(a very few spoilers) How does one really go about writing a review for a novel like Middlemarch? There’s just so much here, a great cast of characters, good story, beautiful--if difficult--prose, preternaturally acute observations about human and individual nature, philosophy, politics, religion, art, science, family relations, marriage… and the list goes on. I enjoyed this novel immensely and place it among my top 3 favorite novels. I finished it over a week ago but haven’t stopped flipping back through it yet.

The action of the novel takes places from 1829 to 1832, about 40 years before the writing of the novel. This was a time of great change in England that must have been very disorienting—the Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the death of George IV in 1830, the spread of the railways, the outbreak of cholera in 1832, and the domestic unrest leading up to the First Reform Act of 1832 (the novel closes in the spring of 1832—the Act was passed in the summer).

Against this backdrop of uneasy change we find a number of characters who yearn to do great things, though they don’t all know exactly what, and to establish a sense of order and meaning in their lives and the world around them. Mr. Casaubon works on his “Key to All Mythologies,” a scholarly volume which will elucidate the universal principles that lie behind all religions; Tertius Lydgate wants to find “the one primitive tissue” that makes up all living things; Dorothea wants to find a way to connect her life in the present with the great scholars of the past, and to connect here and now with people who need help. In reading of their quests, I was reminded of a dear professor who used to speak of a search for unity (in all its various guises—we were speaking of music theory) in connection with a search for God and ultimate meaning. This is the feeling that I get when I read about the characters’ struggles, and when Dorothea tells Will, “I have always been finding out my religion since I was a little girl.”

None, I daresay, of the characters reach the true heights of the good that they want to do in the world. Very few of us do. But in Middlemarch, this doesn’t come off as tragedy. George Eliot, describing herself, said that she was neither an optimist, nor a pessimist, but a “meliorist.” She believed that humans were making progress toward a better, more equal society, and that the world could be improved through human action. Though our (and their) individual lives may not seem to add up to much, Eliot writes of Dorothea, “…The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” I find this to be a great consolation.

I’ve tried and so far failed to wrap my head around the structure of the novel. But I can say that the whole thing appears to be a big, criss-crossing web of relationships. Any given character can be tied to most of the other characters in the novel—sometimes practically all of them. The “diffusive” effect that Eliot describes in speaking of Dorothea applies to the other characters as well; a single action often travels along the threads of the web and affects multiple characters. The idea of unity is expressed by making each character and group a part of a greater whole.

Eliot clarifies the moral aspect of each individual as a single part of a whole by juxtaposing selfless characters against self-centered characters. The finest characters in the novel are fine not because they are perfect, but because they are clear-eyed about themselves and sympathetic toward others. The characters who suffer most often bring their pain on themselves through their egoism and lack of self-perception. One character is so egoistic that she can’t imagine that she is ever in the wrong; another character believes that God Himself sanctions all his actions and breaks into a panic (with drastic moral consequences) when it appears that his moral failings may be revealed to the town. Dorothea and Edward Casaubon’s marriage is ruined in great part because of his fear that she is inwardly criticizing him and his jealousy of another man; as well, he has lived by and for himself for so long that once he marries Dorothea, he finds that he simply doesn’t have room for her in his life. The tragedy of this marriage is all the more maddening because Mr. Casaubon so needlessly drives a stake between himself and Dorothea—you sense that if he could just get outside of himself, the troubles would be over.

Speaking of marriages, I very much enjoyed reading about the different marriages in Middlemarch. The novel doesn’t end in weddings, like so much 19th century Brit Lit—the weddings are only the beginning, and then the real work happens. The marriages aren’t all bad, either; for one, I found very much to admire in Mr. and Mrs. Garth’s marriage. They complement each other well; they accept each other’s faults cheerfully, and they never speak ill of each other to their neighbors. The Garths, including their daughter Mary, may well be my favorite characters in the novel. (But it’s so hard to choose!)

Middlemarch ranks with Les Misérables as the finest moral fiction I’ve read. When Dorothea speaks of finding out her religion, she says that the belief that comforts her is this: “That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil--widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower." Later, she will say, “What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?” The self-examination and struggle for meaning that many of the characters go through is truly inspiring, and there’s much to learn from this novel. Eliot writes during one scene (bless the intrusive narrator!), “Some one highly susceptible to the contemplation of a fine act has said, that it produces a sort of regenerating shudder through the frame, and makes one feel ready to begin a new life.” Fred Vincy felt it, and so did I. And Eliot’s finely-tuned and finely-timed sympathy always shows up just when you are ready to pronounce a final judgment on a character—just as you’re about to say, what a bad guy!, her intrusive narrator intervenes and says, but hey, look at what he has going on inside him—don’t you sympathize?—and really, are you sure that you’re the one to judge him? Don’t you do the very same thing sometimes? And you have to say, well, by gum, I do.

