [b:Adam Bede|20563|Adam Bede|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1167298252l/20563._SY75_.jpg|21503633], the rules of attraction seem to stretch well beyond the usual three-sided figure. Instead we have a far more complicated situation:
SB loves DM who loves AB who loves HS who loves AD.
Five isolated points. There seems to be no way to bring them together, no way to build them into a useful shape, such as a house, for example. And yet Adam Bede, who is at the centre of the problematic, is a carpenter who is very good at calculating distances and angles and the correct weight of roof timbers. Come on, Adam, we say encouragingly, build that house! Make it happen.
Meanwhile, our mental business is carried on much in the same way as the business of the State: a great deal of hard work is done by agents who are not acknowledged. In a piece of machinery, too, I believe there is often a small unnoticeable wheel which has a great deal to do with the motion of the large obvious ones...the human soul is a very complex thing.
A little mental business, a little adjustment of wheels and cogs, and not forgetting some small heart-related 'agents' their owners hardly know exist, has to be carried out by several of the characters before Adam's house can be built. It is a very interesting process to watch.
The human heart is a very complex thing indeed.
That was a rhetorical question, of course—I think there is nothing better than good sentences following one on another, and this book is full of them.
But [b:Adam Bede|20563|Adam Bede|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1167298252l/20563._SY75_.jpg|21503633] also offers that extra ingredient readers generally can't resist: intrigue.
The intrigue is centered on the curious nature of the rules of attraction, which is no surprise as variations on the classic love triangle often feature in George Eliot's books. However in [b:Adam Bede|20563|Adam Bede|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1167298252l/20563._SY75_.jpg|21503633], the rules of attraction seem to stretch well beyond the usual three-sided figure. Instead we have a far more complicated situation:
SB loves DM who loves AB who loves HS who loves AD.
*……*……*……*……*
Five isolated points. There seems to be no way to bring them together, no way to build them into a useful shape, such as a house, for example. And yet Adam Bede, who is at the centre of the problematic, is a carpenter who is very good at calculating distances and angles and the correct weight of roof timbers. Come on, Adam, we say encouragingly, build that house! Make it happen.
Meanwhile, our mental business is carried on much in the same way as the business of the State: a great deal of hard work is done by agents who are not acknowledged. In a piece of machinery, too, I believe there is often a small unnoticeable wheel which has a great deal to do with the motion of the large obvious ones...the human soul is a very complex thing.
A little mental business, a little adjustment of wheels and cogs, and not forgetting some small heart-related 'agents' their owners hardly know exist, has to be carried out by several of the characters before Adam's house can be built. It is a very interesting process to watch.
The human heart is a very complex thing indeed.
Seth is the true victim in this story like WHAT?!?!?!? Bro just casually was the most disregarded and worst treated character the whole time despite being the greatest guy ever. The mom was so annoying and weird in the way she treated Adam. Arthur got off so easy, Hetty is literally dumb af, Adam also like come on king what are you doing in that head.
Also this book was honestly pretty boring until like 2/3rds of the way in, and so much stuff was just "alluded to" outside of what was actually written that some of the plot points were really confusing and I didn't understand what was going on.
Honestly George Elliot L on this one. Plus long af anti-women comments/speeches were super off putting.
Of course they made Dinah give up preaching like she was the only good character along with Seth because she actually did something with her life besides cry all the time
Also this book was honestly pretty boring until like 2/3rds of the way in, and so much stuff was just "alluded to" outside of what was actually written that some of the plot points were really confusing and I didn't understand what was going on.
Honestly George Elliot L on this one. Plus long af anti-women comments/speeches were super off putting.
Of course they made Dinah give up preaching like she was the only good character along with Seth because she actually did something with her life besides cry all the time