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West Midlands - Middlemarch by George Eliot


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WEST MIDLANDS
 
Middlemarch by George Eliot
 
Synopsis:
George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial English community prior to the Reform Bill of 1832. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfilment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; passionate, idealistic and penniless artist Will Ladislaw; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama.
 
 
Other West Midlands books:
The Rotters' Club by Jonathan Coe
What Hetty Did by J. L. Carr
Nice Work by David Lodge

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  • 1 year later...

Middlemarch by George Eliot ******

(Note: this review has been copied to my reading blog and to my challenge thread).

Once upon a time, way back in my long distance youth, I studied Middlemarch for A-Level.  It's so far in the past, I don't remember much about it, other than I didn't rate is as highly as, say Jane Austen.  Middlemarch has been long overdue a reread, and when better than as part of the  English Counties Challenge?!
 
It's big.  That might seem a teensy-weensy bit obvious, and it's why I've not added anything to my blog for over a fortnight, but some tomes don't really make a big impact.  By the end of Middlemarch (actually, long before the end) you realise that you're reading something that has huge depth and weight.  This is partly Eliot's style: while she's not as flowery as Dickens, she still doesn't write with the conciseness of an Austen or a Woolf, and can rather belabour a point.  However, it's also down to the content, covering a wide range of characters and a veritable tapestry of interwoven themes.  Like a tapestry too, it generates a vivid overall picture, whilst enabling the reader to zoom in and pick apart matters at a much closer level. It's such a huge book that I can barely scrape the surface here, and too much detail would of necessity involve some fairly significant spoilers (which is why I never read 'introductions' until after I've read the book - ridiculous but necessary!) so I'll just touch on a few aspects:
 
Middlemarch concentrates primarily on the lives of three 'couples' (although one is more a trio).  At the heart of the trio is Dorothea Brooke, a strongly opinionated and socially conscious nineteen year old, who, believing in his intellectual greatness, decides to marry the crusty and elderly Edward Casaubon in preference to the rather more bucolic local landowner, Sir James Chettam, who lands up marrying Dorothea's sister, Celia.  On her honeymoon she meets her husband's much younger cousin, Will Ladislaw, of decidely mixed parentage, who Dorothea feels has been badly treated, and of whom Casaubon is both resentful and suspicious.  Tertius Lydgate, an ambitious and idealistic doctor, arrives in Middlemarch and meets and marries the beautiful but thoroughly self-centred and status obsessed Rosamund Vincy, whilst her well meaning but spendthrift and rather careless brother loves Mary Garth, who the rest of his family look down on, but who is in fact thoroughly down to earth and clear sighted, but poor.  The bulk of the rest of the cast is made up of those with whom these three couples are either related or closely interact in other ways, the resulting tight network of relationships being a hallmark of the provinciality of Middlemarch: everybody knows everybody!  All this is set against the background of the lead up to the Great Reform Act of 1832, the provincial world showing increasing restiveness.

 Through the lives of these characters, Eliot threads a number of themes.  Particularly prominent is that of the role of women, particularly in the partnership of marriage, with all three of the above relationships involving strong female contributions, both negative and positive. Eliot also examines with some rigour characters' efforts to achieve what they perceive as important in their lives, from the thoroughly worthy to the utterly shallow, but particularly those who are seeking some kind of self-fulfilment.  Not all are successful, whilst others find that they reach the goal in rather a different way to that intended! Then there is the influence of the setting: the bustling, Midlands town (much of it probably based on Coventry and Nuneaton), where rumour and counter-rumour spread like wildfire and can transform someone's life, almost in minutes: it's not what you do or who you are that matters so much as how others perceive you.
 
In other words, Eliot is talking about living lives, lives that touch on so much that is relevant to us all, and drawn with so much detail and colour that we cannot help being pulled deep into the narrative ourselves. It may sound a bit of cliche, but it is true nonetheless, that the characters and their world came thoroughly to life, to the extent that for just over a fortnight, I was never happier than visiting Middlemarch!  It is also very easy to see why so many have rated Middlemarch as one of the great novels of English literature, it featuring frequently in 'greatest ever' lists.  It's not perfect - not least because of the wordiness on occasions - but life itself isn't, and Middlemarch's greatest strength is its reflection of life.  And, anyway, the lack of perfection is sometimes what gives things their interest.

Edited by willoyd
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  • 4 months later...

Copied from my book log: 

 

I read this as a group read with Janet and Claire, and I decided to that mainly because the novel intimidated me. Why, I cannot say, except perhaps for length, and it's status as a classic - but without the familiarity of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen in today's literature/popular culture. 