And to add to all the above (seriously, if you haven’t read this novel, just stop reading my review and go read Middlemarch instead!), there is a magic to George Eliot that transcends character and plot. Just one example: each chapter has its own epigram. One chapter is preceded by a lovely bit of verse (written by Eliot) describing the sympathetic resonance of a bell. To determine the pitch of a bell, Eliot explains, one need not strike it directly; one can instead play a flute into the bell, and when it hits the right pitch, the bell will vibrate in unison with it. The chapter then describes how one character ends up falling with another quite instantly. He has up to this point flirted with her but resisted any serious attachment; but at the falling of her tears, his heart is touched, and it “[shakes] flirtation into love.” I read this scene with the idea of the sympathetic resonance in mind, and the power, the thrilling awe and beauty of the integrated experience has been burned into my brain forever.

Read Middlemarch. Read it now. ( )

http://englishmajorjunkfood.blogspot.... ( )

This is a FREAKIN MASTERPIECE. I was expecting a very Jane Austen-ish sort of thing, but it's very different. She has kind of the same wry, ironic, witty voice, but this is no romantic fairy tale. It's realism- it's what happens after the wedding, it's hardships and relationships and some happy endings and some not. It's life. Five stars. Bravo. Standing ovation. ( )

Now THIS is what a novel is supposed to be like...the first 100 pages led me to believe it would be a more intellectually rigorous Jane Austen, focused around the life of Dorothea Brooke and her ill-advised betrothal to the ancient scholar Casaubon. Then George Eliot widened her lens to explore dozens of people in Dorothea's 19th century English village, and although for a while I cried "Stop introducing new characters already!" by page 400 I was wishing the book would never end. The author explores marriage, the life of the mind, the workings of society, the meaning of real virtue, the absurdity of vanity...human character generally. She doesn't spare her characters, but she's compassionate toward them, sees their limitations but does not (quite) condemn them. Thus she is able to create Dorothea as a modern saint, a second St. Theresa, and make her convincing. Read this -- it will teach you what a novel can accomplish...

First thing’s first – I’m a Jane Austen girl. Her timeless novels form the backbone of my reading experiences. Those of you who are familiar with Austen and Eliot’s work will understand that being an Austen girl, it took me a little while to crave the taste for Eliot’s writing. Actually it took me about 5 false starts, but on the 6th attempt to read this classic novel, I was well and truly hooked.

The book is set in the provincial English town of Middlemarch in the early 1800s and it is here that we meet the two central characters, the first being Dorothea Brooke. Dorothea is a beautiful, virtuous young lady whose seeming purity of soul is admired by all those who know her. Dorothea dreams of leading a heroic life and feels she will best attain this by marrying Mr Casaubon - an elderly, stodgy scholar who Dorothea believes is destined for greatness. Dorothea does indeed marry Mr Casaubon, but she soon becomes stifled by his constant study and lack of use for her.

I have to say that I initially disliked Dorothea. I found her almost manic desire to marry Casaubon quite irritating. However, the book soon shows us that despite Dorothea's best laid plans, she is just as misguided and flawed as the rest of us. As a consequence, by the end of the book Dorothea had found her way under my skin and I found myself cheering her on and championing her transformation.

The second dominant character of the book is Tertius Lydgate, a young and ambitious doctor whose affliction for the heroic matches Dorothea's in strength. Lydgate comes to Middlemarch with big plans to change the way medicine is practiced in the region, and early on is very successful. But like Dorothea, Tertius' hasty marriage begins to backfire and his vision soon begins to crumble, as does his life, around him.

Though the book centres around these two characters, it is the support cast that makes this novel so addictive - it has a true sense of community. Whereas Jane Austen is primarily focused on a small number of central characters, Eliot manages to interest us in a whole community of people. We see how the lives of seemingly unimportant characters impact upon the lives of the ones we love, and we see how a community has the uncanny ability to shape people. The narrative is rich, filled with both suspense and drama. It's so delicious, it's almost edible. This is trully one of the best books I have ever read and deserves its' place among the classics. ( )

I had my doubts at several points, just because this book got a little long sometimes, but once I sat down and really READ Middlemarch, it absolutely claimed my heart. (I tore through the final 300 pages in one afternoon!) Eliot speaks so poignantly and truly to human nature that I couldn't help but be taken in by it. The character of Dorothea especially inspired me--and I don't mean that to sound as predictable and trite as it does. Of course such a "good" person would inspire readers... but what I mean is that I admire Eliot's skill in writing her. Not only that, but I admire her skill in creating *less* admirable characters so successfully too: Bulstrode, the Vincy family (in general), and Rosamonde (specifically) among them. I also appreciated Eliot's analysis of marriage, subtly throughout but then more bluntly at the end. Few authors treat the subject as realistically, and yet as hopefully, as she.

