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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
I struggled to get into this book for the first few chapters, but it was worth pushing through. The story is sad, funny (I read so many lines aloud to my family lol), and thoroughly heartwarming.
A classic morally imbibed novel. Silas Marner is an embodiment of the moral - "good things happen to good people". This novel also explores the societal predicaments and how situations leads to impressions.
Strangely short, this book had the oddest pacing. It felt at times as if I were reading the abridged version, with so much of the texture and time of the standard Victorian novel swept away in cut scenes where dozens of years pass.
But what's here is interesting, if a bit gooey. I wanted to spend more time with both Silas and Godfrey, especially Godfrey.
But what's here is interesting, if a bit gooey. I wanted to spend more time with both Silas and Godfrey, especially Godfrey.
While I feel this might be a book I could enjoy, I don't currently.
Really enjoyed this, even if it was a little clumsy in parts. Short, readable and quite heartwarming.
inspiring
reflective
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
I have a tendency to avoid classics on my TBR because I expect them to be difficult; George Eliot proves that this assumption is flawed, because I raced through Silas Marner with no more trouble than it took me to read any novel published in my lifetime. While I dimly remembered the bare bones of the plot, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was able to identify with the Silas, and how much of a character development journey he goes on.
Silas Marner is not just a miserly weaver, though that's the starting point for the novel's relatively simple plot. He was a devout man whose community turned against him and left him cut off from both spiritual and lay society. The idea that moving geographically also created distance between Silas and his 'local god' was fascinating. George Eliot doesn't completely pin down the religious differences between Lantern Yard and the Raveloe church, so modern readers may find themselves wishing there was a little more context.
Silas isn't the only character who reads as something other than neurotypical: Nancy has fixed personal rules for life which, once arrived at, cannot be strayed from even if being more flexible would make life easier. George Eliot doesn't dwell on this as much as on Silas, but it's still fascinating to see in a character so far removed from modern labels. There's also Priscilla, who rejects both the possibility of marriage and any attraction to men completely out of hand, which may strike a reader as coming pretty close to the asexual or aromantic spectrum.
Silas Marner's plot is really just the background action holding all the characters together. There's no mystery as to how Silas's life changes, and the character who brings about the biggest upheaval disappears off the page entirely for most of the story. His return is unforeshadowed and not terribly satisfying. The ending of the novel, while making perfect logical sense from the events which precede it, feels a little abrupt.
Nonetheless, I had a great time reading Silas Marner and would thoroughly recommend it. If you enjoyed Heidi, you could see this as a very similar story, but told from the opposite perspective.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Death of parent
Stuck between books the other day I had a sudden desire to read anything but science fiction or fantasy which, of course, is 90% of what I own. I wanted nonfiction or some classics I've never tried. I ran to the library after work but only had 20 minutes to grab whatever I could find before they closed. (It was a nightmare.)
Now I've been wanting to read Middlemarch by George Eliot for a while. It's come up referenced a couple of times in things and sounded interesting but of course the library didn't have it. They did have Silas Marner and it's a cute little red cloth Everyman's Library edition that feels nice in the hand (Sometime books just feel amazing to hold, don't they?) and had a little ribbon marker. My father always said he liked it when he read it years ago and it's only a little over 200 pages so I thought I'd give it a go.
It was horrible.
In case you've never heard of it, t's about a weaver called Silas Marner who, after some horrible things in his life, just works and collects gold. There's nothing else in his life. He's not mean or vengeful or cruel just alone and miserly until one day all his gold is stolen and he has nothing at all until a little child literally walks into his life when her mother dies on the road and he takes her in and raises her. There's more plot of course, who took the gold and why, where the mother came from, ect. The problem is that the story never gets going.
The writing isn't clever like Austen or witty like Twain. It's not pretty or vivid or even exciting and worse, for the longest time nothing happens. Even in the middle of the theft and discovery of the gold being missing the text goes to the local pub and sits there listening to the men inside argue about nothing at all for at least a chapter before Silas appears to startle them. The child doesn't even show up until something like page 150 in the book! After that it was a little more interesting and I could enjoy the writing I think if anything happened because you'd get these little bursts of a paragraph or two where you go- "Okay, finally. Here we go. It's getting good." Then, nope, dead again.
It was so disappointing and put me off the idea of trying Middlemarch for a while because I'm just not excited about it anymore.
Now I've been wanting to read Middlemarch by George Eliot for a while. It's come up referenced a couple of times in things and sounded interesting but of course the library didn't have it. They did have Silas Marner and it's a cute little red cloth Everyman's Library edition that feels nice in the hand (Sometime books just feel amazing to hold, don't they?) and had a little ribbon marker. My father always said he liked it when he read it years ago and it's only a little over 200 pages so I thought I'd give it a go.
It was horrible.
In case you've never heard of it, t's about a weaver called Silas Marner who, after some horrible things in his life, just works and collects gold. There's nothing else in his life. He's not mean or vengeful or cruel just alone and miserly until one day all his gold is stolen and he has nothing at all until a little child literally walks into his life when her mother dies on the road and he takes her in and raises her. There's more plot of course, who took the gold and why, where the mother came from, ect. The problem is that the story never gets going.
The writing isn't clever like Austen or witty like Twain. It's not pretty or vivid or even exciting and worse, for the longest time nothing happens. Even in the middle of the theft and discovery of the gold being missing the text goes to the local pub and sits there listening to the men inside argue about nothing at all for at least a chapter before Silas appears to startle them. The child doesn't even show up until something like page 150 in the book! After that it was a little more interesting and I could enjoy the writing I think if anything happened because you'd get these little bursts of a paragraph or two where you go- "Okay, finally. Here we go. It's getting good." Then, nope, dead again.
It was so disappointing and put me off the idea of trying Middlemarch for a while because I'm just not excited about it anymore.
I get why it's been such a beloved classic, and as the plot goes it could be interesting or even mildly suspenseful at times, but I was bored.
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Oh, Silas. You sad miser. I'm sorry you were accused of something you didn't do, and I'm sorry that your God didn't come through for you when you needed him most. Screw William Dane. He was jealous of your "fits" and decided to ruin your life and steal your fiancee. What a loser. Silas, you deserved better. I'm sorry you finally found happiness in hoarding money only to have it all stolen by someone who didn't even need it. I'm glad you came upon a child that needed someone when you needed someone most. I'm happy that you found happiness and gave it to her. Even though your life would have been and will be taken over by industrialization, I am still glad that you have Eppie for now.