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3.64k reviews for:
Middlemarch: (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions) (Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics)
George Eliot
4.06 AVERAGE
3.64k reviews for:
Middlemarch: (Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions) (Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics)
George Eliot
4.06 AVERAGE
‘Middlemarch’ by George Eliot (aka Mary Ann Evans) is deservedly on that list of Classics everyone should read. Although it can be uncharitably described as ‘only’ a domestic fiction, it is more than that. I enjoyed losing myself by becoming a ghostly neighbor observing the members of the three primary families who are the subjects of this book. There was unexpected exciting drama and much anxiety for the characters!
I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
”Taking place in the years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Middlemarch explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but naive; Rosamond Vincy, beautiful and egoistic: Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar; Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally-flawed physician; the passionate artist Will Ladislaw; and Fred Vincey and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's rich comic vein.”.
With the exception of Charles Dickens, most of the 19th-century writers I’ve read do VERY genteel exposés about class injustices and social economic miseries in their books. So, on top, the Classic 19th-century novel is often a domestic drama or dramedy with a lot of romantic fun and interesting characters. But the plots, settings, and the many characters from different classes in the story sneakily bring in underlying economic causes of pain, often from class/money social mismatches, and subsequent parental/community disapproval. Young economically mismatched lovers feel much emotional distress because of the social destruction their love, if made public, would cause to their futures! Older characters are forced into doing immoral acts to save face and community respect, maintaining their class position by means which cause horrible destruction to innocents! A disintegration of many characters occurs, often leading to unintentional cascades of difficulties!
I thought ‘Middlemarch’ a social and psychological fictionalized study of country folk who were in the middle- and upper-classes. The characters live under an enforced rigid set of social rules in the 19th century. For a young unmarried daughter or unmarried son in 1872, life was a very emotionally anxious time (as it has always been for youths of all times), but it was even more so if one fell in love with the ‘wrong’ person as defined by 19-century society, i.e., someone who was below or above one’s class, ‘having money’ or not. Older, now respected upper-class, elders of the small community are in dread of any reveals of their past coming to public knowledge.
Eliot obliquely slides in many prejudices that were common to country English gentry, such as those held about Jews, Europeans and city people. The overall impression is of a stratified and stifled society, although one with many hidden desires and motivations. Eliot makes sure we see her characters as being alive, that they feel a lot of normal human depths of emotion under their prim and proper exteriors. One young girl character is naive and deeply religious and studious (book smarts), another is a spoiled shallow product of a finishing school. A young man is having difficulty choosing between earning money in a fast and furiously fun way or the slow way of saving earnings from work. Another young man, a doctor, wants to be a scientist of flashy and new medicine; however, he neglects social niceties, and forgets people are more than being a bag of bones and organs to be fixed. He avoids anything to earn money if it means regular dull normal doctoring. A middle-aged gentleman is more fearful of losing his position in society than in heaven, telling himself if he can keep his status he will be able to do more social good for God. Other comfortable middle-age men feel rage if anyone tries to change how they’ve always done business or try any new ideas which will mean learning something new. There are two men who are the wealthiest gentry in the small community, and they weld great power over the others because of their wealth. One of them has relatives who are eagerly waiting for his death, but don’t feel sorry for him, gentle reader. The other wealthy man is a scholar, but he is unable to understand his studies are not useful, even to other scholars, because the world has moved on with newer and better, more erudite, editions with better and more accurate citations, so-to-speak. He is a man in a state of intellectual stasis. However, Middlemarch thinks him a genius.
Many 19th-century English authors chose to depict in euphemisms how life was really lived by people during this century. I believe most writers of this period wanted to expose readers to how horrible the class structuring of society harmed or bent everyone, whether they were of the gentry, merchants or of the uneducated lower-classes. Most of these novels demonstrate how immoral many relationships and businesses became because of class restrictions.
That said, the writers wanted people to feel entertained by their reading, to actually buy and enjoy the novels - especially those who could afford to buy books which were expensive (or buy the newspapers which printed novels as serials)!
Gentle reader, despite these seemingly overused tropes, which may especially be seen as overused by today’s readers, I LOVE these period classics! The description of the plots don’t do justice to the vivid writing (even if complex with digressions and wordiness), the interesting characters, and the entertaining japes and scrapes. The plots are often convoluted and twisty, even those that appear more like our modern domestic genres, seemingly similar to modern cozies written for sensitive chick-lit tastes. (Not so, imho.) Of course the writing can be a challenge! The earlier eras of writers liked to use complete sentences….
