Romola

Romola by George Eliot

Written in 1863, Romola was the fourth of George Eliot’s major novels and her only novel to be set in the Middle Ages. The story begins on April 9, 1492, in the marketplace of Florence, which is abuzz with the news of the death of the Medici ruler, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Most of Eliot’s other novels are set in England fifty years or so before her writing them and are fairly comfortable for me to get into. Romola, though, set in the last decade of the 15th century in Italy, required a good bit of patience at the beginning. But eventually the strangeness of time, place, and history became fascinating, and I found myself wanting to get back to my book quickly whenever I put it down.

Setting is a great strength in show more this novel. It gives a convincing depiction of Florence at one of the most chaotic times of its history. Lorenzo di Medici has just died at the beginning of the story, and his heir, Piero, is soon driven out after a miserable performance dealing with the invasion of the French army under Charles VIII. The power struggles begin, with more factions competing treacherously, even murderously, for power, than I can remember. The Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola is at the peak of his power in his quest to stamp out corruption in the Church and in the people. Religious factions contribute much to the chaos. The conflict between religion and humanism, faith in God and faith in man, is brought out here and Eliot questions whether the two can exist peacefully together. The two scenes around Bonfires of the Vanities are frightening. Spectacles and crowd scenes such as these abound in Romola—festivals, executions, riots, huge crowds at the Duomo for Fra Savonarola’s sermons—and historical characters are everywhere. According to a biography of George Eliot I read, she spent years researching for this historical novel, and the result made me feel that I had actually seen the Florence of this era. (I would not have wanted to be there.)

Eliot’s familiar strengths as a novelist are all present from the beginning. Point of view is her customary 3rd person omniscient, her persona, the familiar guiding voice of the wise woman with much experience of life. The Proem is magnificent, and of course should be reread after finishing the book for insights into her theme. By this point you’ll know whether or not you agree.

Romola is the beautiful daughter of elderly, blind classical scholar, Bardo di Bardi. Not only compassionate, but extremely intelligent, she has been her father’s secretary since the departure of her older brother to join the Dominican friars. She has lived most of her life in seclusion, meeting only the elderly people, mostly scholars like her father, who visit their house. When young and handsome Tito Melema, a well educated and learned Greek recently arrived in the city, is employed by Bardo to also help in his work, Tito and Romola fall in love. Not long after meeting him we begin to understand the essential selfishness of Tito’s nature. His inability to “do the right thing” when it involves any sacrifice, or even discomfort, for himself becomes apparent to the reader. Romola’s struggle to free herself from this thieving, deceitful, treacherous man she has married forms the main conflict of the plot. Effective use of foreshadowing and symbolism help the reader to see more truly than Romola, setting up a sad irony. Here is an ominous scene that occurs on the very day of Tito’s arrival in Florence. He is in Nello’s barbershop, a popular center of conversation, mainly gossip. Tito encounters the painter Piero di Cosimo who requests that Tito sit for him for a painting of Sinon, the Greek who persuaded King Priam of Troy to receive the Trojan Horse into Troy. Nello objects that Tito has too beautiful and mild a countenance to represent the most famous traitor in the world. Piero replies:

“A perfect traitor should have a face which vice can write no marks on—lips that will lie with a dimpled smile—eyes of such agate-like brightness and depth that no infamy can dull them—cheeks that will rise from a murder and not look haggard. I say not this young man is a traitor: I mean, he has a face that would make him the more perfect traitor if he had the heart of one, which is saying neither more nor less than that he has a beautiful face, informed with rich young blood, that will be nourished enough by food, and keep its colour without much help of virtue.”

Hopefully the reader who at this point thinks that Tito may be the novel’s hero will think again.

Eliot’s skill with portraying and developing character is also an expected strength. Romola’s illusions about Tito are slow in giving way to a truer judgment of his nature. Her inner struggles to deny her uneasy suspicions and what she experiences in his behavior are shown through her words and actions as well as the comments of other characters and the narrator’s own comments. Tito’s deterioration into the thoroughly evil character he has become by the end of the story is shown in the same way. Many of the characters in the novel are figures from history, some with important roles to play in the story. The painter already mentioned is one. A more important one is Fra Girolamo Savanorola, Prior of the Domicans of San Marco. Eliot presents a finely balanced portrait of the single-minded Dominican. This view of him surprised me as I only knew enough about him to associate him with book burning. That Eliot would be even-handed and fair is no surprise at all. She shows the strength and purity of Savonarola’s quest. She makes him one of Romola’s most important supports. And toward the end when he has been executed by burning, having lost his battle against Pope Alexander VI, whom he wanted to depose, she sums up her opinion of Savonarola in these memorable words:

