Scan barcode
A review by is_book_loring
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
3.0
“It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love--this hunger of the heart--as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the world.”
As the omniscient narrator, George Eliot might insisted that 'character is destiny' is a questionable aphorism, but the tragedy in the lives of the Tullivers, and especially of Maggie's, ultimately is rooted in the choices made by the personalities of their characters.
The tragic life of our heroine, Maggie, for one, is due to her complete inability to understand and accept that we can not expect people to love us for who we are in the way we want them to. That road leads to misery. One either has to be vaguely general or mold oneself appropriately and accordingly to the expectation of society, sacrificing or not have any authenticity in the first place to possibly be loved and approved by everyone.
George Eliot's study of characters was top notch, perceptive, encouraging empathy and compassion in diversity, promoting individualism without it need to be divisive, virtue and morality along with humanity, love. It's a little too religious at time, but understandable considering the period it sets in.
The Mill on the Floss though is uneven in pace and, unlike Middlemarch, I feel that George Eliot projected too much of herself in it, thereby distorting the story line. And I think it is likely to be what leads to the redundant final, contrasting it to the undercurrent sympathetic and hopeful tone of the book.
Of course, The Mill on the Floss is said to be a semi-autobiography, her relationship with her brother inspiring Maggie and Tom's, more curious it is that the fate of these fictional siblings is in a very different nature than their mirroring, real ones.
As the omniscient narrator, George Eliot might insisted that 'character is destiny' is a questionable aphorism, but the tragedy in the lives of the Tullivers, and especially of Maggie's, ultimately is rooted in the choices made by the personalities of their characters.
The tragic life of our heroine, Maggie, for one, is due to her complete inability to understand and accept that we can not expect people to love us for who we are in the way we want them to. That road leads to misery. One either has to be vaguely general or mold oneself appropriately and accordingly to the expectation of society, sacrificing or not have any authenticity in the first place to possibly be loved and approved by everyone.
George Eliot's study of characters was top notch, perceptive, encouraging empathy and compassion in diversity, promoting individualism without it need to be divisive, virtue and morality along with humanity, love. It's a little too religious at time, but understandable considering the period it sets in.
The Mill on the Floss though is uneven in pace and, unlike Middlemarch, I feel that George Eliot projected too much of herself in it, thereby distorting the story line. And I think it is likely to be what leads to the redundant final, contrasting it to the undercurrent sympathetic and hopeful tone of the book.
Of course, The Mill on the Floss is said to be a semi-autobiography, her relationship with her brother inspiring Maggie and Tom's, more curious it is that the fate of these fictional siblings is in a very different nature than their mirroring, real ones.