 

The first thing to say is: please don't follow my lead. Please don't be intimidated by this novel. It's surprisingly accessible, and very readable. The only exceptions to that are the paragraphs were Eliot goes off at a slight tangent about her views on the society of the day - these often require multiple readings to get one's head around! However, they aren't that regular and even if you skipped them entirely it wouldn't detract from the actual plot. 

 

This weighty tome follows the lives of three couples, with the main heroine Dorothea Brooke - decades ahead of her time, rather like the author! It does take some time to get into and the first 100 pages feels a little meandering, but actually it's a clearly plotted novel and the prose is gorgeous. 

 

What I did like most about the book was that within the confines of West Midland society at that time, we are introduced to a snapshot of it. The differing couples have different levels of wealth and ambition and none are perfect - all have vices. Even if Rosamond had a few more than the others and I wanted to repeatedly slap her!

 

Willoyd noted that it was best to read this novel in chunks and I definitely think he's right. I enjoyed it the most when I gobbled it up in big sittings, which makes it ever the more intriguing that it was published over a period of months (over  year I think?) as a serial. 

 

I am deducting one mark because it took me a little time to get into and it seemed to end rather abruptly, but I certainly have no regrets in tackling this classic and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. 

 

Thanks for reading alongside me, Janet and Claire  :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

027-2015-Jun-25-Middlemarch%20A%20Study%

 

Middlemarch by George Eliot

 

The ‘blurb’

In Middlemarch George Eliot gives us a portrait of provincial life in Victorian England that has never been surpassed.

 

Wit, irony, pathos and brilliant insight into human nature colour every strand of plot and every beautifully drawn character. Foremost among these and Dorothea Booke, passionate to use her spirit and talent in a wider world than that typically afforded to women in the 1830s; Casuabon, the dry, jealous academic; Doctor Lydgate, who dreams of pioneering research in medical science; spoilt, pretty Rosamond Vincy who sees as 'a man whom it would be delightful to enslave'.

 

The novel centres on the marriages of Dorothea and of Lydgate, and on the web of relationships that connects us to each other.

 

This is not my first Eliot novel – I read Silas Marner back in 2011 and thought it was excellent, but despite this I was still rather intimidated by the thought of reading this so it was good to start off reading it with two other members.  Originally it was published in serial form so it did work reading it in instalments.  I found part 1 to be a bit hard going… and rather dull, if I’m entirely honest, but it really got going in part 2 and once I had got into the book part of me wanted to rush ahead and finish it.

 

The characterisation in this novel is excellent. My favourite character was probably the protagonist of this novel, Dorothea, who is a likeable woman and one who was definitely ahead of her time but I also really liked Fred Vincy, despite his faults!  For me, the main themes of this book were the difference between the social classes and the portrayal of marriage… and that’s pretty much where my review ends because I really don’t know what else to say about it that will do it justice.  Suffice to say that if it wasn’t for the challenge I probably wouldn’t have read it.  It drops one star because of the slow start but I did enjoy it very much, especially thanks to Alex and Claire with whom I discussed it at the end of each part.  I’m very glad to have read it.

 

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  • 5 weeks later...

I first started reading Middlemarch about 10 years ago, and read the first volume, and because it has been so wordy and a tiny bit slow, I thought I'd read something in between and then come back to it.  And eventually, ten years later, after it came up on the challenge, I finally started it again!  I actually read it both on the Kindle (much lighter than the weighty paperback, and with an adjustable size of font that I can actually read now my eyes are getting older), and listened to it as an audiobook too, but I have to say, reading it in a group, with a set date for reading each section, definitely helped me finish it this time.

 

I have to say, I agree with Janet, that the first book is a bit slow going, although still a valuable introduction to where Dorothea has come from and what sort of person she is, and perhaps this is why I'd not picked it up again after first reading it, but after that, it's a fascinating and rich depiction of life in a town of the period.  I loved Dorothea and Ladislaw as characters and their evolving story.  Particularly interesting was the in depth look at marriages, and I was particularly engrossed in Rosamund and Lydgate's relationship, from the courtship through marriage, and how each dealt with money difficulties felt realistic, with Lydgate's disillusionment with his wife, and how small incidents changed their lives by revealing Rosamund's true nature.

 

What was a lovely surprise at one point, was an injection of genuine humour.  It may have been because I listened to it, rather than read it off the page, but there's an auction at one point, and it was so similar to how auctions are conducted today, but with encouragement for social bettering, the auctioneer made me chuckle along as the auction proceeded.

 

A very enjoyable book, made better by the group reading. Thanks Janet and Alexi, and also to Willoyd who helped along with the discussion as we went, even though not reading at the same rate as us! :D

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