Scan barcode
mimibiedron's review
4.0
Another book that I read as a college student and then returned to later in life, when I had much more appreciation for characters. It is a masterpiece.
pripri87's review against another edition
4.0
Middlemarch begins where most novels leave off: Marriage. Romance stories of our time traditionally tend to treat marriage as the natural denouement of a love story, leaving us with the impression that in marriage lies the eventual neat conclusion of all of our lives.
Yet, how often do we get to see what happens beyond marriage? How couples grow together (or apart), how they learn of and deal with their compatibility, or lack thereof? Traditional novels set all of us up for a lifetime of assumptions about what marriage is and isn’t, that many of us might only examine once we too, achieve that milestone.
The way George Eliot treats marriage in Middlemarch is refreshing, even instructive. Compatibility is not a given, as we see in the union between the story’s heroine, Dorothea Brooke and a much older, and purported scholar-Casaubon. Brooke is graceful, intelligent, exceedingly kind, and idealistic to a fault; her youthful innocence and optimism around love – that a life of purpose can beget through marrying a man she deems capable by way of his intellectual pursuits - are shattered upon the realization that her shallow assumptions about him, based on how he fashioned himself to her, are acutely flawed. Much more work is required to truly understand a man’s character, and to deduce his place in your world, than Dorothea allows herself.
Incompatibility is depicted too, in the unfolding of the rash marriage between Dr. Lydgate and his Rosamond, two personalities that Eliot expertly paints in their polar opposites. We travel alongside Lydgate’s internal battle between his duty in maintaining a happy wife, and his duty to his vocation: tending and ministering to the sick. A gifted doctor, Lydgate is constantly second-guessed, not only by his skeptical-of-change colleagues, but also by his wife, especially in his penchant for breaking with convention for new, practical and evidence-based therapies that he learns of through readings, experimentation and experience. Is this the first novel to so expertly depict medicine’s age-old clash between tradition and innovation, of the mistrust that surrounds those who try to break moulds, don’t believe merely because ‘that’s how it’s always been done”, and strive for more as intellectuals? In fact, when Lydgate’s worst comes to pass, it is Dorothea, not Rosamond, who refuses to waver in her belief in him and his character.
In each flawed union, the protagonist’s choice aligns with the stereotypes of their gender: the woman, for what the man can do for her (and in turn, how she can support him to fulfill a life’s purpose), and for Lydgate, a decision made for beauty, rather than intellect, which he deems himself to possess enough of.
In many ways, then, what Eliot demonstrates, through the lives of her protagonists, is how marriage can hinder us, in our life pursuits –what happens if our life partner detracts from, rather than enables, the things we’d like to, or hope to, achieve?
One wonders what Lydgate could have become, had he not allowed his heart to take ahold of him? As Eliot wrote, though “in brief, Lydgate was what is called a successful man”, “he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to do.” Can our hoped for personal successes feel as satisfactory as meeting society’s milestones, measures we are supposed to meet because it has always been so? And Dorothea, whom Eliot describes thusly, in ending: “Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother” – it cannot only be me who wonders what may have happened had she foregone love completely, again choosing unconventionality as she once had with Casaubon? Might she have been able to lend her own hand, as she had yearned for throughout the book, to better the lives of those around her? Might this have been more fulfilling, for Dorothea, as much as for readers like myself, than the ending we are given by Eliot?
Interestingly, it is with the villain, if there is one, among Middlemarch’s occupants – Bulstrode – that we glimpse an ideal marriage (Caleb Garth’s is another, but where Garth is an upstanding, moral man, Bulstrode is decidedly not). Mrs.Bulstrode’s devotion to her husband, even in his wrongdoing, is a touching reminder of what marriage could truly be, if we are only so lucky to find such a companion. “…her pale face, her changed, mourning dress, the trembling about her mouth, all said, “I know;” and her hands and eyes rested gently on him…They could not yet speak to each other of the shame which she was bearing with him.”
Eliot’s immersive prose touches numerous themes that remain still relevant to us today. If her own life is any evidence – an unconventional live-in relationship with a married man with children (whose wife bore children by another man while married to him) – is it any wonder, that Eliot writes so progressively, so relevantly to our own world, a time so far removed from her own?
Yet, how often do we get to see what happens beyond marriage? How couples grow together (or apart), how they learn of and deal with their compatibility, or lack thereof? Traditional novels set all of us up for a lifetime of assumptions about what marriage is and isn’t, that many of us might only examine once we too, achieve that milestone.
