Middlemarch

Rating:
Summary: The best telling of love --ever!
Review: Middlemarch offers something for everyone: politics and history, crime and punishment, and three romances of different sorts. George Eliot grants us a panoramic view of life in the English Midlands during a period of reform. She offers us the large bustling town of Middlemarch as a place where dreams are made and broken whether they involve money, elections or the eternal business between man and woman.

Dorothea Brooke is a heroine I rank only second to Elizabeth Bennet ( and I want to be Elizabeth Bennet) and slightly ahead of Emma Woodhouse. Her groping to define the terms for her life gives the novel its sturdy spine which Eliot uses as a frame for her tale of life in a mercantile town.

Read Middlemarch and if you want to talk about it contact me, [e-mail].

Rating:
Summary: Could not relate to characters; author of dubious character.
Review: I read half of Middlemarch and found it hard going. All of the characters are flawed (as in real life) which would have been OK if there were any who were sympathetic. But after reading 331 of 771 pages in my edition, I came across the following passage (Chap. 40): "Mr. Farebrother left the house soon after, and seeing Mary in the orchard with Letty, went to say good-bye to her. They made a pretty picture in the western light which brought out the brightness of the apples on the old scant-leaved boughs -- Mary in her lavender gingham and black ribbons holding a basket, while Letty in her well-worn nankin picked up the fallen apples. If you want to know more particularly how Mary looked, ten to one you will see a face like hers in the crowded street to-morrow, if you are there on the watch: she will not be among those daughters of Zion who are haughty, and walk with stretched-out necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go: let all those pass, and fix your eyes on some small plump brownish person of firm but quiet carriage,...." These words of Eliot's (not of a character) are vile. Who would want to read a book with hateful racial slanders like this, written from the point of view of an author a part of whose moral nature is racial animosity? Any author whose moral frame of reference is so small-minded could not write a book of any real artistic value, all the professors of literature and their hollow praises notwithstanding. Character development and other technical accomplishments do not a work of art make.

Rating:
Summary: Middlemarch is the best of the best!
Review: Middlemarch is probably the best example of nineteenth century British literature. I felt the first book called "Miss Brooke" was long and laborious to read, however after the setting was established and the characters were thoroughly introduced, I had trouble putting the book down! I am a graduate student and I was able to read the novel in 4 nights. George Eliot shows all degrees of human nature and circumstances in this tale. Love does not always beget love and vice versa. Love does not always conquer all. This book will keep you interested from cover to cover with a vast array of characters and situations and you will swear you know some of the people involved! I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves nineteenth century literature!

Rating:
Summary: Superb Reading!!
Review: Middlemarch was a wonderful book. Being in a highschool english class, reading an assigned author's book can sometimes be hard, depending on your taste in books. I was truly surprised and enthused when I read Middlemarch by Eliot/Evans. Her style of writing makes it easy to read all 800 pages. I can't wait to find the PBS movie to compare the book too. This is a book that I would recommend to anyone!!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, superbly written book.
Review: This is an excellent historical novel which has everything. George Elliot's wonderfully expressive prose, excellent character analysis, and insightful observations make this is a book a treasure to read. Her sensitive descriptions of the motivation behind each of the characters actions was incredibly insightful and convincing. I was captivated by the large variety of colorful characters. Each character was well-developed, and I saw myself and others around me in so many of their feelings and motivations that the characters seemed uncannily real, something few authors have been able to achieve.

In addition to the character development, George Elliot captured the political and societal tensions and norms of the time. She showed how these tensions and opinions influenced the motivations, aspirations, and decisions of her characters. So much of "who we are" is shaped by the political and societal pressures of the time-period we live in, and George Ell! iot captured this better than any author I have read. Yet she didn't lose track of the fact that every person reacts to these political and societal pressures differently. The spirit and development of the characters was engrossing.

This is truly a work of literature. George Elliot is a talented author and I look forward to reading more of her works.

