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drjoannehill 's review for:
Silas Marner
by George Eliot
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Money can't buy you happiness.
Silas Marner is a weaver who has saved up a lot of money (because he has nothing to spend it on??) and hoarded it in his cottage. The money is stolen by someone who is relatively much richer anyway, who is never heard of in the locality again. The villagers start to see Silas with more sympathy than previously, and soon Silas finds himself looking after an orphan baby whose mother has died in the snow near the cottage. He begins to see the baby as a replacement for the lost gold. However this action around a new family and purpose for Silas takes place about 60-70% into the book and there's a lot of faffing about listening to the working men in the pub, and later the rich neighbours comparing their clothes to each other at an assembly, before we get down to it. So it's more a picture of the village than a plot driven novel.
How we learn money can't buy happiness:Silas and the baby (who grows up) have little but are happy in their cottage. The thief drowns in a pond or water filled pit and his bones are discovered 16 years later - plus the money! The baby's real father, the SQUIRE, has no children of his own and wanting a family goes to the now grown up baby presuming she will ditch Silas for a life of ease when he admits he's known he was her father all this time .... Of course, she declines. The rich folk are not particularly rich in love and joy, while those with little money have a jolly time celebrating a wedding. Silas' family grows even bigger.
Beautifully read in the audiobook with Lancashire accents (to my ears anyway, and I'm not sure if this is true to the location as it's a made up town...I'd been expecting Warwickshire or West Country accents) and like many of Hardy's novels or maybe Gaskell's North and South, this paints a portrait of a rural 19th century way of life away from the rapid industrialisation of the cities.
I preferred it to Cranford which has even less plot structure.
Silas Marner is a weaver who has saved up a lot of money (because he has nothing to spend it on??) and hoarded it in his cottage. The money is stolen by someone who is relatively much richer anyway, who is never heard of in the locality again. The villagers start to see Silas with more sympathy than previously, and soon Silas finds himself looking after an orphan baby whose mother has died in the snow near the cottage. He begins to see the baby as a replacement for the lost gold. However this action around a new family and purpose for Silas takes place about 60-70% into the book and there's a lot of faffing about listening to the working men in the pub, and later the rich neighbours comparing their clothes to each other at an assembly, before we get down to it. So it's more a picture of the village than a plot driven novel.
How we learn money can't buy happiness:
Beautifully read in the audiobook with Lancashire accents (to my ears anyway, and I'm not sure if this is true to the location as it's a made up town...I'd been expecting Warwickshire or West Country accents) and like many of Hardy's novels or maybe Gaskell's North and South, this paints a portrait of a rural 19th century way of life away from the rapid industrialisation of the cities.
I preferred it to Cranford which has even less plot structure.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death of parent