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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I didn't love the ending but on the other hand I stayed up until midnight because I couldn't sleep until I knew what happened to Hetty Sorrel. Not a patch on Middlemarch but still a fine Victorian novel, even if Dinah did set my teeth on edge.
dark
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“Yes! Thank God; human feeling is like the mighty rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty—it flows with resistless force and brings beauty with it... "
I really think the book's title should be Hetty Sorrel instead of Adam Bede. The whole book mostly talks a lot about her beauty anyway. She is also the one who struggled the most, while Adam Bede's most difficult dilemma is a broken heart.
This book is so dense but in some chapters, I felt cosy reading it. A small community with a lot of characters, complaining mothers, and vain girls, in some way, reading this felt like home. However, I have to complain that Dinah's sermon is really, really long. I almost stopped reading.
I didn't hate it but I didn't particularly like it either.
PS: I believe Seth Bede is an angel.
I really think the book's title should be Hetty Sorrel instead of Adam Bede. The whole book mostly talks a lot about her beauty anyway. She is also the one who struggled the most, while Adam Bede's most difficult dilemma is a broken heart.
This book is so dense but in some chapters, I felt cosy reading it. A small community with a lot of characters, complaining mothers, and vain girls, in some way, reading this felt like home. However, I have to complain that Dinah's sermon is really, really long. I almost stopped reading.
I didn't hate it but I didn't particularly like it either.
PS: I believe Seth Bede is an angel.
emotional
reflective
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
a STRONG start to 2023, i loved the playfulness of early eliot compared to middlemarch, especially the author intersections!! massive twist + the ending had me just absolutely beaming on the bus this morning. so many beautiful sections of writing and some killer quotes. took a while to get going because it tended to be a lot of life and character description with not much happening but i promise you it's worth the ~ 250 pages of grind.
Poor Adam Bede and oh Hetty, you silly girl, don't do it!!! He is not that into you and it he is not worth it. Some of the author's sidetracks are a little hard to plow through but otherwise an enjoyable book
So, I went into this one knowing to compare it to the Scarlet Letter, and I think that's where my mistake was - because the whole time I was reading, I was waiting for the similarities and I think it hampered the experience of reading this book.
On it's own, the story was fine. The portrayal of country life during the feudal system was well done, and there were themes of class separation, hard work, and "lessons" to be learned about falling into temptation. Some of the more minor characters were well written, and I enjoyed them. I don't think I would consider this a retelling of The Scarlet Letter (TSL), as I heard referenced. There are some similarities, but the story and themes are far different once you get past the names and "fallen character" circumstance. The motivations behind all characters involved are nothing like TSL characters, especially the "wronged" man. Instead of a love triangle, there was more of a hexagon, which had me feeling sorry for most of the characters. And without being spoiler-y, I felt like the specific two individuals who committed infidelity were given much less depth of character than their counterparts in TSL.
While I don't think I could call it a sensation novel, there were some definite "sensation" aspects to the novel as seen in other Victorian-era novels. I raised my eyebrows in surprise a couple of times. In the end, I felt it a solid novel, but not one that I probably would consider a favorite or ever reread.
On it's own, the story was fine. The portrayal of country life during the feudal system was well done, and there were themes of class separation, hard work, and "lessons" to be learned about falling into temptation. Some of the more minor characters were well written, and I enjoyed them. I don't think I would consider this a retelling of The Scarlet Letter (TSL), as I heard referenced. There are some similarities, but the story and themes are far different once you get past the names and "fallen character" circumstance. The motivations behind all characters involved are nothing like TSL characters, especially the "wronged" man. Instead of a love triangle, there was more of a hexagon, which had me feeling sorry for most of the characters. And without being spoiler-y, I felt like the specific two individuals who committed infidelity were given much less depth of character than their counterparts in TSL.
While I don't think I could call it a sensation novel, there were some definite "sensation" aspects to the novel as seen in other Victorian-era novels. I raised my eyebrows in surprise a couple of times. In the end, I felt it a solid novel, but not one that I probably would consider a favorite or ever reread.
George Eliot was an admirable woman, to write about something like this. I think I'd have preferred a more Hardyesque depressing ending, and the timings confused me a little - apparently dresses at the time could conceal any number of sins, for a woman to give birth to a live baby that 2 weeks ago could have been hidden by her outfit - but I thought that from book 2 onwards this was a great read.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-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
In Adam Bede George Eliot touches on so many major issues of the time: social class, the plight and place of women, the rigidity of social and religious adherence. At times, she strays from her own goal of realistically portraying the common people of England, perhaps to spare her characters from the worst fates that the “real world” had to offer. Eliot is a master of complicated characters. Everyone struggles with temptations, some more successfully than others. They all have blind spots or cling too tightly to pride or fear or some belief that is too seldom reexamined. It’s these struggles, the ones that are so commonplace that they connect us all, that make up the crux of the novel, resulting in its most poignant inner dialogues and shocking public dramas. We see their consequences, great and small, carried out in the souls of individuals and in the souls of their communities. Jumps in time and space and between perspectives sometimes leave out information that might guide the reader down her path of logic, but these jumps only feel so stark because of her efforts in the rest of the novel to reveal her and her characters’ hearts so openly.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I struggled reading this as I'm not very good at reading speech that has been written in dialect. I found the book hard to get in to. From about half way through I found that I was looking forward to finding out what happened to the characters. Did struggle again near the end with the harvest festival scene which seemed totally irrelevant to the story.
When I started the book I didn't think I would finish it so I'm pleased I persevered.
When I started the book I didn't think I would finish it so I'm pleased I persevered.