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jack25 's review for:
The Mill on the Floss
by Juliette Atkinson, George Eliot, Gordon S. Haight
“We never could have loved the Earth so well if we had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass […] What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?”
A novel about the childhood, adolescence and early adulthood of brother and sister duo Maggie and Tom Tulliver, who grow up together on a mill in provincial England. Tom is quite severe and grounded in his thinking, while Maggie is much more imaginative but aloof, craving freedom and independence.
I think most people would, even today, be able to find parts of themselves in Maggie and Tom. Their relationship makes up the heart and soul of the book and even when Tom is not physically present in Maggie’s life you can feel his presence on every page. Their relationship is often fraught but filled with deep love, and Eliot does an excellent job at conveying the difficulties and emotional turbulence people face when forced to fill the rigours and roles their families and wider society expect of them, regardless of whether it suits them. Duty, love, maturity, freedom - these themes run central throughout the narrative and are entrenched in every clash or happy memory the pair share.
The book isn’t flawless and I do think the last two sections suffer from a jarring change of tone and being a little drawn out. The ending is also pretty dissatisfying - but this isn’t enough to bring the rest of the book down. Eliot brings it all together with a balanced, gorgeously written prose that is both poetic and well paced, alongside a cast of characters that are as likeable and flawed as her main protagonists.
5*
A novel about the childhood, adolescence and early adulthood of brother and sister duo Maggie and Tom Tulliver, who grow up together on a mill in provincial England. Tom is quite severe and grounded in his thinking, while Maggie is much more imaginative but aloof, craving freedom and independence.
I think most people would, even today, be able to find parts of themselves in Maggie and Tom. Their relationship makes up the heart and soul of the book and even when Tom is not physically present in Maggie’s life you can feel his presence on every page. Their relationship is often fraught but filled with deep love, and Eliot does an excellent job at conveying the difficulties and emotional turbulence people face when forced to fill the rigours and roles their families and wider society expect of them, regardless of whether it suits them. Duty, love, maturity, freedom - these themes run central throughout the narrative and are entrenched in every clash or happy memory the pair share.
The book isn’t flawless and I do think the last two sections suffer from a jarring change of tone and being a little drawn out. The ending is also pretty dissatisfying - but this isn’t enough to bring the rest of the book down. Eliot brings it all together with a balanced, gorgeously written prose that is both poetic and well paced, alongside a cast of characters that are as likeable and flawed as her main protagonists.
5*