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3.67k reviews for:
Middlemarch: (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions) (Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics)
George Eliot
4.06 AVERAGE
3.67k reviews for:
Middlemarch: (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions) (Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics)
George Eliot
4.06 AVERAGE
6th book of 2021. Paintings in this review by English painter Augustus Walford Weedon.
Woolf famously said that Middlemarch is "one of the few English novels written for grownup people", and I finally see what she means by that. Or at least I think I do. When my mother was about my age she used to look at her parents and their friends and think to herself, You’re an adult when you start to talk about your recycling. She remembers her parents comparing what they could recycle compared to their friends from different areas, or what day the bins were put out. To my young mother, that was adulthood. Funnily enough, she is self-aware enough to exclaim, “Kill me now!” when she realises she is talking to guests about the recycling and my brother and I are sat watching, mildly bemused. So, by her own standards, my mother has reached adulthood, and did a long time ago. In a way this idea is what I imagined Woolf was talking about: Middlemarch addresses many themes, but there are many parts of the novel dedicated to the running of this fictional town, its politics, its buildings, its hospital…And in a way I felt as if I was a boy watching adults talk about the recycling.
“Paesaggio Lacustre”—1894
As Victorian novels go, I was surprised. My old housemate recently finished the novel and asked me to dig up a letter from a young Martin Amis which I had shown him a couple of years ago when I read his memoir Experience—in which a young Amis brags about reading Middlemarch in 3 days to his father and describes it as: FUCKING good — Jane Austen + Passion + Dimension. Very fine. Amis puts it bluntly, and crudely, but he isn’t massively wrong. I preferred this to what I’ve read of Austen. There are two, maybe three, main reasons why:
Firstly, Eliot has a sharp wit which weaves it way in and out of the pages. In a Victorian fashion, the “I”, Eliot, enters the story to pass her own judgements on what is happening, though only infrequently. The dialogue is clean and engaging, even when talking about the Reform Bill (the novel’s version of talking about the recycling); and dialogue takes up a large portion of the prose. Eliot rarely bothers to describe a room or a character’s surroundings. Sometimes a paragraph opens seemingly mid-conversation and other than being aware of who is talking, that is all we are offered. One person maybe leaning against a fireplace (they are inside then) and another may be looking out of the window at the rain (it is raining then) but that is all Eliot thinks necessary. This dialogue-heavy prose makes the novel surprisingly easy to read. Its size is deceptive. However, when Eliot does bother to give us slightly more of the setting, we feel grateful:
The other principal reason is because of the small grains of Eliot’s philosophy. I found many of the characters’ conversations enthralling, and especially near the beginning, found myself underlining a lot of passages. I read somewhere that critics of the time were put-off by the novel and its constant literary and philosophical allusions, thinking it bizarre and unnatural for a woman’s novel to be so “smart”. Eliot had a hard time with that, it seems, as well as now being infamously remembered for being “ugly”—Henry James called her “magnificently ugly, deliciously hideous.” He also called Middlemarch "at once one of the strongest and one of the weakest of English novels.”
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“Storm Clouds Over Pevensey”—1880
James, ignoring his cruel comments on Eliot’s appearance, makes an interesting point on the novel. At times it is overly long (though I partially expect, and forgive that from the 19th century) and at times the novel becomes a little loose, and perhaps loses its way slightly. Towards the end, rather than speeding up as I usually do, to reach the climactic moments and resolutions, I found that I was slowing down. Eliot descended into telling prose and insignificant characters gossiping about recent events, which as the reader, we had just read first-hand. The novel’s ending sentiment made the final, slightly disappointing, journey worthwhile though. Eliot conjures great characters and sets Middlemarch against and around the 1832 Reform Act, early railway construction, cholera and ideas and philosophy of medicine at the time, through the rather interesting character of Lydgate. Where the novel is loose, I will also say at other times it stretches at the seams, addressing ideas I didn’t expect to find in a novel of its time. It could even be our (England's) greatest novel. I've let it soak in my mind for a long time now and it only reinforces my already high opinions of it.
