Library's review
I am so happy I tackled this 19th century classic, and even more glad that I persevered even though repeated pauses while I read books that were due back at the library. Truthfully, once I got into the heart of the book, there was no question about finishing it eventually. I found myself thoroughly
The course of true loves does not run smoothly for any of our three couples, and all three face challenges from outsiders who may or may not be a better match. Eliot had a fine touch for drawing characters; where I started the book by finding Dorothea rather annoying and naïve, I ended it by admiring her incessant desire to do good. And where I started by wanting to slap some common sense into Rosamund, I ended by ... well, wanting to slap some common sense into Rosamund. Not everyone has a conversion on the road to Damascus, you know.
All of the denizens of Middlemarch County are worth getting to know, saints and scoundrels alike. And I still find myself thinking about some of them, and wondering what happened to them after the book ended, although Eliot does do a nice wrap-up at the end by fast-forwarding to show us what the future had to hold for these people we just spent 1,000 pages with. If you can fight your way through the elaborate 19th century language (really the only "fault" I can find with this book) you will be richly rewarded for your time.
I marked so many passages for quotation, but I'll just leave you with just a few:
Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.
To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul. Mr. Casaubon had never had a strong bodily frame, and his soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic: It was too languid to thrill out of self-consciousness into passionate delight; it went on fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking of its wings and never flying.
A man is seldom ashamed of feeling that he cannot love a woman so well when he sees a certain greatness in her: nature having intended greatness for men.
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invested in the parallel stories of marriage presented by saintly young Dorothea and her elderly clergyman/scholar husband Casaubon, by beautiful spoiled Rosamund and ambitious medical man Lydgate, and by plain but smart and secure Mary and careless layabout Fred. The course of true loves does not run smoothly for any of our three couples, and all three face challenges from outsiders who may or may not be a better match. Eliot had a fine touch for drawing characters; where I started the book by finding Dorothea rather annoying and naïve, I ended it by admiring her incessant desire to do good. And where I started by wanting to slap some common sense into Rosamund, I ended by ... well, wanting to slap some common sense into Rosamund. Not everyone has a conversion on the road to Damascus, you know.
All of the denizens of Middlemarch County are worth getting to know, saints and scoundrels alike. And I still find myself thinking about some of them, and wondering what happened to them after the book ended, although Eliot does do a nice wrap-up at the end by fast-forwarding to show us what the future had to hold for these people we just spent 1,000 pages with. If you can fight your way through the elaborate 19th century language (really the only "fault" I can find with this book) you will be richly rewarded for your time.
I marked so many passages for quotation, but I'll just leave you with just a few:
Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.
To know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an enthusiastic soul. Mr. Casaubon had never had a strong bodily frame, and his soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic: It was too languid to thrill out of self-consciousness into passionate delight; it went on fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking of its wings and never flying.
A man is seldom ashamed of feeling that he cannot love a woman so well when he sees a certain greatness in her: nature having intended greatness for men.
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Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML: Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is exactly what it claims. Its multiple plots center around the inhabitants of a fictitious Midlands town and their evolving relationships to each other. It is critical of social class, ambition and marriage, and religion. It is commonly considered one of the masterpieces of English writing, and Virginia Woolf described it as "the magnificent book that, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people"..
Awards
Newsweek's Top 100 Books: The Meta-List (13 — 2009)
RUSA CODES Listen List (Selection — 2012)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1872
Local notes
also on Kindle