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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
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
Classic, Beautiful heartwarming story, Industrial Revolution, realism yet magical too.
I was never interested in reading Silas Marner because stories about reformed misers that aren’t A Muppet Christmas Carol just don’t do it to me. But since I found myself in possession of a copy of Silas Marner thanks to Indiespensible, I decided to check it out.
Lord, have I been missing out! Yes, there is sad ugly Silas with nothing to love but his horde and then he’s robbed and adopts a child and learns that there is more to life, blah blah biblical allusions blah.
All that is just filler compared to the love story of Godfrey Cass and Nancy Lammeter.
Nancy so has the hots for Godfrey, but girl has a good head on her shoulders and she knows something ain’t right since Godfrey keeps running hot and cold on her so she’d rather pass on all that and be an awesome spinster with her sister. Despite all the flutters she gets when Godfrey helps her down from her horse.
Then, poor opium-addicted Molly actually does overdose! And she dies in the snow and her and Godfrey’s daughter, Eppie, ends up being raised by Silas.
Anyway, this only matters because fast forward 15 years and Godfrey and Nancy are married and in love and it’s great except they don’t have any kids and, God, you know it’s because Godfrey probably gave Nancy some venereal disease or something. So, Nancy has all this guilt about the no kids thing and is always rebuffing Godfrey’s request to adopt Eppie. Godfrey finally gets the stones to tell her that Eppie is his child and she is like, you dumb ass, I totally would have adopted her if I knew that!
Godfrey immediately wants to go an get Eppie back and Nancy agrees, but Eppie is all, I can’t leave my father and I’m going to marry Aaron and have lots of sex and babies. Whatever, Godfrey and Nancy go back to being that awesome childless couple who throw great parties and are nice to their subordinates and Nancy takes up dairy farming.
The End.
Lord, have I been missing out! Yes, there is sad ugly Silas with nothing to love but his horde and then he’s robbed and adopts a child and learns that there is more to life, blah blah biblical allusions blah.
All that is just filler compared to the love story of Godfrey Cass and Nancy Lammeter.
Spoiler
Godfrey was secretly married, people! To a floozy named Molly that he probably got hitched to out of some misguided sense of obligation after their first tumble. Now, he’s broke because between his opium-addict wife and awful brother, he’s tapped and the only helpful thing his brother has to offer is that maybe a well-timed overdose would be the answer to Godfrey’s prayers. Oh, and then he kills Godfrey’s horse. Oy, no wonder Godfrey sees Nancy as his ticket out of this mess. He’s obsessed with her but can’t let anyone know lest they push for an engagement. There is so much angst. I can’t even.Nancy so has the hots for Godfrey, but girl has a good head on her shoulders and she knows something ain’t right since Godfrey keeps running hot and cold on her so she’d rather pass on all that and be an awesome spinster with her sister. Despite all the flutters she gets when Godfrey helps her down from her horse.
Then, poor opium-addicted Molly actually does overdose! And she dies in the snow and her and Godfrey’s daughter, Eppie, ends up being raised by Silas.
Anyway, this only matters because fast forward 15 years and Godfrey and Nancy are married and in love and it’s great except they don’t have any kids and, God, you know it’s because Godfrey probably gave Nancy some venereal disease or something. So, Nancy has all this guilt about the no kids thing and is always rebuffing Godfrey’s request to adopt Eppie. Godfrey finally gets the stones to tell her that Eppie is his child and she is like, you dumb ass, I totally would have adopted her if I knew that!
Godfrey immediately wants to go an get Eppie back and Nancy agrees, but Eppie is all, I can’t leave my father and I’m going to marry Aaron and have lots of sex and babies. Whatever, Godfrey and Nancy go back to being that awesome childless couple who throw great parties and are nice to their subordinates and Nancy takes up dairy farming.
The End.
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected. Maybe full review to come later. Maybe a link to a full review. Anyway, it was good, and I love Silas, and I love Eppie, and Godfrey Cass can go take a luxuriating dip in an active volcano.
My 75th book of the year, which was my challenge for 2018. I ended up reading 76 books last year, beating my challenge by only one, so this year I'm hoping to reach 90 to smash it. Not sure if I will, but I'll try all the same.
I enjoyed the beginning of this very much, got rather bored in the middle and then thoroughly enjoyed the ending. This is my first George Eliot book, and I will admit she is a very good writer. Just two quotes from this small book that I wanted to share.
'She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep - only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky - before a steady growing planet, or a full-flowered eglatine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.'
And this, which though about gold, echoes to materialism in today's society.
'Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude - which was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and started to no human tones - Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living moments; making trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her.'
As humans, I believe we should all try and be like Eppie in our coming futures.
I enjoyed the beginning of this very much, got rather bored in the middle and then thoroughly enjoyed the ending. This is my first George Eliot book, and I will admit she is a very good writer. Just two quotes from this small book that I wanted to share.
'She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep - only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky - before a steady growing planet, or a full-flowered eglatine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.'
And this, which though about gold, echoes to materialism in today's society.
'Unlike the gold which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked solitude - which was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song of birds, and started to no human tones - Eppie was a creature of endless claims and ever-growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine, and living sounds, and living moments; making trial of everything, with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that looked on her.'
As humans, I believe we should all try and be like Eppie in our coming futures.
though the ending felt a little abrupt.
however, that seems to be the fashion with such literature, including Shakespeare and Austen.
however, that seems to be the fashion with such literature, including Shakespeare and Austen.
Such a lovely book. About Silas Marner, who gets cast out of his society after his best friend frames him for stealing.
A lot of people talk about this book is about redemption but I fail to see it. I don’t think Silas has anything that he needs to redeem.
He shuts himself off from the world because the world has been horrible and cruel to him. I’ve done the same. I had no gold to hold on to but I held on to my books.
As for the other characters that should have redeemed themselves, they fail in my opinion.
Beautifully written and tender, and it makes you wanna weave and raise children.
It’s pretty heavy on the moral side but all in all it works. Great writing.
Besides Silas, Priscilla was my favourite. She’s hilarious.
A lot of people talk about this book is about redemption but I fail to see it. I don’t think Silas has anything that he needs to redeem.
He shuts himself off from the world because the world has been horrible and cruel to him. I’ve done the same. I had no gold to hold on to but I held on to my books.
As for the other characters that should have redeemed themselves, they fail in my opinion.
Beautifully written and tender, and it makes you wanna weave and raise children.
It’s pretty heavy on the moral side but all in all it works. Great writing.
Besides Silas, Priscilla was my favourite. She’s hilarious.
The importance of community…
Unjustly accused of theft, Silas Marner, his faith in God and man shattered, flees his home and church and sets himself up in a new place where he knows no one and no one knows him. Raveloe is a small rural village with a strong sense of community among the working class, who, as tradition demands, show deference to the local Squire and his feckless sons. Here Silas lives alone, plying his trade as a linen weaver and accumulating a store of gold which he carefully hides and takes out each night to lovingly count. And so his life may have continued, but that one night his hoard of gold is stolen. He is still reeling and depressed from this disaster when, a short time later, a little girl walks through his door one snowy day. Silas discovers the body of the child’s mother nearby, and decides to adopt the girl, whom he calls Hephzibah, or Eppie for short.
Being one of the small minority who didn’t love Middlemarch, I began this one with a lot of hesitation – a book I felt should read rather than one I wanted to. So the pleasure of discovering that I loved it was all the greater for being unexpected. This one has what, for me, Middlemarch lacked – a strong plot. Its brevity is undoubtedly another point in its favour!
It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, as Eliot pontificates for a while about “the poor”, in that supercilious way that suggests they are one homogenous mass, easy to categorise, define and condescend to. “The poor”, apparently, are rather stupid, highly superstitious, easily led, and would fall somewhere not far above beasts of the field in a zoological league table. Whenever one of these 19th century writers talks about “the poor”, I feel I get a better understanding of why people invented guillotines. Happily, however, once she has staked her claim to social and intellectual superiority, she moves on quite quickly, and her depiction of individual members of “the poor” is much more nuanced and insightful than this opening monologue had led me to fear.
I also feared that Eppie might be one of these saccharin, perfect angels that infest Victorian fiction, usually shortly before they die tragically. Happily not! Eppie is wilful, naughty and refreshingly normal, and won past even my pretty strong anti-child defences. Silas’ reaction to her arrival is very well portrayed, as he sees her as a kind of redeeming gift from the God whom he felt had deserted him. Since she’s a very young child on her arrival, Silas, a man with no experience of children, has to reach out for help, forcing him to become part of the village life he had until then shunned. Perhaps he never quite regains his lost trust in man or God to the same level of naivety of his youth, but he learns to love again, and to appreciate neighbourliness and kindness and the value of community.
