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stephanie_fournet 's review for:
Middlemarch
by George Eliot
I used to teach Silas Marner to eight graders. I loved it. They did not. Eighth grade might be a little too young to appreciate Eliot's language, her dry and candid observations on human nature, and her extremely delayed sense of justice. Even though I'd loved it, I had not read Middlemarch until it showed up on my Audible Escape catalogue. I can't agree with Audible's categorizing Eliot's novel as romance. Yes, there are three very compelling love stories enclosed in its pages, but those are often eclipsed by the other characters and events in the environs around Middlemarch. The full title of the book is Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life, which is a much more accurate description than "romance."
I wrote in my newsletter that when I started reading the book, I couldn't identify even one sympathetic character, but by the end of the novel, I found them all to be sympathetic, even the ones who are deeply flawed and never reform. Eliot's unflinching study of human ego, weakness, integrity, forgiveness, and love delivers truth after truth about who we are, and her conclusions are no less astute for the book having been published nearly 150 years ago. When the book first opened, I wondered how I would make it through the 35 hours of audio, but as the interwoven stories unfolded, I found myself not wanting the book to end.
I wrote in my newsletter that when I started reading the book, I couldn't identify even one sympathetic character, but by the end of the novel, I found them all to be sympathetic, even the ones who are deeply flawed and never reform. Eliot's unflinching study of human ego, weakness, integrity, forgiveness, and love delivers truth after truth about who we are, and her conclusions are no less astute for the book having been published nearly 150 years ago. When the book first opened, I wondered how I would make it through the 35 hours of audio, but as the interwoven stories unfolded, I found myself not wanting the book to end.