I want to end with some snatches of dialogue I have found underlined in my copy as I leaf back through it:
I could write many more but I won’t. Though I don’t want to spoil the theme of Middlemarch, or one of its themes, that becomes clear at the end, I would like to simply say that Eliot urges us to live our lives in hope of finding something we love, and not worrying about any grander design. To live a relatively normal life is, perhaps, the greatest thing we owe ourselves.
Woolf famously said that Middlemarch is "one of the few English novels written for grownup people", and I finally see what she means by that. Or at least I think I do. When my mother was about my age she used to look at her parents and their friends and think to herself, You’re an adult when you start to talk about your recycling. She remembers her parents comparing what they could recycle compared to their friends from different areas, or what day the bins were put out. To my young mother, that was adulthood. Funnily enough, she is self-aware enough to exclaim, “Kill me now!” when she realises she is talking to guests about the recycling and my brother and I are sat watching, mildly bemused. So, by her own standards, my mother has reached adulthood, and did a long time ago. In a way this idea is what I imagined Woolf was talking about: Middlemarch addresses many themes, but there are many parts of the novel dedicated to the running of this fictional town, its politics, its buildings, its hospital…And in a way I felt as if I was a boy watching adults talk about the recycling.
“Paesaggio Lacustre”—1894
As Victorian novels go, I was surprised. My old housemate recently finished the novel and asked me to dig up a letter from a young Martin Amis which I had shown him a couple of years ago when I read his memoir Experience—in which a young Amis brags about reading Middlemarch in 3 days to his father and describes it as: FUCKING good — Jane Austen + Passion + Dimension. Very fine. Amis puts it bluntly, and crudely, but he isn’t massively wrong. I preferred this to what I’ve read of Austen. There are two, maybe three, main reasons why:
Firstly, Eliot has a sharp wit which weaves it way in and out of the pages. In a Victorian fashion, the “I”, Eliot, enters the story to pass her own judgements on what is happening, though only infrequently. The dialogue is clean and engaging, even when talking about the Reform Bill (the novel’s version of talking about the recycling); and dialogue takes up a large portion of the prose. Eliot rarely bothers to describe a room or a character’s surroundings. Sometimes a paragraph opens seemingly mid-conversation and other than being aware of who is talking, that is all we are offered. One person maybe leaning against a fireplace (they are inside then) and another may be looking out of the window at the rain (it is raining then) but that is all Eliot thinks necessary. This dialogue-heavy prose makes the novel surprisingly easy to read. Its size is deceptive. However, when Eliot does bother to give us slightly more of the setting, we feel grateful:
…the black figure with hands behind and head bent forward continued to pace the walk where the dark yew-trees gave him a mute companionship in melancholy, and the little shadows of bird or leaf that fleeted across the isles of sunlight, stole among in silence as in the presence of sorrow.
The other principal reason is because of the small grains of Eliot’s philosophy. I found many of the characters’ conversations enthralling, and especially near the beginning, found myself underlining a lot of passages. I read somewhere that critics of the time were put-off by the novel and its constant literary and philosophical allusions, thinking it bizarre and unnatural for a woman’s novel to be so “smart”. Eliot had a hard time with that, it seems, as well as now being infamously remembered for being “ugly”—Henry James called her “magnificently ugly, deliciously hideous.” He also called Middlemarch "at once one of the strongest and one of the weakest of English novels.”
