You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by darekp
Middlemarch by George Eliot
1.0
When I started reading Middlemarch I was looking forward to it but after a few minutes of reading, I was already disappointed. The book “Middlemarch” written by George Elliot aka Mary Anne Evans in 1871 describes the relationships between several people, whom they marry, and how their lives are changed by these decisions. “A study of provincial life”, as its subheading is called, thematizes social obligations, marriage, and what is to be expected from it.
Dorothea is a solemn, intelligent, self-assured woman who is seriously making a mistake when marrying Edward Casaubon, a pompous scholar much older than her. Dorothea yearns to be actively involved in his research, but he expects her to serve as a secretary. She comes to doubt his talent. Casaubon becomes jealous when she meets his cousin Will Ladislaw. After he has a heart attack, Dorothea is devoted to him. Casaubon wants her to promise to keep working on his research even after his death and dies shortly after. Casaubon’s bestowal says Dorothea will be disinherited if she espouses Ladislaw. Dorothea and Ladislaw initially stay apart but ultimately fall in love and marry. Ladislaw becomes a politician, and, despite her having to give up her dreams, Dorothea is content, because “the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts.” (Book VIII, Chapter 15)
During this time, Lydgate’s story unwinds. He is a young doctor and progressive in his medical treatment techniques. After arriving in Middlemarch, he gets to know and later marries Rosamond Vincy, whom he thinks is “polished, refined, [and] docile” (Book II, Chapter 4). Rosamond believes that marrying Lydgate, who, what is unknown to her, is actually poor, will improve her social standing. Lydgate later regrets choosing Rosamond. She is superficial, uninterested in his work, and because of her expensive lifestyle, he is required to ask for a loan from Nicholas Bulstrode, a widely despised banker, but is rejected.
The many ratings of Middlemarch I have seen before actually reading the book, calling the book an ingenious piece of art, up-to-date and similar, made me expect a gripping and engaging novel. But this only partly turned out to be true.
The novel represents the intelligent Dorothea as a modern and thought-provoking self, yearning “by its nature after some lofty conception of the world” (Book I, Chapter 1) but “such elements in the character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot” (Book, Chapter 1). The book tries to give women a voice and tells them, to reach out for whatever they want. Dorothea represents these striving women of that period.
Considering the time Middlemarch was written, in which women didn’t have anything to say about how they want to live their lives, the book can be described as an early form of modern feminism. The moral of the story was renovating and still is very up-to-date.
But even these allusions to real-life can not compensate for the monotony. The way of depicting the lives and efforts of all the characters shows what life was like during that time. Simple and slow, without much happening apart from the typical daily business and rumors. These simple lives are embellished with a high level of detail in an attempt to make them more arousing.
On the one hand, the amount of minutiae makes even their life stories able to serve as the plot of a novel. On the other hand, are their relationships so trivial that even this detailed view is not enough to let the story appear as if it were about anything exciting or at least informative. The whole drama the characters are going through and arguing about, even though it resembles reality, is not interesting to read about. Elliot was not able to get the reader to care about the story and characters. It is not possible to relate to them, and therefore I just could not care about what happened to them.
Additionally, Dorothea is a stuck-up know-it-all. She thinks her intelligence allows her to judge other people’s decisions and that her point of view is above everything which makes her insufferable.
In conclusion, I think the book has a good moral, trying to show that women are capable of helping humanity and aiming for a greater good and is giving them a voice. But the style the book is written in is not persuading at all and just boring with no possibility of inflecting to one’s own life.
I would rate this book 2 out of 5 possible stars. I can only recommend it to someone who wants to get a clear and way too detailed explanation of daily life in the 19th century, but even then, you would probably be better off studying your history textbook.
Dorothea is a solemn, intelligent, self-assured woman who is seriously making a mistake when marrying Edward Casaubon, a pompous scholar much older than her. Dorothea yearns to be actively involved in his research, but he expects her to serve as a secretary. She comes to doubt his talent. Casaubon becomes jealous when she meets his cousin Will Ladislaw. After he has a heart attack, Dorothea is devoted to him. Casaubon wants her to promise to keep working on his research even after his death and dies shortly after. Casaubon’s bestowal says Dorothea will be disinherited if she espouses Ladislaw. Dorothea and Ladislaw initially stay apart but ultimately fall in love and marry. Ladislaw becomes a politician, and, despite her having to give up her dreams, Dorothea is content, because “the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts.” (Book VIII, Chapter 15)
During this time, Lydgate’s story unwinds. He is a young doctor and progressive in his medical treatment techniques. After arriving in Middlemarch, he gets to know and later marries Rosamond Vincy, whom he thinks is “polished, refined, [and] docile” (Book II, Chapter 4). Rosamond believes that marrying Lydgate, who, what is unknown to her, is actually poor, will improve her social standing. Lydgate later regrets choosing Rosamond. She is superficial, uninterested in his work, and because of her expensive lifestyle, he is required to ask for a loan from Nicholas Bulstrode, a widely despised banker, but is rejected.
The many ratings of Middlemarch I have seen before actually reading the book, calling the book an ingenious piece of art, up-to-date and similar, made me expect a gripping and engaging novel. But this only partly turned out to be true.
The novel represents the intelligent Dorothea as a modern and thought-provoking self, yearning “by its nature after some lofty conception of the world” (Book I, Chapter 1) but “such elements in the character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot” (Book, Chapter 1). The book tries to give women a voice and tells them, to reach out for whatever they want. Dorothea represents these striving women of that period.
Considering the time Middlemarch was written, in which women didn’t have anything to say about how they want to live their lives, the book can be described as an early form of modern feminism. The moral of the story was renovating and still is very up-to-date.
But even these allusions to real-life can not compensate for the monotony. The way of depicting the lives and efforts of all the characters shows what life was like during that time. Simple and slow, without much happening apart from the typical daily business and rumors. These simple lives are embellished with a high level of detail in an attempt to make them more arousing.
On the one hand, the amount of minutiae makes even their life stories able to serve as the plot of a novel. On the other hand, are their relationships so trivial that even this detailed view is not enough to let the story appear as if it were about anything exciting or at least informative. The whole drama the characters are going through and arguing about, even though it resembles reality, is not interesting to read about. Elliot was not able to get the reader to care about the story and characters. It is not possible to relate to them, and therefore I just could not care about what happened to them.
Additionally, Dorothea is a stuck-up know-it-all. She thinks her intelligence allows her to judge other people’s decisions and that her point of view is above everything which makes her insufferable.
In conclusion, I think the book has a good moral, trying to show that women are capable of helping humanity and aiming for a greater good and is giving them a voice. But the style the book is written in is not persuading at all and just boring with no possibility of inflecting to one’s own life.
I would rate this book 2 out of 5 possible stars. I can only recommend it to someone who wants to get a clear and way too detailed explanation of daily life in the 19th century, but even then, you would probably be better off studying your history textbook.