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Title: Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life (Oxford World's Classics, 2) by George Eliot, A. S. Byatt ISBN: 0-19-210029-7 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: June, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.65 (72 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A rewarding reading experience
Comment: George Eliot's colossal novel "Middlemarch" is a literary White Pages of a rural town in pre-Victorian England, portraying several of its citizens in all the glories and disgraces (mostly disgraces) regarding their lives, marriages, and personal and professional ambitions, while using the historical and political events of the time as a backdrop. This is one of the finest examples of a character-driven novel, where the plot is customized to the characters, rather than the other way around.
A major theme in this novel is marrying wrong. Dorothea Brooke, a girl with ideas of social reform -- one of her occupations is designing cottages for poor villagers -- marries the scholarly but stodgy Edward Casaubon, who is old enough to be her father, because she is attracted to his disciplined, erudite mind. However, Casaubon employs her as a sort of secretary and assistant and becomes increasingly demanding of her. Then there is the seemingly fairy-tale marriage of Tertius Lydgate, a brilliant and promising young physician, to Rosamond Vincy, spoiled daughter of the mayor of Middlemarch, a wealthy manufacturer. Rosamond's expensive tastes endanger their marriage financially and romantically. On the other hand, the marriage of Dorothea's younger sister Celia to the dapper Sir James Chettam is nothing but bubble-headed bliss because they both are too superficial to care for anything deeper than peerage and pulchritude.
The novel ties its characters together with a few interrelated plot threads, the most important of which concerns Casaubon's young second cousin, Will Ladislaw. Will and Casaubon have little respect for each other, and when Casaubon suspects that Will and Dorothea are attracted to each other, he places a stipulation in his will denying Dorothea his fortune upon his death if she marries Will. Moreover, Will has been cheated out of his own fortune by Middlemarch banker Nicholas Bulstrode, who finances the hospital that employs Lydgate. Lydgate's association with the dishonest Bulstrode threatens to cause him further disgrace and ostracize him from the town.
Meanwhile, Rosamond's brother Fred typifies the irresponsible young man with money problems who manages to reform himself and win the respect of the girl he loves. The irony is that Fred expected a great inheritance from a rich uncle who instead, on his deathbed, offered the money to his servant Mary Garth, who happens to be Fred's beloved. Now, Fred's only options are to join the clergy, which Mary would not approve of, or get a job -- with Mary's father.
More serious and intellectual than the works of her immediate forebear Dickens, Eliot's novel seems to strike out bold new territory for British fiction of the time, especially considering the progressive mindsets of characters like Dorothea and Lydgate who act in contrast to tradition-bound grunts like Casaubon and the other town doctors. Her sophisticated prose style of intricately structured sentences and deep psychological penetration appears to have been a huge influence on Henry James. Much more than the sum of its parts, though, "Middlemarch" leaves its reader with a distinct impression of a time and place and, on reflection, the rewarding feeling of having accepted the challenge of reading it.
Rating: 5
Summary: An English classic
Comment: A real pleasure to recently discover this classic for the first time, "Middlemarch" is a fine example of the English style of writing from that period, a long book of almost 900 pages, with a large cast of characters and several main plot lines, novels like this are a reminder of the richness of the English language. This is a soap opera set in the fictional town of Middlemarch with descriptions of every walk of life, George Eliot's perceptions of human nature make this a timeless piece of fiction, though there is no doubt that she describes a way of life gone forever.
A main theme in this novel would seem to be possessing Utopian visions and the difficulty of putting them into practice in reality. One of the main characters is Dorothea, a young woman with great social ideals, she "thinks too much for a woman" and is under constant pressure from well-meaning realtives who want her to marry safely and give up her goals of saving the world. Dr. Lydgate is someone else we come to know quite well, another individual who has lofty ideas but trouble coping with the real world because he tries to ignore it. Mr. Brooke and Bulstrode also have certain visions of themselves not shared by an informed public.
Some reviewers seem to feel this book is too long, that the story could have been told in half the words, but I would not change one bit of this, the beautiful use of words helps me to escape into the world of Middlemarch when life was slower moving and people had more time for reflection.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Best George Eliot Book Ever!!!!!
Comment: I first read this book as an undergraduate -- and I still pick it up now and again for inspiration. This is Eliot's best novel -- you may go on to read Daniel Deronda, Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss, but this is the one to start with. It has it all: the love story, the quest for fulfillment, an Italy honeymoon, allusions to John Milton, and financial struggles.
Tolstoy, Trollope and Dickens also capture the rich panoramic vision of humanity that Eliot shows -- but her view is so much warmer, so much more optimistic and expresses a strong undercurrent of benevolence. After you read Middlemarch, you will feel renewed and optimistic about the possibility in the world.
If you are at all interested in realism or nineteenth century life, you will really enjoy Eliot's portrayals of both Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate. Dorothea is the quintessential Eliot heroine who seeks to do good and be perfect in an imperfect world. She marries a much older man because he is a scholar -- however, he doesn't understand her spirit or her youthfulness. Tertius Lydgate is the idealistic doctor whose major character flaw is that he falls in love with women who don't see the value of the medical profession. Eliot traces the development of both Dorothea and Lydgate, as well as other characters in the community: Mary Garth and Fred Vincy are just one example.
If you are up for a challenge of a mixture of a nineteenth century novel, a mastery of realism, and some unexpected philosophy, you will gain something from reading this work. It may be enjoyed on many levels, but I think the most important one is that it shows portraits of the people who still inhabit our world --- the unsung heroes and the quietly talented.
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Title: The Mill on the Floss (Oxford World's Classics) by George Eliot, Gordon S. Haight, Dinah Birch ISBN: 0192833642 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: June, 1998 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Daniel Deronda (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot, Terence Cave ISBN: 0140434275 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: February, 1996 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Bleak House (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Nicola Bradbury ISBN: 0141439726 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Vanity Fair : A Novel without a Hero by Joanna Trollope, Leonard J. Kent, Nina Berberova, William Makepeace Thackeray ISBN: 0375757260 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 08 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, John Carey ISBN: 0141439831 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $8.00 |
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