“Storm Clouds Over Pevensey”—1880
James, ignoring his cruel comments on Eliot’s appearance, makes an interesting point on the novel. At times it is overly long (though I partially expect, and forgive that from the 19th century) and at times the novel becomes a little loose, and perhaps loses its way slightly. Towards the end, rather than speeding up as I usually do, to reach the climactic moments and resolutions, I found that I was slowing down. Eliot descended into telling prose and insignificant characters gossiping about recent events, which as the reader, we had just read first-hand. The novel’s ending sentiment made the final, slightly disappointing, journey worthwhile though. Eliot conjures great characters and sets Middlemarch against and around the 1832 Reform Act, early railway construction, cholera and ideas and philosophy of medicine at the time, through the rather interesting character of Lydgate. Where the novel is loose, I will also say at other times it stretches at the seams, addressing ideas I didn’t expect to find in a novel of its time. It could even be our (England's) greatest novel. I've let it soak in my mind for a long time now and it only reinforces my already high opinions of it.
I want to end with some snatches of dialogue I have found underlined in my copy as I leaf back through it:
“It is painful to be told that anything is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine—something like being blind, while people talk of the sky.”
“But selfish people always think their own discomfort of more importance than anything in the world.”
“…you must love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honourable to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, There’s this and there’s that—if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it.”
“I am not quite sure whether clever men ever dance.”
“Oh, he dreams footnotes, and they run away with all his brains.”
“After all, people may really have in them some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be very patient with each other, I think.”
He was one of the rarer lads who early get a decided bent and make up their minds that there is something particular in life which they would like to do for its own sake, and not because their fathers did it. Most of us who turn to any subject we love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within, as the first traceable beginning of our love.
I could write many more but I won’t. Though I don’t want to spoil the theme of Middlemarch, or one of its themes, that becomes clear at the end, I would like to simply say that Eliot urges us to live our lives in hope of finding something we love, and not worrying about any grander design. To live a relatively normal life is, perhaps, the greatest thing we owe ourselves.
The characters had great complexity--so many conflicted feelings while reading this. It was excellent.
I have long wanted to read George Eliot's "Middlemarch" -- it is right up my alley.... a Victorian classic that follows the lives of several couples as they live their lives in the English countryside. This is a genre I really enjoy and this book is a classic for a reason.
That said, I probably couldn't have picked a worse time to read it... as we've just added a baby to the house and my time for reading cut way down. As a result, I had real difficulty getting into this book-- I couldn't keep track of the various characters for the first 100 pages or so (because I would only read about five or so at a time.) It was very frustrating.
After I finally figured out who was who, I started to fly through the book and really enjoyed it. The trials and tribulations of marriages arranged for the wrong reasons always interest me. This probably would have garnered an even higher rating from me, if I hadn't struggled so hard in the beginning.
That said, I probably couldn't have picked a worse time to read it... as we've just added a baby to the house and my time for reading cut way down. As a result, I had real difficulty getting into this book-- I couldn't keep track of the various characters for the first 100 pages or so (because I would only read about five or so at a time.) It was very frustrating.
After I finally figured out who was who, I started to fly through the book and really enjoyed it. The trials and tribulations of marriages arranged for the wrong reasons always interest me. This probably would have garnered an even higher rating from me, if I hadn't struggled so hard in the beginning.
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you can commit to the length of this book, it's a work that will stay with you forever.
Buddy read with Kay! Goal is to finish by December.
Probably one of the best books I've ever read, but its length and scope make it hard to recommend.
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusing: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so i’ll with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
so. good.
so. good.
Epic stuff, wondering why it has never been recommended to me?
This went down much easier as an audiobook - although now that I know the story, I might try reading it for real again someday.
A note on the librivox recording: the reading was pretty uneven, some of it to the point of being distractingly bad.
Quotable: "But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with. Talk about the weather and other well-bred topics is apt to seem a hollow device, and behavior can hardly become easy unless it frankly recognizes a mutual fascination—which of course need not mean anything deep or serious."
A note on the librivox recording: the reading was pretty uneven, some of it to the point of being distractingly bad.
Quotable: "But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to be done away with. Talk about the weather and other well-bred topics is apt to seem a hollow device, and behavior can hardly become easy unless it frankly recognizes a mutual fascination—which of course need not mean anything deep or serious."