I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
”Taking place in the years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Middlemarch explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but naive; Rosamond Vincy, beautiful and egoistic: Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar; Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally-flawed physician; the passionate artist Will Ladislaw; and Fred Vincey and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's rich comic vein.”.
With the exception of Charles Dickens, most of the 19th-century writers I’ve read do VERY genteel exposés about class injustices and social economic miseries in their books. So, on top, the Classic 19th-century novel is often a domestic drama or dramedy with a lot of romantic fun and interesting characters. But the plots, settings, and the many characters from different classes in the story sneakily bring in underlying economic causes of pain, often from class/money social mismatches, and subsequent parental/community disapproval. Young economically mismatched lovers feel much emotional distress because of the social destruction their love, if made public, would cause to their futures! Older characters are forced into doing immoral acts to save face and community respect, maintaining their class position by means which cause horrible destruction to innocents! A disintegration of many characters occurs, often leading to unintentional cascades of difficulties!
I thought ‘Middlemarch’ a social and psychological fictionalized study of country folk who were in the middle- and upper-classes. The characters live under an enforced rigid set of social rules in the 19th century. For a young unmarried daughter or unmarried son in 1872, life was a very emotionally anxious time (as it has always been for youths of all times), but it was even more so if one fell in love with the ‘wrong’ person as defined by 19-century society, i.e., someone who was below or above one’s class, ‘having money’ or not. Older, now respected upper-class, elders of the small community are in dread of any reveals of their past coming to public knowledge.
Eliot obliquely slides in many prejudices that were common to country English gentry, such as those held about Jews, Europeans and city people. The overall impression is of a stratified and stifled society, although one with many hidden desires and motivations. Eliot makes sure we see her characters as being alive, that they feel a lot of normal human depths of emotion under their prim and proper exteriors. One young girl character is naive and deeply religious and studious (book smarts), another is a spoiled shallow product of a finishing school. A young man is having difficulty choosing between earning money in a fast and furiously fun way or the slow way of saving earnings from work. Another young man, a doctor, wants to be a scientist of flashy and new medicine; however, he neglects social niceties, and forgets people are more than being a bag of bones and organs to be fixed. He avoids anything to earn money if it means regular dull normal doctoring. A middle-aged gentleman is more fearful of losing his position in society than in heaven, telling himself if he can keep his status he will be able to do more social good for God. Other comfortable middle-age men feel rage if anyone tries to change how they’ve always done business or try any new ideas which will mean learning something new. There are two men who are the wealthiest gentry in the small community, and they weld great power over the others because of their wealth. One of them has relatives who are eagerly waiting for his death, but don’t feel sorry for him, gentle reader. The other wealthy man is a scholar, but he is unable to understand his studies are not useful, even to other scholars, because the world has moved on with newer and better, more erudite, editions with better and more accurate citations, so-to-speak. He is a man in a state of intellectual stasis. However, Middlemarch thinks him a genius.
Many 19th-century English authors chose to depict in euphemisms how life was really lived by people during this century. I believe most writers of this period wanted to expose readers to how horrible the class structuring of society harmed or bent everyone, whether they were of the gentry, merchants or of the uneducated lower-classes. Most of these novels demonstrate how immoral many relationships and businesses became because of class restrictions.
That said, the writers wanted people to feel entertained by their reading, to actually buy and enjoy the novels - especially those who could afford to buy books which were expensive (or buy the newspapers which printed novels as serials)!
Gentle reader, despite these seemingly overused tropes, which may especially be seen as overused by today’s readers, I LOVE these period classics! The description of the plots don’t do justice to the vivid writing (even if complex with digressions and wordiness), the interesting characters, and the entertaining japes and scrapes. The plots are often convoluted and twisty, even those that appear more like our modern domestic genres, seemingly similar to modern cozies written for sensitive chick-lit tastes. (Not so, imho.) Of course the writing can be a challenge! The earlier eras of writers liked to use complete sentences….
Editing 4/5/13: Updating the rating -- Middlemarch, I can't stay mad at you!
.
This is probably going to take me the rest of the year to read, but I'm hoping that it is "the right text for the moment."
.
Ok first of all, I can't believe I read this in only 7 weeks. That's gold-medal championship reading, for me! And of course, it means that at many times, it was a great pleasure. Somewhere roughly halfway through, I had a good week or two just gobbling the chapters right up.