“There is no jot of worthy evidence that from the time of his imprisonment to the supreme moment, Savonarola thought or spoke of himself as a martyr. The idea of martyrdom had been to him a passion dividing the dream of the future with the triumph of beholding his work achieved. And now, in place of both, had come a resignation which he called by no glorifying name. But therefore he may the more fitly be called a martyr by his fellow-men to all time. For power rose against him not because of his sins, but because of his greatness—not because he sought to deceive the world, but because he sought to make it noble. And through that greatness of his he endured a double agony: not only the reviling, and the torture, and the death-throe, but the agony of sinking from the vision of glorious achievement into that deep shadow where he could only say, ‘I count as nothing: darkness encompasses me: yet the light I saw was the true light.’”

I am glad to have read Romola and will certainly be reading it again. I loved the setting and the story and I learned a lot of history. I’ve had to refrain from quoting on and on—George Eliot’s writing is so full of memorable passages. I’m hoping this year to get to Felix Holt the Radical, the last of her major novels I’ve yet to read. I rate Romola 5 stars.
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I give this book 3.5 stars based almost entirely on the historical setting (Florence in the days of Savonarola). Against this fascinating backdrop, our main characters come off pretty dull. The women are naive pushovers (though Eliot is clearly exploring themes of being a woman in a male-dominated world) and our charming villain is just banal and petty in his selfishness (which I suppose is the point). The nice little morality play that is the main plot pales in comparison to the glittering events that surround it – I kept wanting them to get out of the way so I could see the interesting stuff going on behind them.

Welp, I finally had to give up at page 395. Many pages left to go, and I just couldn't bring myself to finish. I was bored. I found myself inadvertently skimming, and then having to go back and reread because I couldn't remember the last five pages. It's too slow, and the Victorian wifely submissiveness was just getting on my nerves. It was only Eliot's pointed and sculpted prose which got me that far. And the thought of another notch on my bookcase wasn't enough to give up the amount of life it would take for me to finish.

Romola is tied with Daniel Deronda as my favorite Eliot novel. I really loved the look at Florence, its history and politics in that era, with the power vaccuum left by the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Tito's character was an absolutely fascinating study of corruption - how an innocent and decent person could devolve into a man who might have rivaled Dorian Gray. Romola herself irritated me a little, but literature of the period is full of spineless female characters, I've learned to just ignore them.

Before I critique this book, I have to critique this cover. Eliot could not make it clearer that Romola is a blonde. Her golden hair is referenced over and over again. Who is the dufus who chose this cover photo? Sorry, but all Italians must be raven-haired? I’m not thinking Eliot would have been impressed.

I have decided to DNF [b:Romola|835508|Romola|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1352311525l/835508._SY75_.jpg|1581651] after 238 pages of forced reading. I cannot believe I am ditching a George Eliot novel, but this is

nothing like any of her other novels,
set in Italy and it would appear Eliot wanted to impress upon people that she had seen it, but I never got the feeling she knew show more it,
contains chapter after chapter of description and political exposition that doesn't move the plot forward even an inch,
has yet to present a single character for which I give a fig.

I was more than willing to give Eliot leaway in making a slow start, she generally does and then presents one with gold, making all those details count. I think [b:Middlemarch|19089|Middlemarch|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568307771l/19089._SY75_.jpg|1461747] and [b:The Mill on the Floss|20564|The Mill on the Floss|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394285531l/20564._SY75_.jpg|3277447] would number among the greatest books ever written. Perhaps if I had the patience and endurance to finish I would see some major revelation in this novel, but I am reminded of how much I had to push to get through some parts of [b:Daniel Deronda|304|Daniel Deronda|George Eliot|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320432000l/304._SY75_.jpg|313957], and I could see what she was trying to achieve there. The world will not stop spinning if I fail to like an Eliot novel--I know it will not--it really will not. Okay, permission to quit granted. show less

700 pages is a long way to go for three stars.

The time period is 1492-1498 Florence, where political winds are shifting and various factions are vying for power – the old guard Mediceans, the religious reformers under priest and fiery orator Savonarola, and the Arrabbiati, those who would put pleasure first. There are several historical figures who make cameos but it’s Savonarola’s struggles with corrupt Pope Alexander VI (perhaps known to the reader from history or from the Showtime series The Borgias :) and his desire to purify Florence through the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ that is the main focus of the ‘historical fiction’ aspect of the book, carrying on to his ultimate execution.

