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Title: Adam Bede (Clarendon Edition of the Novels of George Eliot) by George Eliot, Carol A. Martin ISBN: 0-19-812595-X Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr on Demand Pub. Date: June, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $175.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.55 (20 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Adam Bede is a Victorian classic - timeless in all aspects.
Comment: I just finished reading this book for my Victorian Lit class,
and I am incredibly inpressed with it. In the book, George
Eliot tells about the lives of the residence of Hayslope, a
farming community around 1800. The book has a riveting plot
that includes romance, betrayal, and murder. More
importantly, however, the book has a strong moral; it is sure
to leave an impression in the mind of even the most cynical
reader. Eliot, herself, summed the book up best in asking,
"Shall I ever write another book as true as 'Adam Bede'?"
Rating: 4
Summary: A Great Classic!
Comment: Highly recommended for those who loves classic literature. George Elliot beautifully captured the lives of the people in rural English country in the late 18th century and early 19th century. I guarantee you'll fall in love with all the 4 main characters ie. Adam Bede, Hetty Sorrel, Lord Arthur and Dinah Morris before you finish the book. The courting scenes involving Adam Bede and Dinah are both very romantic and honest. George Elliot had a great understanding of human nature which makes the story very believable although it's fiction. ADAM BEDE's a hero in my heart, and this book's a must read for all literature fans.
Rating: 4
Summary: Trouble in the countryside
Comment: After having read "The Mill on the Floss" some years ago and being thoroughly bored by it, I thought I'd never try a George Eliot novel again. But I'm glad I did. "Adam Bede" is a rich and complicated book; not without its imperfections, yet which stands above many of the nineteenth century novels I've read.
I thought that here was an author with an enquiring mind regarding human nature in all its imperfections, not afraid to wander outside of the wealthier classes for her setting, and certainly interested in examining the motivations and thought processes of her characters.
Throughout "Adam Bede", the better-drawn and more interesting characters are the women. The men, especially Adam Bede himself, are almost all two-dimensional figures around which the females drive the action. I thought that perhaps Eliot was trying to expose the real role of women in society - bereft of equal rights, they had to exercise their influence through men. This must have been deeply frustrating - witness Mrs Poyser's tirade against Squire Donnithorne while her husband stands by impotently. At its worst, women had to secure their future by marriage - thus Hetty Sorrel begins by being an unsympathetic, materialistic figure, but when seen in context, her options in life are strictly circumscribed. Can the reader really blame her for trying to make an "advantageous match"?
There were themes in the novel which I thought might have been developed more than they were - the challenge to the Church of England from Methodism features early in the novel, only to fade away as a real issue. Eliot alludes to the connection between class structure and the role of the Church of England, but seems to lose interest after making her point. Only rarely does she hit hard about the living conditions of the rural working class. Apart from Mrs Poyser's protest, we're rarely far away from the myth of "Merrie England".
But my main gripe is that Eliot pulls her punches towards the end of the novel. I felt that an author like Hardy would have had more courage, and would not have been afraid to shock his audience. Eliot backs down and chooses the safe old cliche of marriage being the solution to everything.
All that is not to detract from its overall worth as a novel. I was pleasantly surprised, and apart from the last 50 or so pages, interested throughout.
G Rodgers
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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: Middlemarch by George Eliot, Rosemary Ashton ISBN: 0141439548 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: Felix Holt, the Radical (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot, Lynda Mugglestone ISBN: 0140434356 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Barchester Towers (Oxford World's Classics) by Anthony Trollope, John Sutherland, Michael Sadleir, Frederick Page, Edward Ardizzone ISBN: 0192834320 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 1998 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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