Stillllll. You know what I did here? I rounded it down. Ugh I knowww. I'm the worst. It's not right. But there it is, that's all the stars I got in my little sack for today. This may not have really been a 3-star read, fairly, but I think in some ways it's going to sit on my shelf forever as a 3-star book. I can't explain. But I'll try.
Honestly, the problem may have been that I already love George Eliot. I already know that she produces sharp insight and an immense depth of both criticism and empathy for her characters, which are just brilliant skills for a novelist, and I adore them. But so far, where I've loved these qualities the most is in the first novel I read, which also brings with it such overwhelming feelings I thought that I would just claw my face off. (And still feel that way every time I revisit it. How is my face still attached??)
And that's not what's going on here in Middlemarch. Which is ok. I perceive that it's doing something different, and that's fine. I looked forward to reading her most famous book partly because I had a dim idea of what Dorothea's conflicts are in it, and because I presumed that the feeling in this work must be the greatest. But frankly, its greatness is for other reasons, and a bit like when I read Mrs. Dalloway recently (though not as frustratingly), it reads a little bit like English class.
You stand back and admire this book more than you fall to the bottom of a well with it. And the second thing is my favorite thing when I read. I prefer irrevocably dropping into wells to soberly observing, oh what a grand scope of setting, each character is the center of their own story, two protagonists carrying through, though honestly only one has a lot to say and it's the one I like less. And is that a poetic medical metaphor I see?
I do admire a lot here. The basic idea, wherein she begins her book with the courtships and marriages of these characters rather than ending the book there, is good. In fact I was a bit impatient waiting for the terrible marriages to mount. Oh, so terrible, these marriages! Yes! Let the illusion of happiness disintegrate before my eyes! But still... it's pat, to a point. The conflicts are rendered in extremely rich detail, but nothing surprises you.
And though the scope is impressive, carrying so many characters as well as (mildly) threading them through current events, there is always the problem of wishing more time was spent with the characters you like best, instead. Lydgate, I wanted him to shut up a while, oh just take a break with your professional quandaries, gracious. Dorothea, I wanted to hear from her every day. One of the best parts of the book takes place during the outstanding disappointment of Dorothea's honeymoon, and this was just perfect, and what I wished the whole book was like. Her every thought (as well as that of her husband's) is fleshed out with cutting realism, and it's marvelous. All the time spent in less interesting thoughts (such as Lydgate's confused career politics) just made me antsy.
Similarly, the peripheral characters went both ways. Clearly the most incredible work is done on Rosamond, who marries Lydgate and makes just about the worst wife of all time. Eliot spares not one gram of Rosamond's conniving selfishness and perceived blamelessness, and it is just damning, and amazing. I'd have been pleased to read even more about her. Interestingly, she isn't so much a villain to the story (despite ruining a ton of things), as a straightforward portrait all her own. I also liked her goony brother Fred, mostly for the way he constantly screws up his relationship with the excellent Mary Garth and is somehow always forgiven for it. (He really shouldn't be.) The Garth family rules, and I loved all the time spent with them. Mary and Fred probably gave me the most pause for thought of anyone that isn't Dorothea.
Dorothea, though... I couldn't love her well enough. I understood her best when she was with other people, often poorly relating to them, but I was rarely moved by her as described on her own. I appreciate deeply her search for her cause, but really the "St. Theresa of Nothing" theme falls away, despite her attempts to sacrifice. And after I finished this, I went to look at Romola again, and happened across a passage describing her similar conflict in so much the same exact speech and tone as Dorothea's that it left me with some distaste. I don't think an author's wrong to repeatedly explore a certain strong feeling, but it made me less impressed with what I did get from Middlemarch.
And the major conflicts aside, there is some boring nonsense in the storylines that we have to spend a lot of time with. Fred's inheritance, Bulstrode's scandal, Will's apparent connection to basically everybody by the end. Lydgate's denial and battle with his debts was a good path, but didn't actually sting as much as I thought it should. (I read that he and Rosamond may have been conceived as a latter-day Bovary, but that aspect didn't have quite the element of total downfall as in the original.) Also I really, really, really didn't want to spend 100 pages debating for whom Lydgate would cast his vote for hospital chaplain. Like really not in the slightest. Maybe it wasn't literally 100 pages, but boy it read like it. Which is a nutshell that works.
Still and all I marked about 50 pages that said something excellent, and I'll reread them all. One of the best showed up in the first few scenes, an admonishment from James: "'You give up from some high, generous motive.'" Ouch.
But my favorite, I think: "There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration: they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us."