The way George Eliot treats marriage in Middlemarch is refreshing, even instructive. Compatibility is not a given, as we see in the union between the story’s heroine, Dorothea Brooke and a much older, and purported scholar-Casaubon. Brooke is graceful, intelligent, exceedingly kind, and idealistic to a fault; her youthful innocence and optimism around love – that a life of purpose can beget through marrying a man she deems capable by way of his intellectual pursuits - are shattered upon the realization that her shallow assumptions about him, based on how he fashioned himself to her, are acutely flawed. Much more work is required to truly understand a man’s character, and to deduce his place in your world, than Dorothea allows herself.
Incompatibility is depicted too, in the unfolding of the rash marriage between Dr. Lydgate and his Rosamond, two personalities that Eliot expertly paints in their polar opposites. We travel alongside Lydgate’s internal battle between his duty in maintaining a happy wife, and his duty to his vocation: tending and ministering to the sick. A gifted doctor, Lydgate is constantly second-guessed, not only by his skeptical-of-change colleagues, but also by his wife, especially in his penchant for breaking with convention for new, practical and evidence-based therapies that he learns of through readings, experimentation and experience. Is this the first novel to so expertly depict medicine’s age-old clash between tradition and innovation, of the mistrust that surrounds those who try to break moulds, don’t believe merely because ‘that’s how it’s always been done”, and strive for more as intellectuals? In fact, when Lydgate’s worst comes to pass, it is Dorothea, not Rosamond, who refuses to waver in her belief in him and his character.
In each flawed union, the protagonist’s choice aligns with the stereotypes of their gender: the woman, for what the man can do for her (and in turn, how she can support him to fulfill a life’s purpose), and for Lydgate, a decision made for beauty, rather than intellect, which he deems himself to possess enough of.
In many ways, then, what Eliot demonstrates, through the lives of her protagonists, is how marriage can hinder us, in our life pursuits –what happens if our life partner detracts from, rather than enables, the things we’d like to, or hope to, achieve?
One wonders what Lydgate could have become, had he not allowed his heart to take ahold of him? As Eliot wrote, though “in brief, Lydgate was what is called a successful man”, “he always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once meant to do.” Can our hoped for personal successes feel as satisfactory as meeting society’s milestones, measures we are supposed to meet because it has always been so? And Dorothea, whom Eliot describes thusly, in ending: “Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother” – it cannot only be me who wonders what may have happened had she foregone love completely, again choosing unconventionality as she once had with Casaubon? Might she have been able to lend her own hand, as she had yearned for throughout the book, to better the lives of those around her? Might this have been more fulfilling, for Dorothea, as much as for readers like myself, than the ending we are given by Eliot?
Interestingly, it is with the villain, if there is one, among Middlemarch’s occupants – Bulstrode – that we glimpse an ideal marriage (Caleb Garth’s is another, but where Garth is an upstanding, moral man, Bulstrode is decidedly not). Mrs.Bulstrode’s devotion to her husband, even in his wrongdoing, is a touching reminder of what marriage could truly be, if we are only so lucky to find such a companion. “…her pale face, her changed, mourning dress, the trembling about her mouth, all said, “I know;” and her hands and eyes rested gently on him…They could not yet speak to each other of the shame which she was bearing with him.”
Eliot’s immersive prose touches numerous themes that remain still relevant to us today. If her own life is any evidence – an unconventional live-in relationship with a married man with children (whose wife bore children by another man while married to him) – is it any wonder, that Eliot writes so progressively, so relevantly to our own world, a time so far removed from her own?
richardrbecker's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Middlemarch by George Eliot reads surprisingly contemporary and modern. Written in 1871-72 in eight installments, the story primarily follows four characters — Dorothea Brooke, Tertius Lydgate, Mary Garth, and Nicholas Bulstrode — each with their own plots but all centered around Middlemarch, a fictional English Midlands town between 1829 and 1832. B
But if we are to attempt a condensation of theme, Eliot is especially interested in the relationships between men and women through the lens of societal trappings of the upper middle class. The result is often disastrous, mainly because of their expectations of each other. These include expectations related to marriage, conformity, love, responsibility, prejudice, femininity, vanity, and gender (among others). Occasionally, Eliot also accounts for community, class, politics, progress, and reform. However, those latter themes are almost always tethered to how they touch individuals and their relationships.
