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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
The realism in this book is amazing. I'll admit that at times this book can be pretty thick to get through, but hidden in the journey are observations of humanity, of marriage, of weakness, and of life that Eliot describes so beautifully and accurately - observations I realized as I read them that I've made myself but never put into words.
This book took 861 pages to reach a two-paragraph, three sentence climax. And it was worth it! Worth it because of her realism, her flawed yet forgivable characters, and because of that perfect, poignant climax.
This book took 861 pages to reach a two-paragraph, three sentence climax. And it was worth it! Worth it because of her realism, her flawed yet forgivable characters, and because of that perfect, poignant climax.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Took me a year and a half to finish and I can confidently say this is my favorite book of all time.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was so engaging that I've hardly been able to read anything else for the past few weeks. Which speaks well for the book, but has disastrous consequences for my reading goals this year.
This is a really excellent book but I cannot award it 5 stars because of my own personal problems with it... it was a trifle, how do you say?... boring. The writing was great, don't get me wrong. The story itself, great. The characters, great as well. So what pray tell was wrong? The descriptions seemed to go on and on and on. Sometimes (okay a lot of times) my mind wandered to the point where I had to stop and reread a passage so I could remind myself just who or what she was waxing so poetic over. So, in fact, this probably IS a 5 star book, it's just my immature mind refuses to believe it. It definitely IS worth a read. Even, in my case, a REREAD because god knows, I probably missed a lot!
Three stars for a shockingly medium experience. I'm sure I'll get kicked off Goodreads for feeling utterly unchanged by this book, but there you have it.
emotional
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So, wow, what do you say about a masterpiece? In terms of superlatives, as objectively speaking as I can be, Middlemarch seems to me to be the greatest 19th century English novel as well as the greatest domestic novel of all time. It's the best of its kind absolutely. It picks up where Jane Austen left off and goes her one better by creating a greater scope, a whole social panorama, and having some more (and more important) overarching themes than Austen's fine but more pointed work. And, yes, as has been often said, George Eliot writes for adults--no mean task in a century that judged novels not as we do today under capitalism by asking "Is it worth the $15 bucks?" but rather by asking "Is this fit reading material for my teenage daughter?"
Just because I'm in a superlative state of mind, I feel obliged to add that, now having read most of the greatest entries in the category, I believe Moby Dick to be the greatest 19th century novel of them all (for its themes and amazing experiments in rhetoric) while Wuthering Heights remains my personal favorite of the century. It just hits me better and is also flawlessly conceived and written.
So, what's so great about Middlemarch? I'm glad you asked. In a nutshell, it intertwines three major love stories (the domestic novel part) with a tale of scandal, beautifully and convincingly depicting the small-town rural society in which these things happen in a wonderfully balanced and smooth way. Its pace never falters: it never rushes through one story in favor of another, it never gets stuck chronologically, backtracks, or interrupts itself to provide information the reader needs to comprehend a given scene in anything but the smoothest and most logical way. You seldom feel the intrusion of the author/narrator proselytizing as in Dickens and other less sophisticated writers of the period. It feels utterly real--what the realism of the period was striving for, no? In all this it's flawless.
Beyond that--and I think what makes it worthwhile to the modern reader--is that the tales told revolve around some very worthwhile themes. Of course the scandal story, which sets in motion much of the narrative tension and precipitates the denouement, appears to treat of gossip and our often false estimation of one another within a community, but this is only the enlargement of the central theme, in my opinion, the observation that we are all creatures of ego and how truly difficult, and often practically sacred, it is when we come to step even a little outside of what we think of things to apprehend how others are similarly self-involved and how they might experience the world and thus not see everything that others do as a reflection of us and who we are but them and who they are. So, yes, empathy is the main theme here. Like Joyce's Ulysses, it appears a simple theme, yet to practice empathy is no easy task and the tales told in Middlemarch remind us again and again how very hard simple acts of empathy are for we poor mortals and how much easier it is to settle into ourselves as the center of all things and discount those around us as mere props to the play or movie we think we're living, always seeing ourselves in the starring role. Thus sub-themes of pride and self-delusion rear their ugly heads, yet these two are symptoms of the ego sickness rather than full-blown themes in and of themselves, I think.
It's a beautifully written series of interlocking stories with a wholly worthwhile lesson to teach: in sum, the best of the realistic tradition
Just because I'm in a superlative state of mind, I feel obliged to add that, now having read most of the greatest entries in the category, I believe Moby Dick to be the greatest 19th century novel of them all (for its themes and amazing experiments in rhetoric) while Wuthering Heights remains my personal favorite of the century. It just hits me better and is also flawlessly conceived and written.
So, what's so great about Middlemarch? I'm glad you asked. In a nutshell, it intertwines three major love stories (the domestic novel part) with a tale of scandal, beautifully and convincingly depicting the small-town rural society in which these things happen in a wonderfully balanced and smooth way. Its pace never falters: it never rushes through one story in favor of another, it never gets stuck chronologically, backtracks, or interrupts itself to provide information the reader needs to comprehend a given scene in anything but the smoothest and most logical way. You seldom feel the intrusion of the author/narrator proselytizing as in Dickens and other less sophisticated writers of the period. It feels utterly real--what the realism of the period was striving for, no? In all this it's flawless.
Beyond that--and I think what makes it worthwhile to the modern reader--is that the tales told revolve around some very worthwhile themes. Of course the scandal story, which sets in motion much of the narrative tension and precipitates the denouement, appears to treat of gossip and our often false estimation of one another within a community, but this is only the enlargement of the central theme, in my opinion, the observation that we are all creatures of ego and how truly difficult, and often practically sacred, it is when we come to step even a little outside of what we think of things to apprehend how others are similarly self-involved and how they might experience the world and thus not see everything that others do as a reflection of us and who we are but them and who they are. So, yes, empathy is the main theme here. Like Joyce's Ulysses, it appears a simple theme, yet to practice empathy is no easy task and the tales told in Middlemarch remind us again and again how very hard simple acts of empathy are for we poor mortals and how much easier it is to settle into ourselves as the center of all things and discount those around us as mere props to the play or movie we think we're living, always seeing ourselves in the starring role. Thus sub-themes of pride and self-delusion rear their ugly heads, yet these two are symptoms of the ego sickness rather than full-blown themes in and of themselves, I think.
It's a beautifully written series of interlocking stories with a wholly worthwhile lesson to teach: in sum, the best of the realistic tradition