The other side of the story is darker, and gives it a weight that prevents Silas’ story from being too sweet. The reader knows the identity of the dead woman, although the villagers do not, and we know why she was there that night, in a snow storm. “The poor” may get Eliot’s condescension, but she is stern on the fecklessness of those who live off the labour of others – the Squire class. Squire Cass himself is a man of pride and temper, and his sons have grown up with weak characters and a sense of entitlement that leads them into vice, each of a different kind. Eliot allows the possibility of redemption, but she intends to make her characters work for it.
I particularly enjoyed the occasional intervals where we eavesdrop on the men of the village, gathered of an evening in the local tavern to swap stories and exchange gossip. There’s a lot of humour in these passages, but they also give a great depiction of the social hierarchy of village life, based not so much on wealth as on age and experience, with a sense of earned wisdom being passed down through the generations. Eliot also shows how the women of the village try to ensure that motherless Eppie is given the guidance on womanly matters that Silas can’t provide.
In the end, the various strands all come together satisfyingly, managing to be sweet without a surfeit of sugar. An excellent listening experience, and I’m now keen to explore more of Eliot’s work.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Unjustly accused of theft, Silas Marner, his faith in God and man shattered, flees his home and church and sets himself up in a new place where he knows no one and no one knows him. Raveloe is a small rural village with a strong sense of community among the working class, who, as tradition demands, show deference to the local Squire and his feckless sons. Here Silas lives alone, plying his trade as a linen weaver and accumulating a store of gold which he carefully hides and takes out each night to lovingly count. And so his life may have continued, but that one night his hoard of gold is stolen. He is still reeling and depressed from this disaster when, a short time later, a little girl walks through his door one snowy day. Silas discovers the body of the child’s mother nearby, and decides to adopt the girl, whom he calls Hephzibah, or Eppie for short.
Being one of the small minority who didn’t love Middlemarch, I began this one with a lot of hesitation – a book I felt should read rather than one I wanted to. So the pleasure of discovering that I loved it was all the greater for being unexpected. This one has what, for me, Middlemarch lacked – a strong plot. Its brevity is undoubtedly another point in its favour!
It gets off to a bit of a rocky start, as Eliot pontificates for a while about “the poor”, in that supercilious way that suggests they are one homogenous mass, easy to categorise, define and condescend to. “The poor”, apparently, are rather stupid, highly superstitious, easily led, and would fall somewhere not far above beasts of the field in a zoological league table. Whenever one of these 19th century writers talks about “the poor”, I feel I get a better understanding of why people invented guillotines. Happily, however, once she has staked her claim to social and intellectual superiority, she moves on quite quickly, and her depiction of individual members of “the poor” is much more nuanced and insightful than this opening monologue had led me to fear.
I also feared that Eppie might be one of these saccharin, perfect angels that infest Victorian fiction, usually shortly before they die tragically. Happily not! Eppie is wilful, naughty and refreshingly normal, and won past even my pretty strong anti-child defences. Silas’ reaction to her arrival is very well portrayed, as he sees her as a kind of redeeming gift from the God whom he felt had deserted him. Since she’s a very young child on her arrival, Silas, a man with no experience of children, has to reach out for help, forcing him to become part of the village life he had until then shunned. Perhaps he never quite regains his lost trust in man or God to the same level of naivety of his youth, but he learns to love again, and to appreciate neighbourliness and kindness and the value of community.
The other side of the story is darker, and gives it a weight that prevents Silas’ story from being too sweet. The reader knows the identity of the dead woman, although the villagers do not, and we know why she was there that night, in a snow storm. “The poor” may get Eliot’s condescension, but she is stern on the fecklessness of those who live off the labour of others – the Squire class. Squire Cass himself is a man of pride and temper, and his sons have grown up with weak characters and a sense of entitlement that leads them into vice, each of a different kind. Eliot allows the possibility of redemption, but she intends to make her characters work for it.
I particularly enjoyed the occasional intervals where we eavesdrop on the men of the village, gathered of an evening in the local tavern to swap stories and exchange gossip. There’s a lot of humour in these passages, but they also give a great depiction of the social hierarchy of village life, based not so much on wealth as on age and experience, with a sense of earned wisdom being passed down through the generations. Eliot also shows how the women of the village try to ensure that motherless Eppie is given the guidance on womanly matters that Silas can’t provide.
In the end, the various strands all come together satisfyingly, managing to be sweet without a surfeit of sugar. An excellent listening experience, and I’m now keen to explore more of Eliot’s work.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
another book i had to read for English. if you want a book with amazing and beautifully written prose, definitely read this one. it also had such a heartwarming story that took me a while to get into but once i did and i found relatability in it and the characters were deeply satisfying in their growth, it was one i did enjoy :)
So much better than when I read it in high school! George Eliot never disappoints