Eliot interweaves this with the show more fictional story of Tito Melema, an educated young Greek, new to Florence but who quickly immerses himself into its politics. He is pleasant enough on the surface, but commits unpardonable acts against his own father, who he leaves in slavery, a young girl, who he deceives in a sham marriage, and Romola, his real wife, who he betrays not only by having a ‘wife’ on the side, but also by selling his father-in-law’s library when he dies, counter to the man’s final wishes and Tito’s promises. He also slickly plays on all of the political ‘teams’, maneuvering so that he’ll be successful regardless of whoever comes out on top.

It’s when his evil is revealed to the reader’s horror, and when it’s placed side by side with Romola, a sweet, smart young woman who has a strong sense of filial duty, a commitment to marriage, and a natural inclination to help the poor and downtrodden, that the novel is most successful. The scenes between the two, while few and far between, are electric.

However, my goodness, their relationship is so mired in the density of the book that I can’t possibly imagine a higher rating. Eliot clearly did a lot of research, but loads up too much of the first parts of the novel with the results of that, as well as an onslaught of Italian words and phrases, to the book’s detriment. She does explain the political maneuvering reasonably well, and it’s not a question of getting lost in the characters, but she’s tedious in her delivery. There are convenient coincidences in the plot that I forgive as being common to 19th century literature, but the plot meanders and in my view the book is just not well executed, certainly nowhere near her classic ‘Middlemarch’, or other historical fiction tomes, such as ‘War and Peace’.

If you’re an Eliot fan, interested in the time period, or just like the challenge of getting through giant books (all of which are true for me btw :), you may like Romola; otherwise, you should probably look elsewhere.

Quotes:
On man’s search for meaning, which is timeless. Wow, and on page one, loved this:
“And as the faint light of his course pierced into the dwellings of men, it fell, as now, on the rosy warmth of nestling children; on the haggard waking of sorrow and sickness; on the hasty uprising of the hard-handed labourer; and on the late sleep of the night-student, who had been questioning the stars or the sages, or his own soul, for that hidden knowledge which would break through the barrier of man’s brief life, and show its dark path, that seemed to bend no whither, to be an arc in an immeasurable circle of light and glory. The great river-courses which have shaped the lives of men have hardly changed; and those other streams, the life-currents that ebb and flow in human hearts, pulsate to the same great needs, the same great loves and terrors. As our thought follows close in the slow wake of the dawn, we are impressed with the broad sameness of the human lot, which never alters in the main headings of its history – hunger and labour, seed-time and harvest, love and death.”

On lying:
“But he had borrowed from the terrible usurer Falsehood, and the loan had mounted and mounted with the years, till he belonged to the usurer, body and soul.”

On marriage:
“Romola had an energy of her own which thwarted his, and no man, who is not exceptionally feeble, will endure being thwarted by his wife. Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.”

On old age:
“I think all lines of the human face have something either touching or grand, unless they seem to come from low passions. How fine old men are, like my godfather! Why should not old women look grand and simple?”

On selflessness:
“There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no man can be great – he can hardly keep himself from wickedness – unless he gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful.”

No connection to the previous book! Maybe it took so long to get through this that I forgot the previous book. :) Maybe it’s a sign to stop pointing out the connections. show less

Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness.

I chose to read Romola for the 2017 Back to the Classics Challenge as my "Classic set in a place you'd like to visit." The story takes place in Florence, Italy, which is one of my bucket-list destinations. Written by George Eliot in 1863, Romola transports the reader to Florence in 1492, where the main characters rub elbows with Niccolo Machiavelli, Girolamo Savonarola, members of the Medici family, and other historical figures of the time.

Tito Melema, a handsome young Greek scholar, finds himself in Florence after being shipwrecked. As he tries to work his way up the social and political ladder he meets show more Romola, the beautiful daughter of one of Florence's most distinguished scholars, Bardo de Bardi. But Tito is haunted by the knowledge that his adoptive father may have survived the shipwreck, and he is torn between the desire to succeed and his filial duty to search for his father. Romola knows knows nothing of Tito's past or of his plans to undercut her father's dying wish. Their story plays out against the backdrop of Renaissance Italy and its religious and political upheaval.

Romola is well worth a read, especially for those who enjoy Victorian literature and/or historical fiction. I particularly enjoyed the Florentine setting and Romola's efforts to deal with Tito's bad decisions. The characters are complex and interesting, and their dilemmas and conflicts are universal.

I didn't know much about the time period before I started the book, and I think that hindered my enjoyment and understanding of the novel. While I did enjoy Romola, I would have appreciated it a lot more if the notes in my Modern Library Kindle edition would have been linked to the text. There were dozens of historical notes that I didn't read simply because navigating to them without an internal hyperlink was too cumbersome and time consuming. So while I recommend Romola the book, I do not recommend the Modern Library Kindle edition. If you read it, get yourself a copy in print or an ebook with links to the notes. show less