Rating:
Summary: The best -- bar none.
Review: Middlemarch is, simply, the best book I have ever read. The story itself is absorbing (following a rather long, but necessary, period of exposition at the beginning of the book), but what I found most engaging were George Eliot's sense of humor and the total relevance of Middlemarch's themes to life 150 years later. What an amazing work!

Rating:
Summary: Long, but you'll go from page to page
Review: Wow, what a book. Eliot created such absorbing characters in Dorthea Brooke and Will Ladislaw. A great humanitarian novel, complete with love, suspense, reality, all told in Eliot's powerful writing.

Rating:
Summary: The English country novel with attitude
Review: Middlemarch is a superior example of that overused superlative, page turner. You absolutely do not want to put it down. What will Dorothea decide? What will happen to the doctor? Will people find out the secrets of one of the town's most prominent citizens? The beauty of the book is the "dark side" that it shows of English country life, the side that is coyly hinted at in all the beloved Jane Austen novels. Indeed, Middlemarch is the work that best highlights the place that Eliot occupies between Austen and the pull-no-punches cynicism of Edith Wharton.

Rating:
Summary: 8
Review: You know how there are those movies based on books that just don't measure up to the original? This is not one of them. Middlemarch is a novel that can better be appreciated upon watching the superlative BBC production from PBS. After making a date with my TV set for eight weeks in a row, never missing an episode, I enjoyed the series so much that I made my father buy me the specific Modern Library edition of Middlemarch. It was only this edition that had the actors' pictures on the cover and they were characters I had come to know. I fear that I would not have been able to get through the gargantuan length of this classic if it had not been for the wonderful series; I doubt I would have been able to keep all the characters straight. Having already known the story and the characters, I was better able to concentrate on George Eliot's mastery of language and atmosphere. As Virginia Woolfe noted, with Middlemarch, George Eliot was the first writer to acknowledge that characters think as well as feel. Dorothea is a far cry from the emotional excesses of heroines like Catherine of Wuthering Heights. Sensible, concerned, and possesing a deep heart, Dorothea is a character to which the reader can more easily relate than a histrionic consumptive like Catherine and so many other contemporary literary heroines. Yet she is not the overiding character of the novel, and instead of a story revolving around one character, all the many characters of Middlemarch revolve around a story. A story of forgiveness, retribution, true love, career goals - in short, a story about the eternal questions and concerns of all humanity.

Rating:
Summary: Marriage is a noose!
Review: The most important thing to remember about Middlemarch is that marriage is a noose! Seriously, Eliot engages the problem of marriage in Victorian England, namely that marriage can be a trap and yet humans have a need for marriage-type relationships. (Can't live with 'em--can't live without 'em attitude) Eliot determines that often the reasons for entering into marriage usually determine the success or failure of it. For example Dorthea Brooke marries a man old enough to be her father in a misguided attempt to do something important with her life. Mr. Casaubon, Dorothea's husband, is a religious scholar who's in the process of writing a great religious treatise. The problem is, however, that Mr. Casaubon doesn't think he needs a woman's help (this is Victorian England, after all) and Dorothea's marriage soon becomes a living hell. Another character, the spoiled yet charming Rosamund marries the local doctor in an attempt to escape her father's house. The problem here is that the doctor doesn't quite make as much money as Rosamund's father and can't keep her in the style that she's been accustomed to. Rosamund's relationship with her husband deteriorates rapidly as her frustration with their income level drives her to torment him. However, a few successful marriages are balanced against this view of domestic torture. Mary and Fred, the two local sweethearts, court for the entire novel, marrying in the last chapter. They work out their differences before their marriage and seem to be fairly happy. After Dorothea's husband mercifully dies, she remarries a man nearer her age and they are fairly happy as well. This novel tends to be a bit melodramatic in places, but ends with an optimistic outlook overall. I recommend this book for anyone who's interested in the Victorian period, women's issues, or human relationships. This is a great book to curl up with next to a fireplace! Other books dealing with similar issues are "The Mill on the Floss" by George Eliot, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" by Mary Wollstonecraft, and "Persuasion" by Jane Austen.