What one reviewer said about Middlemarch (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot, Rosemary Ashton:
I really stand in awe of Ms Eliot's tremendous talent. I would not like to be classified among those modern day literary critics who indicate that a certain author's plots aren't worth much, but the books are saved by their wonderfully constructed sentences. But there is no doubt that GE is a master of the language. She is a writer of profound elegance who shows a deep understanding of human psychology. All that said I am pleased to say that she can also write a darn good story.
Middlemarch is one of many Victorian novels that presents the plight of women during that period (how many other women were out there with writing talent that were stifled, I wonder). There are three plots in the novel that examine male and female relationships and the role that both sexes play during courting and marriage, and we learn how women were treated with condescension if they voiced an opinion on something. But this is not a gothic romance novel. It is a beautifully written story of the social milieu of English provincial life around 1830.
There is a certain law that pertains to Victorian novels: If a character is married early in the novel, then that marriage is doomed to failure. Middlemarch follows the law scrupulously. You must be married in the book's waning pages if you want to live happily ever after. Dorothea is a wealthy young woman who marries a scholastic, elderly clergyman because she wants to gain knowledge at the feet of a master. Unfortunately he is a dried up fig with no ability to communicate wisdom. He dies but leaves Dorothea with a burdensome restriction in the will: she can not marry a man that she also loves. Dr. Lydgate marries a dim and self centered woman who sees a husband solely as a provider of a fine life style. And poor drifting Fred courts a plain, but bright commoner who will continue to reject his advances until he settles down and finds a career for himself.
Now maybe that plot outline makes you yawn, but it is the way that George Eliot tells it that makes the difference. She presents a crystal clear picture of these people and their lives and society and even politics. And despite her stately language GE has an engaging, subtle humor to her writing. Mr. Crabbe, the glazier, loved joining the group for gossip, and is described as one "who gathered much news and then groped among it dimly."
My copy of Middlemarch is the Norton Critical Edition, and I highly recommend it. It contains and extra 150 pages of Ms Eliot's letters about the book; her notes laying out the story; and some interesting contemporary and current reviews and analyses of the novel. Henry James, liked it, but had some criticisms of the lead characters, which I found myself (sort of)agreeing with. It's a great supplement to a great novel.
I just finished reading this novel and I was astounded. George Eliot's understanding of the human condition and of the motivations and self deception - and her sympathy and compassion for it - are unequalled in any writer I have read so far. She deals with a world where the contraints from society on an individuals action were incredible - yet her people are so without time - so recognizable as ourselves. She does not take the easy road nor allow her characters to do so. One of my favorite writers is Dickens and I am alomost ashamed to say that in reading her I have found a superior and one that fills in what I have always found lacking in his novels. Read it if you have not!!
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