The ending was satisfyingly cheerful to me, though I am glad Eliot still included a bit of tragedy to make it seem realistic. (I hate unrealistic stories almost as much as I hate thoroughly tragic ones.) All in all, Middlemarch was as true a story as fiction, I feel, can ever get. ( )

Harold Bloom is right: this is the only novel to rise to the status of wisdom literature! ( )

This was one of the massive summer reads for my online Classics Club book club. I even think I nominated it as an option, so I am admittedly a fan of this work. I first read it in 1996, back when I was supposed to be avoiding anything in English as part of the contract for my German immersion summer school program. However, this book was part of my rebellion from slogging through all things German for six weeks. Unfortunately, while I remember quite a bit from that summer, this book was not one of those things. I guess focusing on German for all but an hour a day caused me not to retain much of anything non-German related.

This book has quite the cast of characters from the snobby rich, proud poor, and blissfully ignorant middle class, good, bad, unfortunate, lucky and everything else in between. The one thing that I truly enjoy about this book is the fact that each of the key main characters grows, sometimes for the worse, throughout the novel. Those who start out overbearing redeem themselves as their stories progress, and vice versa. It really is a great novel to study human behavior.

To summarize such a tome I feel can't be done. There are SO many subplots, relationships, and side stories that there really is not one overarching story. Part of this, in my opinion, is due to the way it was published - in weekly serial format. Another reason for this is the fact that it is just like living in a small town. The relationships, familial and otherwise, the different classes, occupations and such all have their own stories and subplots. The subtitle of the book is "A Study of Provincial Life", and Ms. Eliot definitely succeeds in presenting provincial life in crystal clarity.

There were some in my book club who just couldn't get into this book or did not like it. Make no mistake, this is a difficult book to get through at times. There are political and religious discussions that go on for pages and can cause the eyes to roll back into the head, but taken overall, it is well worth the struggle. The characters and the descriptions are so realistic that you can picture exactly what life was like for each of the characters. More importantly, not everyone gets a happy ending, which is as it should be.

While I wouldn't call it the best novel written, I can see how it gets that moniker and would recommend Middlemarch to others. It is well worth the time and effort it takes to get through it, as it presents one of the most complete pictures of life in 1840s England that I've ever had the pleasure of reading. ( )

Middlemarch details the ins and outs of various people's lives in the area of Middlemarch. One of the main plot lines follows Dorthea, a so woman passionate to do some sort of good in the world that she locks herself into a loveless marriage. There is also Dr. Lydgate who marries the wrong woman (very wrong) and Fred Vincy whose lazy ways may cost him the favor of his childhood love.

This book is very long and the descriptions of the various characters' daily lives can make it a slow read. Especially in the beginning third, it seemed like there was too much going on and in someways I felt like some of the details could have been left out. Do we really know the inner workings of the lifes of every minor character? No, probably not.

That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The writing style was quick witted, and had turnings of phrase worth savoring. The characters, down to the very last minor character (oh, so many of them), had unique personalities and were fully formed. I could easily believe that this town existed and that every single one of these people walked around in it. I especially began to enjoy the book in the last third, where all the wanderings of what came before began to crystallize into where everyone was going to end up.

Not a light read, and not for everyone, but worth the effort for those interested in Victorian Era novels. ( )

Absolutely loved this book. Even though it was 838 pages I hated for it to end. I was so into the characters by the end that it seemed like they were my own friends and family. ( )

I was reading an issue of a magazine where pastors were giving out their selections for favourite books, and one pastor chose Middlemarch, saying it was the best novel in the English language. In my opinion its a good book but not a great one. The writing is good at times but hard to read at others. It didn't have a great moral dilemma to make you really think about it in your life or characters that were believable and hard to conceptualize. But it is a book to recommend as the situation of Mr. Bulstrode is an interesting discussion point. ( )

I'm struggling through this for some reason. I absolutely loved "Mill on the Floss" so what's gone wrong with her masterpiece? I want to stick to the end but I wonder if I will. I do love Dorothea but all those characters and side plots are a little tiresome at times.
OK so I got back to it and finished it. It's not a book to try to read in a hurry. I actually found out the ending from another book ("Proust was a Neuroscientist") but then I decided to finish it, not because I had to find out what happened to Dorothea but just for the love of it. And suddenly I was enjoying it again. Eliot understands humans, and women particularly like no other author. ( )

An intelligent study of small-town life in 19th century England. Surprisingly easy to read. ( )

This is a long book! Over 1000 pages.