I've read that line over dozens of times already. That is the right text for the moment. So. I'm not giving up on George Eliot anytime ever.
.
This is probably going to take me the rest of the year to read, but I'm hoping that it is "the right text for the moment."
.
Ok first of all, I can't believe I read this in only 7 weeks. That's gold-medal championship reading, for me! And of course, it means that at many times, it was a great pleasure. Somewhere roughly halfway through, I had a good week or two just gobbling the chapters right up.
Stillllll. You know what I did here? I rounded it down. Ugh I knowww. I'm the worst. It's not right. But there it is, that's all the stars I got in my little sack for today. This may not have really been a 3-star read, fairly, but I think in some ways it's going to sit on my shelf forever as a 3-star book. I can't explain. But I'll try.
Honestly, the problem may have been that I already love George Eliot. I already know that she produces sharp insight and an immense depth of both criticism and empathy for her characters, which are just brilliant skills for a novelist, and I adore them. But so far, where I've loved these qualities the most is in the first novel I read, which also brings with it such overwhelming feelings I thought that I would just claw my face off. (And still feel that way every time I revisit it. How is my face still attached??)
And that's not what's going on here in Middlemarch. Which is ok. I perceive that it's doing something different, and that's fine. I looked forward to reading her most famous book partly because I had a dim idea of what Dorothea's conflicts are in it, and because I presumed that the feeling in this work must be the greatest. But frankly, its greatness is for other reasons, and a bit like when I read Mrs. Dalloway recently (though not as frustratingly), it reads a little bit like English class.
You stand back and admire this book more than you fall to the bottom of a well with it. And the second thing is my favorite thing when I read. I prefer irrevocably dropping into wells to soberly observing, oh what a grand scope of setting, each character is the center of their own story, two protagonists carrying through, though honestly only one has a lot to say and it's the one I like less. And is that a poetic medical metaphor I see?
I do admire a lot here. The basic idea, wherein she begins her book with the courtships and marriages of these characters rather than ending the book there, is good. In fact I was a bit impatient waiting for the terrible marriages to mount. Oh, so terrible, these marriages! Yes! Let the illusion of happiness disintegrate before my eyes! But still... it's pat, to a point. The conflicts are rendered in extremely rich detail, but nothing surprises you.
And though the scope is impressive, carrying so many characters as well as (mildly) threading them through current events, there is always the problem of wishing more time was spent with the characters you like best, instead. Lydgate, I wanted him to shut up a while, oh just take a break with your professional quandaries, gracious. Dorothea, I wanted to hear from her every day. One of the best parts of the book takes place during the outstanding disappointment of Dorothea's honeymoon, and this was just perfect, and what I wished the whole book was like. Her every thought (as well as that of her husband's) is fleshed out with cutting realism, and it's marvelous. All the time spent in less interesting thoughts (such as Lydgate's confused career politics) just made me antsy.
Similarly, the peripheral characters went both ways. Clearly the most incredible work is done on Rosamond, who marries Lydgate and makes just about the worst wife of all time. Eliot spares not one gram of Rosamond's conniving selfishness and perceived blamelessness, and it is just damning, and amazing. I'd have been pleased to read even more about her. Interestingly, she isn't so much a villain to the story (despite ruining a ton of things), as a straightforward portrait all her own. I also liked her goony brother Fred, mostly for the way he constantly screws up his relationship with the excellent Mary Garth and is somehow always forgiven for it. (He really shouldn't be.) The Garth family rules, and I loved all the time spent with them. Mary and Fred probably gave me the most pause for thought of anyone that isn't Dorothea.
Dorothea, though... I couldn't love her well enough. I understood her best when she was with other people, often poorly relating to them, but I was rarely moved by her as described on her own. I appreciate deeply her search for her cause, but really the "St. Theresa of Nothing" theme falls away, despite her attempts to sacrifice. And after I finished this, I went to look at Romola again, and happened across a passage describing her similar conflict in so much the same exact speech and tone as Dorothea's that it left me with some distaste. I don't think an author's wrong to repeatedly explore a certain strong feeling, but it made me less impressed with what I did get from Middlemarch.
And the major conflicts aside, there is some boring nonsense in the storylines that we have to spend a lot of time with. Fred's inheritance, Bulstrode's scandal, Will's apparent connection to basically everybody by the end. Lydgate's denial and battle with his debts was a good path, but didn't actually sting as much as I thought it should. (I read that he and Rosamond may have been conceived as a latter-day Bovary, but that aspect didn't have quite the element of total downfall as in the original.) Also I really, really, really didn't want to spend 100 pages debating for whom Lydgate would cast his vote for hospital chaplain. Like really not in the slightest. Maybe it wasn't literally 100 pages, but boy it read like it. Which is a nutshell that works.
