Romola

Rating:
Summary: A hard book to read, but worth the effort
Review: Romola was a difficult book to read. If I did not happen to be on a business trip that left me long hours on seemingly endless international flights, I doubt if I would have had the perseverance to stick with it. In writing this book, Eliot spent six months in exhaustive research on fifteenth century Florence, and she is going to give it all to you whether you like it or not. This made it difficult to enjoy because I was constantly going to the back of the book get the translation of Italian and Latin phrases, reference to obscure historical characters, and other minutia which would only be clear to someone with a doctorate in Italian history. I was frustrated by this throughout the book. Having said that, the book is worth the wade! As always Eliot's writing is a pure joy to read. Some of her description is so beautiful that I have to step back in wonder that someone can create narrative so rich and inviting. Her characters are complex, intriguing and well developed. First, Tito was the most original antihero I have run across in years: a man who avoids unpleasantness and discomfort to the point that he betrays anyone he has ever loved while intending only to take the easy way in all his dealings. Romola is a women deeply learned, but raised only by her aging father and the classics, is unprepared for what the fates have brought her: love, duplicity, and purpose. And lastly, Savonarola, Tito's opposite: a religious visionary who strives to lead Florence to a new order, and is willing to give up church, state---anything but his place in the order, to see his prophecy fulfilled. This is Eliot's favorite book. I can see why.

Rating:
Summary: One of my best surprises as a reader.
Review: When one starts reading a Victorian novelist, one prepares before hand to face a certain amount of wooden, heavy-handed moralizing, as every great narrative of the epoch is fraught with the opposition between the calls of pleasure and the calls of duty, between seeking for one's private advantage and sticking to one's role, with the writer making the latter to win overwhelming. This novel is no different, in that it's the dutiful Romola that has the upper hand over her nice and debauched husband Tito Melena in the end. However, the novel being set in late Renaissance Italy- a country with which George Eliot had an enduring love affair - it captures the atmosphere of the time and place in such a beautiful way that this enormous, throughly reserched historical novel has such a flowing, luxurious style that takes an almost liquid quality, like a fresh, transparent scream flowing along a summer Mediterranean landscape. Also, in the person of Savonarola, Eliot menaged to introduce the figure of the idealist turned evil through his attachment to his call. In short: a gorgeous novel. Loved it!

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: Yes, it bristles with Glossaries and Appendices and Notes like so much barbed wire. (And if you actually read the Penguin editor's introduction, it's a sure thing you'll never read the novel: she makes it sound like about as much fun as chewing rocks.) But don't let all that deter you. You may have some rough going at the beginning, mostly because Latin and Greek scholarship is so important to the plot. Use the notes and they'll enhance your enjoyment of the story, but ignore them and you're still in for a thrilling tale gorgeously told. Tito Melema is one of the great characters in fiction, and he's someone we all know: a thoroughly despicable human being who has no idea he's anything but a nice guy. Eliot has wrought a dreamy and hair-raising hybrid of fiction and history, infused with her own astonishing insight and complicated sympathy and delivered in her matchless prose. I loved this book.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book
Review: Yes, it bristles with Glossaries and Appendices and Notes like so much barbed wire. (And if you actually read the Penguin editor's introduction, it's a sure thing you'll never read the novel: she makes it sound like about as much fun as chewing rocks.) But don't let all that deter you. You may have some rough going at the beginning, mostly because Latin and Greek scholarship is so important to the plot. Use the notes and they'll enhance your enjoyment of the story, but ignore them and you're still in for a thrilling tale gorgeously told. Tito Melema is one of the great characters in fiction, and he's someone we all know: a thoroughly despicable human being who has no idea he's anything but a nice guy. Eliot has wrought a dreamy and hair-raising hybrid of fiction and history, infused with her own astonishing insight and complicated sympathy and delivered in her matchless prose. I loved this book.