While I thoroughly enjoyed it, the extremely long sentences were a little difficult to get through sometimes. I often had to read things over because I read the sentance incorrectly. There were a lot of commas in there.

The book is about the town of Middlemarch and three couples that fall in love. The BBC mini series version is very close to the book. If you are interested in the book, but are a little afraid of the language or the length of the book, rent the BBC version. There is really nothing lost. You can get it on Netflix if you are in the U.S. ( )

I am not "well-read" enough to say that this is the greatest book I have ever read, nor scholarly enough to even attempt to review this lengthy novel. As I grow in my reading of literature, I am glad to say that I have read Middlemarch. Well worth the effort. ( )

Absolutely great. Fantastically true. It is one of the books you read, and changes your life. Or at least your view on it. Really, one of the best books ever written. ( )

I have never read a novel that comes close to the depth and richness of this one. Every character good and bad is given complex treatment and, in fact, the “bad” characters become sympathetic because you begin to understand why they are the way they are. This story was a guide for me when I was in my twenties, and its examples informed my growth as an adult.

--David MacPherson ( )

One of the greatest novels ever written; comparable to Tolstoi or other Russian masters. Great character portrayal. Brings to life the life in rural Victorian England in the 19th century. ( )

Decent writing, but drawn out ( )

Best book I have ever read.

Best book I have ever read.

Originally recommended to me by a respected English student friend as "the greatest book ever written," I couldn't not read this book. I just finished it earlier this summer and it was wonderful. The most striking part of this book for me was the character development. Her characters are rich, deep, complex, and challenging. They're also very sympathetic and really draw you into the story. I don't know if I've ever loved a character as much as I did in this book. It is truly one of the greatest books I have ever read.

For many readers, this book can probably drag a bit, especially through the dreary mourning passages. It certainly is not a light read, although if you are interested in investing in it it is a vastly rewarding one. It is not, as they say, to be enterprised lightly. Although realism is not necessarily an area I would call my favorite, this book is definitely one of my favorites. Highly recommended if you are looking for something deep, contemplative, and rewarding. ( )

There is a world in this book, a world that Eliot has wrapped up and commentated for us and handed to us for posterity. As such, a world is too much to master in a single read, and I know my careful yet single experience with this story is not enough.

The world of Middlemarch is populated by characters with the complexity of planets (they have their own weather systems of cause, continents of pathos) orbited by archetypical small-town satellites (bloviators, horse traders, shrews, useless gentlefolk).

Our fair protagonist, Dorothea Brooke, navigates the treachery of pastoral pre-Victorian England with as much tact and grace as can be possible, pitting her own individuality against the fatiguing winds of her prescribed fate. She defends herself from the inevitable (married, dull, subjugated life) with several sequential fronts: idealistic, self-effacing religiosity; ascetic academic ardor; resigned but noble widow. Of course, none of these withstand because they are false fronts to a personality too deep to be hidden.

The other planets of Middlemarch’s solar system (Eliot would say “web”, but I’ll broker my own metaphor here) are also simultaneously idiosyncratic and stereotypical. Rosamond Lydgate (nee Vincy) is so syrupy and materialistic that one spends much of the time wanting to give her a good wallop, and yet, cracks appear: what other power has she beyond nagging her husband? How can she have any control over her life without deceit? Conflicts like these characterize Eliot’s presentation of the sweeping social changes in 19th-century Britain.

The intrepid explorer of this universe needs patience and a careful eye. Eliot’s phrasing is recursive and deep, with clauses tucking into other clauses and sentences many lines long. References are dense and arcane (to the dismay of readers who might like to think of themselves as well-read); a well-noted edition is recommended (the Penguin Classics series is a good bet). Despite the length (almost 850 pages) and wordiness, be warned: Eliot means what she writes. This is not padding. Every sentence has its place, every description has its meaning.

If you’re paying attention and taking good scientific samples, what you’ll bring back from this expedition is an understanding of a world, frozen in time, and the seismic changes it is about to shudder through. You might understand better how women’s coming emancipation, a newly-enfranchised populace, and a value system redefined to encompass industry and self-made success posed such a monumental threat to the steady, patriarchal aristocracy that had been the center of this universe for so many centuries. ( )

trollope loved george eliot & g. lewes, that's enough for me. ( )