As told by Eliot, it was an exceptionally troublesome period in history, where society seemed to have shoved a wedge between men and women by spelling out their roles and obligations. And yet, it still shines as a reminder that we need to do better in our attempt to understand each other without succumbing to ego and ambition within our households.
The 19-year-old orphan Dorothea Brooke sets the tone of the novel. As a pious young woman, she makes a mistake in marrying a much older scholar. Once married, he doesn't take her youth, energy, and enthusiasm seriously. He even attempts to haunt her after death by placing conditions on his estate, expressly forbidding her from remarrying one of her friends.
Other stories of characters include an idealistic, naive young doctor who ends up in an unhappy marriage with Rosamond Vincy; Mary Garth, who insists Fred Vincy prove he is ready to live a practical and serious life; and a wealthy banker and hypocrite Nicholas Bulstrode, who attempts to instill his beliefs on Middlemarch society after marrying Vincy's sister, Harriet.
While all of their lives interact (along with a cast of dozens), their individual stories often stand on their own, making Middlemarch meander along more often than not. And because of this, along with its substantial length, it isn't for everyone. Sometimes, I even found myself lost in the reading, wondering where Eliot was taking me and having to remind myself that Middlemarch isn't a journey as much as a destination. It is a society in which characters like Dorothea are trapped, and the readers right along with them. Fortunately, it's an entertaining trapping, one I recommend for anyone who appreciates historical fiction (even though it wasn't written as such in the 1800s) or wants to consider how some classics could influence their writings.
But if we are to attempt a condensation of theme, Eliot is especially interested in the relationships between men and women through the lens of societal trappings of the upper middle class. The result is often disastrous, mainly because of their expectations of each other. These include expectations related to marriage, conformity, love, responsibility, prejudice, femininity, vanity, and gender (among others). Occasionally, Eliot also accounts for community, class, politics, progress, and reform. However, those latter themes are almost always tethered to how they touch individuals and their relationships.
As told by Eliot, it was an exceptionally troublesome period in history, where society seemed to have shoved a wedge between men and women by spelling out their roles and obligations. And yet, it still shines as a reminder that we need to do better in our attempt to understand each other without succumbing to ego and ambition within our households.
The 19-year-old orphan Dorothea Brooke sets the tone of the novel. As a pious young woman, she makes a mistake in marrying a much older scholar. Once married, he doesn't take her youth, energy, and enthusiasm seriously. He even attempts to haunt her after death by placing conditions on his estate, expressly forbidding her from remarrying one of her friends.
Other stories of characters include an idealistic, naive young doctor who ends up in an unhappy marriage with Rosamond Vincy; Mary Garth, who insists Fred Vincy prove he is ready to live a practical and serious life; and a wealthy banker and hypocrite Nicholas Bulstrode, who attempts to instill his beliefs on Middlemarch society after marrying Vincy's sister, Harriet.
While all of their lives interact (along with a cast of dozens), their individual stories often stand on their own, making Middlemarch meander along more often than not. And because of this, along with its substantial length, it isn't for everyone. Sometimes, I even found myself lost in the reading, wondering where Eliot was taking me and having to remind myself that Middlemarch isn't a journey as much as a destination. It is a society in which characters like Dorothea are trapped, and the readers right along with them. Fortunately, it's an entertaining trapping, one I recommend for anyone who appreciates historical fiction (even though it wasn't written as such in the 1800s) or wants to consider how some classics could influence their writings.
taygus's review against another edition
1.0
Audiobook= Bbc radio dramatisation
I really disliked this. I struggled to keep track of the different characters. I felt like I couldn't connect or relate to them.
It just seemed so boring.
I really disliked this. I struggled to keep track of the different characters. I felt like I couldn't connect or relate to them.
It just seemed so boring.
firvida's review against another edition
5.0
¿Hola? ¿Qué ha sido esto? Qué injusta la fama de novela ardua, pesada, aburrida, ensayística. Esta novela es la vida, la vida en toda su amplitud y en todos sus frentes: el amor, el desamor, la esperanza, la familia, la frustración, el desengaño, la amistad y la enemistad, la ignorancia, los prejuicios y los obstáculos para la propia realización. Dorothea, Will, Fred, Mary, Lydgate y Rosamund, esa Rosamund que tan bien refleja lo perjudicial de una educación femenina deficiente, todos ellos se quedan contigo. Las frases finales de la novela son un soplo para el corazón.
Porque nosotras somos "todas aquellas Dorotheas".
Porque nosotras somos "todas aquellas Dorotheas".
leave_oliviasleeping's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
nyah_lou's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0