Still and all I marked about 50 pages that said something excellent, and I'll reread them all. One of the best showed up in the first few scenes, an admonishment from James: "'You give up from some high, generous motive.'" Ouch.
But my favorite, I think: "There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration: they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us."
I've read that line over dozens of times already. That is the right text for the moment. So. I'm not giving up on George Eliot anytime ever.
Better than Austen.
Middlemarch is the story of "what comes next" after Jane Austen's happy-ending women marry. In reality, many end up trapped in loveless marriages, suffering silently like Dorothea or Lydgate, two of the main characters in this classic novel. Eliot writes with astute understanding and from experience. Living openly with the married George Henry Lewes for the last 20 years of her life undoubtedly gave her great insight into human nature, which is studied in depth within the pages of this novel. Eliot covers jealousy, disappointment, longing, loss of trust, and desperation so thoroughly. Anyone who has ever been in a failed relationship will instantly identify with her.
I imagined, while reading, Marian Evans entertaining herself daily with her writings; that she was writing herself a story, and enjoying the process. I enjoyed it along with her.
Middlemarch is the story of "what comes next" after Jane Austen's happy-ending women marry. In reality, many end up trapped in loveless marriages, suffering silently like Dorothea or Lydgate, two of the main characters in this classic novel. Eliot writes with astute understanding and from experience. Living openly with the married George Henry Lewes for the last 20 years of her life undoubtedly gave her great insight into human nature, which is studied in depth within the pages of this novel. Eliot covers jealousy, disappointment, longing, loss of trust, and desperation so thoroughly. Anyone who has ever been in a failed relationship will instantly identify with her.
I imagined, while reading, Marian Evans entertaining herself daily with her writings; that she was writing herself a story, and enjoying the process. I enjoyed it along with her.
challenging
funny
reflective
sad
slow-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
4.5 but rounding up because of how powerful the last 100 pages were, and how much the afterword left me smiling and teary.
Oh Dorothea, what an incredibly layered and fully-realised character. Just a genuinely good and thoughtful person, going against traditions but still faithful and true.
This book is a BEAST, and at times it maybe feels slow, but the depth it gives you all pays off, as the complexities add deeper understanding of each character, their position and class, the times they live in.
And even the characters in this book that are more loathsome, you still understand their world view and how they come to be what they are.
Plenty of twists and turns, characters redeeming themselves, misconstrued moments, gossip and drama. All the men are wildly more dramatic than the women.
It is what you’d expect from a period piece, felt like I was watching Bridgerton, but it’s also so much more. Really gets into the weeds of politics, status, wealth, and - ultimately - what marriage can really be like.
The struggles of relationships, the expectations, the miscommunications, good humoured bickering as well as bad humoured bickering… what happens when the intoxication of love fades and life returns to the mundane. Yet always with a string of hope, often driven by the world view of Dorothea.
Shout out also to the Garth family who are equally pure as anything. And always brace yourself when it comes to someone’s will - the dead love sticking the knife in.
Oh Dorothea, what an incredibly layered and fully-realised character. Just a genuinely good and thoughtful person, going against traditions but still faithful and true.
This book is a BEAST, and at times it maybe feels slow, but the depth it gives you all pays off, as the complexities add deeper understanding of each character, their position and class, the times they live in.
And even the characters in this book that are more loathsome, you still understand their world view and how they come to be what they are.
Plenty of twists and turns, characters redeeming themselves, misconstrued moments, gossip and drama. All the men are wildly more dramatic than the women.
It is what you’d expect from a period piece, felt like I was watching Bridgerton, but it’s also so much more. Really gets into the weeds of politics, status, wealth, and - ultimately - what marriage can really be like.
The struggles of relationships, the expectations, the miscommunications, good humoured bickering as well as bad humoured bickering… what happens when the intoxication of love fades and life returns to the mundane. Yet always with a string of hope, often driven by the world view of Dorothea.
Shout out also to the Garth family who are equally pure as anything. And always brace yourself when it comes to someone’s will - the dead love sticking the knife in.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-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
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Could any one person every be as good as Dorothea? So glad I read this.
More charming than Dickens and more thoughtful than Trollope, but Eliot's liberal sensibilities still leave much to be desired.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes