Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Everyman's Library / Everyman Paperbacks (1961), Edition: New, Paperback, 512 pages
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML: Set in nineteenth-century England, this great novel of domestic realism sympathetically portrays a young woman's vain efforts to adapt to her provincial world. Maggie Tulliver, whose father owns a mill perched on the banks of the River Floss, is intelligent and imaginative beyond the understanding of her community, her relatives, and particularly her brother, Tom. Despite their opposite temperaments, Maggie and Tom are united by a strong bond. But this bond suffers when Tom's sense of family honor leads him to forbid her to associate with the one friend who appreciates her intelligence and imagination. Later, when Maggie falls in love with the handsome and passionate fiancé of her cousin and is caught in a compromising situation, she fears her relationship with Tom may never recover.… (more)
Media reviews
User reviews
LibraryThing member ChocolateMuse
Human relationships are such complicated, tangled, painful things. George Eliot understands this exactly, and has written this book about them. Mr and Mrs Tulliver; the comic but complicated aunts and uncles; Tom; Philip; Stephen; Lucy… Maggie's relationships with them are conflicted and full of
Maggie herself is a character of the heart. I think it would be impossible to read the book and really engage in it without loving Maggie. She is not dissimilar to Dorothea of Middlemarch - but Maggie is wilder, more instantly self-destructive. Her faults are more passionate, more sudden, more selfish. Something inside her must be on fire, all her life - poor Maggie.
I must mention the minor characters also. Mr Wakem, Aunt Moss, Tom's tutor whose name I forget - are all real people who would be ordinary except that they are depicted by George Eliot and are therefore interesting. Bob Jakin is a marvellous minor character, for all that he is simple and comic, and occasionally plays the role of a kind of deux et machina. Every word that comes out of his mouth is vivid and unexpected, often hilarious, and could come from nobody but himself.
A substantial part of this book is essentially about the conflict between romance and love - it sounds so trite, put into bald words, and many other authors would make it disgustingly so. But the reality of this conflict is anything but trite, and Eliot shows us this with her trademark depth of understanding and compassion. She shows, with power, the strange hold another person can have over us - the obsession, the fierce beauty and enormous pain, and the insane things this imaginative power can make us do.
I wanted to say it is a book for the young, because it is about the young, and what it is to be young. But I have a feeling this would be underestimating George Eliot, whose complexity and vast maturity must surely apply to anyone, regardless of her subject matter and themes. (And far be it from me to think I might have grasped everything she has put into this novel - of course I have not.)
This feels more like a Victorian novel than Middlemarch did for me. This one is more emotional, more sentimental - particularly the ending. It is of course an earlier work. But for all that, it is beautiful, it's powerful, and essentially, it is true.
How can I describe Eliot's truth, and our recognition of it? It's the same quality that stood out to me on reading Middlemarch. This truth lies not only in the big things, but in the small also. Eliot briefly describes some reaction or emotion in her characters, or some quality that they possess - and we see ourselves in it, in a way we haven't seen ourselves before. Or she will write about some ordinary thing, perhaps some evocation of childhood, or some comment on society, and we recognise its truth with a sense of surprise. Our reaction to it is not only in our minds, but somehow in our memory as well. We experience a sense of familiarity and a sense of discovery at the same time. I think out of all things, this is what I love most about George Eliot.
Insight, beauty, power, depth - it's all there. George Eliot is still my gold standard of literary fiction.
Show More
paradox. There is nothing simplistic, nothing easy, in the way Maggie must deal with all the complications that lie jumbled within herself and within the people she loves.Maggie herself is a character of the heart. I think it would be impossible to read the book and really engage in it without loving Maggie. She is not dissimilar to Dorothea of Middlemarch - but Maggie is wilder, more instantly self-destructive. Her faults are more passionate, more sudden, more selfish. Something inside her must be on fire, all her life - poor Maggie.
I must mention the minor characters also. Mr Wakem, Aunt Moss, Tom's tutor whose name I forget - are all real people who would be ordinary except that they are depicted by George Eliot and are therefore interesting. Bob Jakin is a marvellous minor character, for all that he is simple and comic, and occasionally plays the role of a kind of deux et machina. Every word that comes out of his mouth is vivid and unexpected, often hilarious, and could come from nobody but himself.
A substantial part of this book is essentially about the conflict between romance and love - it sounds so trite, put into bald words, and many other authors would make it disgustingly so. But the reality of this conflict is anything but trite, and Eliot shows us this with her trademark depth of understanding and compassion. She shows, with power, the strange hold another person can have over us - the obsession, the fierce beauty and enormous pain, and the insane things this imaginative power can make us do.
I wanted to say it is a book for the young, because it is about the young, and what it is to be young. But I have a feeling this would be underestimating George Eliot, whose complexity and vast maturity must surely apply to anyone, regardless of her subject matter and themes. (And far be it from me to think I might have grasped everything she has put into this novel - of course I have not.)
This feels more like a Victorian novel than Middlemarch did for me. This one is more emotional, more sentimental - particularly the ending. It is of course an earlier work. But for all that, it is beautiful, it's powerful, and essentially, it is true.
How can I describe Eliot's truth, and our recognition of it? It's the same quality that stood out to me on reading Middlemarch. This truth lies not only in the big things, but in the small also. Eliot briefly describes some reaction or emotion in her characters, or some quality that they possess - and we see ourselves in it, in a way we haven't seen ourselves before. Or she will write about some ordinary thing, perhaps some evocation of childhood, or some comment on society, and we recognise its truth with a sense of surprise. Our reaction to it is not only in our minds, but somehow in our memory as well. We experience a sense of familiarity and a sense of discovery at the same time. I think out of all things, this is what I love most about George Eliot.
Insight, beauty, power, depth - it's all there. George Eliot is still my gold standard of literary fiction.
Show Less
LibraryThing member LadyHax
When I first attempted to read this novel many, many years ago for an undergraduate class on British women writers of the nineteenth century, I got 126 pages into it (the bookmark was still there) and then abandoned it, fudging my way through the seminar. I maligned this book somewhat, declaring it
Perhaps what struck me most in this second, successful read is that Eliot appears to be using irony - bordering on sarcasm - quite heavily at times. Needless to say, I found this wonderful. Tom's obvious character flaws, for example, are portrayed as virtues, and Maggie's virtues as vices. I must admit, however, that Maggie Tulliver disappoints me somewhat. I do not necessarily feel it was entirely her lack of opportunity that leads to her misfortune but her adolescent ascetic phase. Furthermore, the unattractiveness of Stephen Guest as a character and her (to me) inexplicable attraction to him cemented this disappointment. All I could think was, "He better be gorgeous, sweetheart."
The novel also captures something of the changing times. I recognised the fears and ambitions of the community of St Ogg's something very much like what we think and feel now in the face of globalisation, and that I had seen also in the finale to A.S. Byatt's Potter quartet. It confirms for me that globalisation is not modern, although its technology may be.
Show More
to be dull, nowhere near as interesting as Middlemarch (assisted as I had been in reading that text by pleasant images of Rufus Sewell). In retrospect, I actually think I was too young for this book. This is not to say that the book is terribly adult but that I was not mature enough to appreciate the nuances.Perhaps what struck me most in this second, successful read is that Eliot appears to be using irony - bordering on sarcasm - quite heavily at times. Needless to say, I found this wonderful. Tom's obvious character flaws, for example, are portrayed as virtues, and Maggie's virtues as vices. I must admit, however, that Maggie Tulliver disappoints me somewhat. I do not necessarily feel it was entirely her lack of opportunity that leads to her misfortune but her adolescent ascetic phase. Furthermore, the unattractiveness of Stephen Guest as a character and her (to me) inexplicable attraction to him cemented this disappointment. All I could think was, "He better be gorgeous, sweetheart."
The novel also captures something of the changing times. I recognised the fears and ambitions of the community of St Ogg's something very much like what we think and feel now in the face of globalisation, and that I had seen also in the finale to A.S. Byatt's Potter quartet. It confirms for me that globalisation is not modern, although its technology may be.
Show Less
LibraryThing member tercat
I read this when I was studying in England and I have distinct memories of sitting on benches in Regents Park with my library copy. The copy I was reading was one of those charming small British hardcovers with thin pages. I can practically feel the pages, the sun on my face, and the light wind
Show More
tossing my hair around as I think about it. I'm sure that contributes to my fondness for the book. Show Less
LibraryThing member lostcheerio
I think, to begin, that Maggie did not ever love Stephen. Obviously, she never loved Phillip. The love story of the book was between Maggie and Tom. I don't mean any kind of icky illegal brother/sister whatever. I do think that if she had had a larger sphere of experience, more people to know, more
Look at the structure of the love story for Tom and Maggie. They were together, they were separated by events and circumstances, they came together in the end -- it's a classic story arc for a very traditional love story, except that it's as if the genders are reversed.
When I say it's like a gender reversal... I mean a reversal of the traditional stuff that you expect to happen in a romance novel. Tom is the one who rejects Maggie for being "bad" as he pursues his relentless morals and virtues. He sends her away, corrects her and refuses her for all her traits that he sees as flaws. Ultimately, as they come together at the end, he sees (I think) that she was essentially herself, and that the flaws were actually her consistency with her own strange (to him) nature. So, Tom is kind of the girl, and Maggie is kind of the man who redeems himself at the end through a heroic, pure act. And they die in each others arms. I mean... come on. The inscription on the tombstone of their shared grave is: "In death they were not parted." That's what you'd expect to see on the grave of two lovers. Stephen and Phillip are just distractions... obstacles and problems. THey aren't really love interests. They're things that keep Maggie from Tom, things she does to disappoint him and alienate him.
You know, this story kind of reminds me of A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy. I have to reread that one, I guess. There was some kind of a train ride or something, reminding me of Maggie's float down the river with Stephen. I just can't remember how it all went together. This is why I need to reread these books.
A few thoughts on the characters:
It seems to me like Eliot's task is to take these outwardly simple, perhaps typical characters, turn them inside out and examine their hidden complexities. This is, I think, a common desire for all fiction writers, but Eliot takes her cases from a class of people she herself says would be outwardly kind of crass and uninteresting:
It is a sordid life, you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here one has conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction and without polish, surely the most prosaic form of human life; proud respectability in a gig of unfashionable build; worldliness without side-dishes.
It reminds me of DH Lawrence, in a way, who made me doubt how incredibly complex and sensitive and insightful all these coal miners could really be. Beyond just the vocabulary, but to have the time, the attention, and the innate desire to feel things soooo so deeply and be so overcome by things like moons and whatnot. I guess he should know, having been the son of one, but still. I certainly don't have any desire to feel anything deeply. Maybe because I'm one of those awful, over-educated people who know nothing but extinct languages and who can't lift a bale of hay. Although, I could lift one, if one were here. I might even still be able to lift two. But never mind.
Dickens had caricatures, and Eliot also has characters who are objects of sarcasm or ridicule, but they also have complexity. Take Aunt Glegg, who was sooo horrid and strict with the children early on in the book. The passages depicting her martyrdom, her conversations with her longsuffering husband, and her self-imposed exiles to her room accompanied by a book about saints and a bowl of gruel -- are hilarious. However, it is this Aunt, by the same rules and internal system that made her awful initially, who is most generous and protective of Maggie later on, after the disgrace. That's what makes these characters good, and real -- they are not just meant to be lessons for us, or walking ideologies to be criticized, but they are living under human systems, each to their own. Maggie has hers too. And Tom. Both could have made different decisions to make their lives easier, but they strictly adhered to their own way.
Show More
exposure to the world, she would have found someone to feel truly "in love" with, in the way that Phillip and Stephen were in love with her. In the passionate, married, adult kind of way. However, she never did find that kind of love. Her love for her brother was the only one that was true. That was eternal, endless, that she would give up everything for, that would have been completely sustaining for her. Look at the structure of the love story for Tom and Maggie. They were together, they were separated by events and circumstances, they came together in the end -- it's a classic story arc for a very traditional love story, except that it's as if the genders are reversed.
When I say it's like a gender reversal... I mean a reversal of the traditional stuff that you expect to happen in a romance novel. Tom is the one who rejects Maggie for being "bad" as he pursues his relentless morals and virtues. He sends her away, corrects her and refuses her for all her traits that he sees as flaws. Ultimately, as they come together at the end, he sees (I think) that she was essentially herself, and that the flaws were actually her consistency with her own strange (to him) nature. So, Tom is kind of the girl, and Maggie is kind of the man who redeems himself at the end through a heroic, pure act. And they die in each others arms. I mean... come on. The inscription on the tombstone of their shared grave is: "In death they were not parted." That's what you'd expect to see on the grave of two lovers. Stephen and Phillip are just distractions... obstacles and problems. THey aren't really love interests. They're things that keep Maggie from Tom, things she does to disappoint him and alienate him.
You know, this story kind of reminds me of A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy. I have to reread that one, I guess. There was some kind of a train ride or something, reminding me of Maggie's float down the river with Stephen. I just can't remember how it all went together. This is why I need to reread these books.
A few thoughts on the characters:
It seems to me like Eliot's task is to take these outwardly simple, perhaps typical characters, turn them inside out and examine their hidden complexities. This is, I think, a common desire for all fiction writers, but Eliot takes her cases from a class of people she herself says would be outwardly kind of crass and uninteresting:
It is a sordid life, you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here one has conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction and without polish, surely the most prosaic form of human life; proud respectability in a gig of unfashionable build; worldliness without side-dishes.
It reminds me of DH Lawrence, in a way, who made me doubt how incredibly complex and sensitive and insightful all these coal miners could really be. Beyond just the vocabulary, but to have the time, the attention, and the innate desire to feel things soooo so deeply and be so overcome by things like moons and whatnot. I guess he should know, having been the son of one, but still. I certainly don't have any desire to feel anything deeply. Maybe because I'm one of those awful, over-educated people who know nothing but extinct languages and who can't lift a bale of hay. Although, I could lift one, if one were here. I might even still be able to lift two. But never mind.
Dickens had caricatures, and Eliot also has characters who are objects of sarcasm or ridicule, but they also have complexity. Take Aunt Glegg, who was sooo horrid and strict with the children early on in the book. The passages depicting her martyrdom, her conversations with her longsuffering husband, and her self-imposed exiles to her room accompanied by a book about saints and a bowl of gruel -- are hilarious. However, it is this Aunt, by the same rules and internal system that made her awful initially, who is most generous and protective of Maggie later on, after the disgrace. That's what makes these characters good, and real -- they are not just meant to be lessons for us, or walking ideologies to be criticized, but they are living under human systems, each to their own. Maggie has hers too. And Tom. Both could have made different decisions to make their lives easier, but they strictly adhered to their own way.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bunwat
This is a beautifully written novel. Its got some journeyman flaws, its a little uneven and lumpy in a few spots, but on the whole its exceptionally well drawn, all the characters are wonderful and it has an unshakeable sense of place, of being rooted in all the complex interlinking minutiae that
So why four stars? Because eventually I just got fed up with watching people kick Maggie Tulliver around. If she'd ever once gotten even a little bit angry with any of the many mostly well meaning people who treat her like complete crap, if she'd ever even tried to fight back, even if she failed, well I'd be so on her side. But as it is, its like reading an exceptionally beautifully written Mr Bill show. Watch Sluggo and Mr Hand take away absolutely everything that makes Maggie's life worth having one by one by one, and stomp on her head in passing. Oh NOOOO Mr Bill!
At some point, for me, it just becomes too melodramatic, too "may I have some more sir," and I end up just irritated with the character and the author. Get up and DO something woman! Stop letting everybody kick you around the landscape, what are you, a punching bag?
YMMV*
*Your mileage may vary.
Show More
make up the ecology of a real landscape and a real society. So why four stars? Because eventually I just got fed up with watching people kick Maggie Tulliver around. If she'd ever once gotten even a little bit angry with any of the many mostly well meaning people who treat her like complete crap, if she'd ever even tried to fight back, even if she failed, well I'd be so on her side. But as it is, its like reading an exceptionally beautifully written Mr Bill show. Watch Sluggo and Mr Hand take away absolutely everything that makes Maggie's life worth having one by one by one, and stomp on her head in passing. Oh NOOOO Mr Bill!
At some point, for me, it just becomes too melodramatic, too "may I have some more sir," and I end up just irritated with the character and the author. Get up and DO something woman! Stop letting everybody kick you around the landscape, what are you, a punching bag?
YMMV*
*Your mileage may vary.
Show Less
LibraryThing member littlebookworm
I really enjoyed this book, surprisingly, particularly the first half of Maggie's youth. She is an extremely attractive and likeable character. I do agree with the reviewer below me that the ending was a total cop-out, though. I think a more striking view of femininity and Maggie's individuality
Show More
would have been her breaking away from her family, particularly her brother, and her friends and going off into a new life for herself. She was different, more intelligent as a child, and I believe that should have continued. Just my opinion, though - perhaps Eliot is trying to show that the world wasn't ready for Maggie yet. Show Less
LibraryThing member Greatrakes
This novel has the best characterisation of any novel I've ever read, every motivation rings true, and every act falls from motivation. Eliot seems to have a perfect understanding of why men and women act the way they do: of how they are trapped by the past into certain patterns of behaviour;
Show More
patterns that seem wilful from the outside, yet seem fated and unavoidable from within. I enjoyed the book, unreservedly, for the first two-thirds, then, after the death of Mr Tulliver, the book became irritating. Maggie Tulliver became spiritual, then lovelorn, then melodramatic. Tom Tulliver became withdrawn and mean-spirited. This may have been exactly how they would have acted, but they began to depress and annoy me, and I was glad when they drowned. Show Less
LibraryThing member quoddy
My personal favourite of all Eliot's works. It seems to me to be one of the very few books of it's time which showed that there is true passion in sibling love. It has the sweetest taste of tragedy I have ever had.
LibraryThing member amandacb
I am a little surprised by this book's high rating, as I consider myself well-read and well-educated, and therefore (supposedly) capable of discerning and appreciating fine literature. However, The Mill on the Floss was one of the most painful reading experiences of my life (the other being a
Show More
textbook I had to read for one of my classes). It was tedious, overblown, vacuous...in my opinion, of course. Show Less
LibraryThing member yizhou
This book is talk about Maggie who has an older brother Tom; the whole family was lived in a mill. Unfortunately, one day, the father lost the count case, so he need pay a lot of money, and sold out the mill to his enemy Mr. Wakem. But, Maggie fall in love with Philip who was Mr. Wakem’s son.
Show More
When Maggie’s brother found they were dating, he wanted Maggie to make a choice to choose family or lover. Sadly, she had to choose the family. When her father was died, she was turned to St.Ogg’s and stay with her cousin Lucy. Then Lucy’s lover Stephen who fall in love with Maggie, and he managed to moved another place with Maggie, although Maggie did not want to. When Maggie’s brother known about this, he felt the whole family was shamed, and nobody believe Maggie. Actually, Maggie was still love Philip, so when she received the letter from Philip, she was cried. At this time. It was flood, she rowed the boat to save her brother, but when they want to save the other people, the boat was crashed by a large piece of wood. Both of they were died. The end of story is very impressed, although freedom is the stuff that Maggie always wanted, and she wanted to marry with Philip too. But she still chooses the family and her brother. Show Less
LibraryThing member idiotgirl
A favorite. I found the audiobook reading by Nadia May quite annoying, almost quit at one point and I love this book. She tries to hard with children's voices and much of this book focuses on the characters as children.
This book leaves me contemplating the moral consequences of actions. Also,
George Eliot is such a favorite of mine. Such an amazing woman. And some very fine novels.
This book leaves me contemplating the moral consequences of actions. Also,
Show More
thinking about how relentless luck is in this novel--almost nigh unto Hardy. At any juncture things go awry that could easily go a different direction. Thinking about Eliot's heroines as well. Glad she finally let some happiness into the lives of some of her heroines. Always interested at the extra pain that comes to beautiful women in Eliot (that is a theme that always seems very charged). George Eliot is such a favorite of mine. Such an amazing woman. And some very fine novels.
Show Less
LibraryThing member hemlokgang
If you love period literature, moral struggle, and enchanting heroines, you will love this novel by George Eliot. The main characters in this book are loveable, human, heartrending, and ridiculously funny. Eliot wrote this story of what she considered common folks and the struggles they live with
Show More
day in and out. She describes the small town social hierarchy, the pride, and the honor of the people in this community, through the experiences of Maggie, a dark haired beauty who is both intelligent and moral. Her life is filled with strife, oppression, and also with two men who love her beyond all else. She loves her older brother, Tom, since childhood and lives her life trying to obtain his approval despite multiple roadblocks. You have to read the book to see how it all turns out! Themes in this book: Love, honor, pride, moral struggle, loyalty, family ties. Wonderful novel....I laughed, I held my breath, and I got teary.....great blend to find in one novel! Show Less
LibraryThing member autumnc
If you can find an introduction or timeline with "George Eliot"s life prior to reading this story, it will be all the more poignat. I am pretty sure she is writing her own story- the social context is totally amazing, and makes it all the more meaningful. Major themes surrounding the plight of
Show More
women in the late 1800s, but also incredibly humourous. "This is a puzzling world, if you drive your wagons in a hurry you may light on an awkward corner!" Show Less
LibraryThing member mirrordrum
aaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh! great struggle and a lot of naught. i found it wearing e'en though i did finish it. i'm not sure i'm cut out for some of the classics. like this and ethan frome.
LibraryThing member vicarofdibley
classic writing not read it for many years though
LibraryThing member booksbooks11
What a pleasure this book was. Oh Maggie you're such an annoying but endearing thing why didn't you just marry the gorgeous Stephen, you had to let your silly morals get in the way and don't we love you for it in the end. I was captivated to see how it could ever end and would my longing for Maggie
Show More
and Stephen to be together be satiated or not, you'll have to read it to find out. Show Less
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
What a pleasure it is to read the novels of George Eliot. The sheer intelligence of the author shines on every page. In this, her second novel following closely after Adam Bede, she draws on her own experience to create a world of characters surrounding her hero & heroine, Tom and Maggie
The story develops at a leisurely pace with the first two books devoted to the childhood of Maggie and Tom. As Tom goes off to be tutored, Maggie must stay at home and their lives slowly diverge until in subsequent books, as their father's world disintegrates in debt, they are found on opposite sides with their filial love tested again and again. One of the most impressive aspects of the novel is the complexity of these characters as created by Eliot. Tom distinguishes himself at the trading firm of his Uncle Deane and matures into a confident and courageous young man, repaying the debts of his father. Yet, his character is flawed in both his inflexibility and his inability to appreciate the needs of his sister Maggie. Maggie, who is significantly more intelligent than Tom, and self-taught, has developed from a somewhat over-emotional young girl into a sort of Christian ascetic based on her reading of Thomas a Kempis. She is forbidden friendship with Philip Waken, the son of the lawyer who bought her father's mill, and is prevented from developing the potential that is central to her character. The denouement of the novel leads it down the path of the tragic side of life if not true tragedy, but the complexity of the characters and realism of the world in which they live continues to impress.
Show More
Tulliver.The story develops at a leisurely pace with the first two books devoted to the childhood of Maggie and Tom. As Tom goes off to be tutored, Maggie must stay at home and their lives slowly diverge until in subsequent books, as their father's world disintegrates in debt, they are found on opposite sides with their filial love tested again and again. One of the most impressive aspects of the novel is the complexity of these characters as created by Eliot. Tom distinguishes himself at the trading firm of his Uncle Deane and matures into a confident and courageous young man, repaying the debts of his father. Yet, his character is flawed in both his inflexibility and his inability to appreciate the needs of his sister Maggie. Maggie, who is significantly more intelligent than Tom, and self-taught, has developed from a somewhat over-emotional young girl into a sort of Christian ascetic based on her reading of Thomas a Kempis. She is forbidden friendship with Philip Waken, the son of the lawyer who bought her father's mill, and is prevented from developing the potential that is central to her character. The denouement of the novel leads it down the path of the tragic side of life if not true tragedy, but the complexity of the characters and realism of the world in which they live continues to impress.
Show Less
LibraryThing member keylawk
The only Eliot novel to end tragically, it is also the most autobiographical. For example, depicting the pain of her own brother's disapproval, as shown by the rejection of the impetuous Maggie's choices in the judgments of her duty-bound brother Tom Tulliver.
LibraryThing member SaraPrindiville
Very descriptive and verbose, but overall a good story. Similar to Hardy or Fielding in writing style. Distinct sense of time and unusual in its setting for the time period. Pastoral, but upper middle class- almost reminds me of the British TV show "Keeping up Appearances"- oddly enough.
LibraryThing member anabellebf
Another GE novel that made me cry... although I found the ending a bit weak, it is grand literature as only Eliot can write.
LibraryThing member PuddinTame
From a technical point of view, I think that the writing is superb: the description are vivid (I particularly loved the description of Maggie as a little Medusa with her snakes shorn.) The book is a mixture of the earnest and the farcical, and at points is extremely funny. The structure is
I don't mind that the author speaks to the reader per se, but every time I got caught up in the narrative, it wasn't long before the story ground to a halt while Eliot delivered herself of a short essay. The nearly three pages asking the reader to think of villages on the Rhone and castles on the Rhine (neither of which I have ever seen), wore out my patience--it almost seemed like a joke. Both the critics that I read thought that modern readers were put off by the length of the book, but I can think of a lot of long modern novels. It's not so much the number of pages as the way they are filled.
Maggie Tulliver is apparently a seriously disturbed child, surrounded by insensitive adults who certainly can't help her. I feel sorry for her, but I don't like her. Wanting to be loved isn't the same as being lovable. For most of the book, Maggie is pretty self-absorbed. I pity her for her unpleasant relatives, but that doesn't mean that I find her sympathetic by contrast.
Maggie is destructively impulsive, probably hurting herself more than anyone else, but Eliot lost a great deal of my sympathy early on when Maggie allows her brother's rabbits to die of neglect. It is hard to understand how someone who is supposed to be devoted to him could have so completely forgotten his request to take care of them. The critics that I read pointed out that Maggie is always very sorry for what she does, but she is only sorry for how other people's annoyance will affect her. She never, until the end of the book, is remorseful at causing someone else pain. If she were, she would understand that her brother is reasonably angry, and not complain that he is cruel for not instantly forgiving her. Not to mention what the rabbits went through!
Eliot's view of Maggie and her father is that they are as they are, they cannot help themselves, but everyone else is responsible for their own conduct and for accomodating the Tullivers. I find it hard to be sympathetic to them when Eliot was so scathing about everyone else. I am probably projecting 21st century standards back on a 19th century book, but Tulliver acts against the advice of his wife and goes bankrupt in a law suit, which is rather self-centered and bullying. Maggie (and I suppose Eliot) feel that he should not be blamed for this. Certainly there is no point at railing at a person who is nearly comatose with distress, but he is in fact seriously at fault. [added later: I am reminded a bit of Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Both wives are presented in a very unflattering light as weak and trivial, but in fact they may be said to have a better grasp of reality than their more sympathetically portrayed but somewhat irresponsible spouses. One has to wonder what the authors were thinking in describing these women.]
I found Maggie much more sympathetic in Book 6 and after, but it and her romantic problems seemed a little contrived. The change in her from Book 5 is only partially accounted for; a lot of it is obviously just a set up for the Dramatic Ending.
I would like the book better if Eliot featured some intelligent resolution to Maggie's problems: she could have learned not to be so emotionally dependent upon her brother, she could have made another life for herself. The problems of her love life are indeed a dilemma and not easily solved, but the ending really seems like a cheat. I hope Eliot didn't mean this as encouragement for woman who found themselves at odds with social expectations. Even the reconciliation between Maggie and her brother makes me scoff. They had a big reconciliation scene earlier in the book and it didn't last, so this one doesn't seem meaningful. It is like the end of a television drama where decades of misunderstanding are permanently resolved in the last 60 seconds.
This is certainly a piece of literary history, and there are some great examples of writing in it, but I don't think it has held up as a novel.
Show More
carefully built, with the different metaphors of the river reflecting the state of mind of the characters. I found the end very unsatisfying, I was close to the end of the book before I found Maggie sympathetic, and I thought it failed the chief standard of a novel: to be an involving narrative. I don't mind that the author speaks to the reader per se, but every time I got caught up in the narrative, it wasn't long before the story ground to a halt while Eliot delivered herself of a short essay. The nearly three pages asking the reader to think of villages on the Rhone and castles on the Rhine (neither of which I have ever seen), wore out my patience--it almost seemed like a joke. Both the critics that I read thought that modern readers were put off by the length of the book, but I can think of a lot of long modern novels. It's not so much the number of pages as the way they are filled.
Maggie Tulliver is apparently a seriously disturbed child, surrounded by insensitive adults who certainly can't help her. I feel sorry for her, but I don't like her. Wanting to be loved isn't the same as being lovable. For most of the book, Maggie is pretty self-absorbed. I pity her for her unpleasant relatives, but that doesn't mean that I find her sympathetic by contrast.
Maggie is destructively impulsive, probably hurting herself more than anyone else, but Eliot lost a great deal of my sympathy early on when Maggie allows her brother's rabbits to die of neglect. It is hard to understand how someone who is supposed to be devoted to him could have so completely forgotten his request to take care of them. The critics that I read pointed out that Maggie is always very sorry for what she does, but she is only sorry for how other people's annoyance will affect her. She never, until the end of the book, is remorseful at causing someone else pain. If she were, she would understand that her brother is reasonably angry, and not complain that he is cruel for not instantly forgiving her. Not to mention what the rabbits went through!
Eliot's view of Maggie and her father is that they are as they are, they cannot help themselves, but everyone else is responsible for their own conduct and for accomodating the Tullivers. I find it hard to be sympathetic to them when Eliot was so scathing about everyone else. I am probably projecting 21st century standards back on a 19th century book, but Tulliver acts against the advice of his wife and goes bankrupt in a law suit, which is rather self-centered and bullying. Maggie (and I suppose Eliot) feel that he should not be blamed for this. Certainly there is no point at railing at a person who is nearly comatose with distress, but he is in fact seriously at fault. [added later: I am reminded a bit of Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Both wives are presented in a very unflattering light as weak and trivial, but in fact they may be said to have a better grasp of reality than their more sympathetically portrayed but somewhat irresponsible spouses. One has to wonder what the authors were thinking in describing these women.]
I found Maggie much more sympathetic in Book 6 and after, but it and her romantic problems seemed a little contrived. The change in her from Book 5 is only partially accounted for; a lot of it is obviously just a set up for the Dramatic Ending.
I would like the book better if Eliot featured some intelligent resolution to Maggie's problems: she could have learned not to be so emotionally dependent upon her brother, she could have made another life for herself. The problems of her love life are indeed a dilemma and not easily solved, but the ending really seems like a cheat. I hope Eliot didn't mean this as encouragement for woman who found themselves at odds with social expectations. Even the reconciliation between Maggie and her brother makes me scoff. They had a big reconciliation scene earlier in the book and it didn't last, so this one doesn't seem meaningful. It is like the end of a television drama where decades of misunderstanding are permanently resolved in the last 60 seconds.
This is certainly a piece of literary history, and there are some great examples of writing in it, but I don't think it has held up as a novel.
Show Less
LibraryThing member siew
This is the second of Eliot's books I have read (the first being Middlemarch), and I found the reading as compelling as the first. Eliot has a power of evoking characters that literally live off the pages as you read them; they make you laugh, weep and fume at what life tosses their way, much as
The ending, I found, to be poignant rather than a cop-out. Whilst I too would have loved a happy ending where Maggie finds social vindication and true marital and lifelong bliss, it's all too unfortunate that life doesn't end that way. Eliot's brief but powerful portrayal of St Ogg's women and their condemnation of Maggie's so-called sins, highlights the impossibility of such an ending.
While Eliot does indulge in an obvious parallel with the Virgin myth, and some might call this 'convenient', I found it critical to the enlightenment of Tom's infamous narrow mind.
Debatable though the denouement may be, I found the experience of reading this work entirely engrossing and enjoyable from beginning to end. You can't help but care for the characters that Eliot creates, she is a brilliant artist at her usual best in this work.
Show More
the waves and floods of the Floss. The ending, I found, to be poignant rather than a cop-out. Whilst I too would have loved a happy ending where Maggie finds social vindication and true marital and lifelong bliss, it's all too unfortunate that life doesn't end that way. Eliot's brief but powerful portrayal of St Ogg's women and their condemnation of Maggie's so-called sins, highlights the impossibility of such an ending.
While Eliot does indulge in an obvious parallel with the Virgin myth, and some might call this 'convenient', I found it critical to the enlightenment of Tom's infamous narrow mind.
Debatable though the denouement may be, I found the experience of reading this work entirely engrossing and enjoyable from beginning to end. You can't help but care for the characters that Eliot creates, she is a brilliant artist at her usual best in this work.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SFM13
Maggie's story is tragic, and the ending left me in tears. She was a character that acted impulsively, and drew my sympathies. Her brother Tom may have been annoying and sometimes cruel, but he was her connection to her past ... who she was, and with her in the end. The end...no longer divided,
Show More
Maggie and Tom will be forever immortalized by unconditional love, despite their dysfunction. Show Less
LibraryThing member Johnny1978
The Mill on the Floss details the isolation and evntaul death of Maggie Tulliver - a courageous, intelligent and likeable heroine too good for the narrow society she's condemned by, and certainly too good for her censorious, half-witted brother.
LibraryThing member marcelrochester
Some parts of it were pretty good actually, but the brother was a douche & the ending was a cop-out. Progressively got more boring.
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original publication date
1860
Physical description
512 p.; 7.64 inches
ISBN
0460877224 / 9780460877220