Silas Marner

Rating:
Summary: The Andrew Sachs audiotape is superb
Review: I'm sure there are other good versions of Silas Marner available on CD or audiotape, but I must express my admiration for the reading by Andrew Sachs in an excellent unabrdiged edition of this Victorian classic. I was perhaps fortunate that I was not forced to read this book in high school when I might have found it a chore, so I approached the story with an open mind. Sachs manages beautifully to convey the inner life of Eliot's characters through his acting talent and his choices of slightly differing voices for each individual. A great reading of a great novel.

Rating:
Summary: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!
Review: Ok, I cant take it when people are like "ahh, its beautifuly written, and..." spare me! I love books like Timeline, or The Great Gatsby. NOT Silas Marner! This book is soooo RIDICULOUSLY slow, it baffles me. I just barley could read it during my senior year. I struggled so hard to get it done! If you feel the need to read this for fun, do not do it! I am forwarning you. It is by far the worst, most boring book ever written.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Tale of Redemption
Review: This is an odd little book, but it's a good one. It's odd because the famous story of the old miser who is redeemed by taking in an angelic little girl to raise doesn't really even begin until half-way through the novel. This was definitely a surprise to me, but it wasn't a bad one. It ends up that there is a lot more to this novel than I thought there would be. In that first half of the novel, George Eliot brilliantly elucidates the fallen nature of both Silas Marner and the community. They're are revealed to be such selfish and sinful people. They are all in the throws of despair, lamenting their plight as humans and questioning a God who placed them in their lives. Eliot is really wonderful at capturing the need of each individual for redemption and also that need in the community as a whole. The individuals are criticized as is the unfair societal structure. Into this fallen world comes the angelic Eppie, and that's when the story really picks up. Eppie is the catalyst of grace offering redemption to Silas and the rest of the community.

Silas Marner is really an extraordinary little novel. It's a thoroughly enjoyable book (especially after you get through the first half) with a lot of valid criticism and some hope. It's a really beautiful little classic.

Rating:
Summary: Classic Literature
Review: Reviews of this novel, seem to fall into three categories: those written by people who like to read great literature; those written by people who would prefer to read brain candy; and those written students forced to read the novel as a class assignment and,in some cases, would prefer not to read anything (if the third category is discarded, the average rating is much higher).

One of the most remarkable things about this novel is the fact it was written by a woman, using a male pen name, in 19th century England when women were generally oppressed, i.e., they were not encouraged to have careers or to do anything outside the home. The story is well known. A man who blacks out during seizures, not remembering what happened, is falsely accused of theft of money from his church. He is shunned by his former friends and becomes a recluse. When he is later robbed of his savings, and an abandoned child appears on his doorstep in place of the gold, his life is changed as he takes responsibility for the child.

This is classic literature from that time period, and is most certainly easier to read than many other novels from the same period (students should consider themselves fortunate that they were not assigned to read one of Thomas Hardy's novels). I first became acquainted with the novel when it was assigned reading in a high school English class. That was over 50 years ago, and the story is one that has stuck in my mind.