Felix Holt, the Radical (1866)

This is Eliot limbering up for the masterwork that is Middlemarch. It's not her best book, but it's still streets ahead of the competition and compulsively readable. Felix Holt: The Radical, like many books of the time, features religious controversy, an inheritance plot requiring several scarcely believable coincidences with much legal debate and a political theme as well as the obligatory central romance. What many of the other books, or rather their authors, lack, however, is Eliot's extraordinary empathy and moral breadth. Felix himself is in danger of being a bit of a self-righteous prig, and Esther starts out as the usual selfish, trivial-minded anti-heroine. But Eliot has this unwavering belief that people can grow, and change for the better, and that other people can help them do that, and Felix will be enriched and softened by love and Esther will discover what is really important in life through the example of a selfless nature. Eliot is the great purveyor of realism: she researched every aspect meticulously (she corresponded with a lawyer about the precise details of her intricate legal plot, and one of the great attributes of Eliot as a novelist and omniscient narrator is that she can share with you the depth of her knowledge of what makes her characters tick - there wasn't a fleeting thought in their heads of which she was unaware; she knew everything that had ever happened to them and what it had done to them. She can make us sympathise with characters who appear to have very little to commend them, like Mrs. Transome. She is wholly assured with all levels of society and has their various speech patterns down pat. The political theme here is very interesting. Eliot believed the vote was useless unless men were educated sufficiently to know how to use it wisely. Education was the key to everything for men and women, to help them learn how to be part of a larger society. Politicians should be made to read Eliot. She believed the individual can make a difference. There are some wonderful minor characters in this book - the Reverend Lyon, a genuinely good man, Jermyn the evil Dickensian lawyer, the oily Mr. Johnson the election fixer and so forth. And there are some splendidly funny parts, especially the set piece where the bible-spouting Mrs Holt braves the Transomes at home. So - all human life is here, you feel like a better person after reading it, and it's thoroughly enjoyable too. ( ( )

Felix Holt is a surprising triumph for Eliot. For the first time, she engages fully with some of the deeper socio-political issues of her day and age. The plot is almost Dickensian in the amount of intrigue, scandal, and romance, which is a good thing for the sometimes achingly slow Eliot. Despite the (comparatively) racing plot, it is the emotional and psychological moments of the novel that are the strongest. Lady Transome is the best character I've read from Eliot yet. Felix Holt gets passed over due to its political and legal nuances that don't translate well to today's audience, but it also matters more in a social sense than many of her other works do. ( )

This novel about class conflict in an English county town at the time of the Great Reform Act had some quirky and quite interesting characters. It also had a few great moments of speeches about political reform and class prejudice. However, these were quite few and far between and in essence it was a standard slow-moving 19th century novel about property and inheritance issues. Finished it, but it dragged a bit in the middle. ( )

The first book I have finished in 2011 is a classic written by the estimable George Eliot, whose novel Middlemarch I fell completely in love with. I found Felix Holt to be an inferior work, but still entertaining and quite gripping toward the end of the book. The Transome estate is in neglect when we first enter the scene, and the stately lady of the house is eagerly awaiting the arrival of her second-born son who has recently become the inheritor of everything. Lady Transome has many high hopes for this, her favourite child, and is in a state of eager anticipation when he arrives. Thus the story starts briefly with hope, but delves quickly into a twisted labyrinth of secrets and politics, immorality and goodness, love and hatred. We meet Esther and her father Mr. Lyon, a Radical minister, Mr. Jermyn who is a lawyer and has managed Transome in lieu of a mentally incapacitated Lord and his gambling eldest son, and the man the book is named after, Felix Holt who is of high moral character and, even more impressive, practices what he preaches.

Felix Holt was slow to get into and slow to introduce characters, but once all that was out of the way it developed into a lovely little morality tale complete with romance and politics. I give it seven bookmarks out of ten.

http://toomanybooknotenoughtime.blogspot.com/2011/01/felix-holt-radical.html ( )

2319 Felix Holt, by George Eliot (read 25 Aug 1990) This is laid in the England of 1832 and 1833, and purports to be a political novel. Harold Transome runs as a Liberal in the first election after passage of the Reform Bill. A riot on election day results in Felix Holt's conviction for manslaughter, but he is pardoned and marries Esther Lyon, who gives up her inheritance of the Transome lands--leaving Harold, who is the son of the evil character in the book. The plot is involved and far-fetched, but it had its moments and was not too bad a book. ( )