Rating: 
Summary: Second to Middlemarch
Review: "Adam Bede" is a story about love, self-deception, religious feeling, innocence, and experience. It would not be an unfit introduction to Eliot, though "Middlemarch" is by far her superior novel.
I am awed by Eliot's psychological insight into human personality. Her characters are some of the most vivid in all of literary history, and her ability to penetrate to the very heart of human motivation is unrivaled. She presents her story with wit and subtle sarcasm. (Take, for instance, this tongue-in-cheek comment, which will explain Adam's devotion to Hetty: "Of course, I know that, as a rule, sensible men fall in love with the most sensible women of their acquaintance, see through all the pretty deceits of coquettish beauty, never imagine themselves loved when they are not loved, cease loving on all proper occasions, and marry the woman most fitted for them in every respect. . . . But even to this rule an exception will occur now and then in the lapse of centuries, and my friend Adam was one.")
Eliot's command of English is deeply impressive, and this book is worth reading just for the beauty of the language. But the story is quite interesting as well, and you will come to care about and sympathize with the characters. It is not a fast paced book, and it will require an investment of time and intellect. But it is well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: A book full of wonderful unforgettable characters. Adam Bede and his brother, the preistess who falls in love with Adam, and the precious innocent who impregnants herself then searches for her "husband" while engaged ton Adam. I love the twists and turns, my favorite George Eliot novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Watch George Eliot invent the modern novel!
Review: ADAM BEDE is a thrilling read, though it may seem hard to believe given the unpromising setting and the stilted way Eliot introduces her story. But after the first few starchy chapters, abruptly, something wonderful happens: she gets wise to herself. It's as if you can see her realize that the upright characters she *thought* she was pinning her story on, dull Dinah and Mr Irwine, aren't really the stuff of which fiction is made -- so she shoves them aside and takes up the flawed characters of her triangle, who resonate with possibility at every turn. Suddenly, miraculously, with almost no warning, all Eliot's amazing gifts as a writer take center stage: Her psychological insight. Her phenomenal wit. The dramatizing genius that allows her, effortlessly, to plot the most intimate narrative developments against the gigantic backdrop of a county-wide feast or funeral. Her fearlessness and surefootedness in picking her way (and ours) through the tangle of social and class relationships of an entire village. In this embarrassment of riches, maybe most rewarding for a reader like me is Eliot's unerring ability to pay off her plots: here, ladies and gentlemen, is a writer who knows how to write the hell out of a climax -- George Eliot's big confrontation scenes never, ever disappoint. Too, some wizardry seems to keep her narrative touch both incomparably delicate and completely unflinching at the same time. At the heart of ADAM BEDE is a story so sordid I wonder whether it could be broadcast on network TV today, and Eliot tells it without vulgarity but without ever shying away from its ugliness. My most serious criticism of the book is that Eliot didn't quite trust herself enough not to tack an unconvincing (and, worse, uninteresting) happy ending onto her story. But the hair-raising drive of the middle two-thirds of the book is something you'll never forget.
Rating:
Summary: Watch George Eliot invent the modern novel!
Review: ADAM BEDE is a thrilling read, though it may seem hard to believe given the unpromising setting and the stilted way Eliot introduces her story. But after the first few starchy chapters, abruptly, something wonderful happens: she gets wise to herself. It's as if you can see her realize that the upright characters she *thought* she was pinning her story on, dull Dinah and Mr Irwine, aren't really the stuff of which fiction is made -- so she shoves them aside and takes up the flawed characters of her triangle, who resonate with possibility at every turn. Suddenly, miraculously, with almost no warning, all Eliot's amazing gifts as a writer take center stage: Her psychological insight. Her phenomenal wit. The dramatizing genius that allows her, effortlessly, to plot the most intimate narrative developments against the gigantic backdrop of a county-wide feast or funeral. Her fearlessness and surefootedness in picking her way (and ours) through the tangle of social and class relationships of an entire village. In this embarrassment of riches, maybe most rewarding for a reader like me is Eliot's unerring ability to pay off her plots: here, ladies and gentlemen, is a writer who knows how to write the hell out of a climax -- George Eliot's big confrontation scenes never, ever disappoint. Too, some wizardry seems to keep her narrative touch both incomparably delicate and completely unflinching at the same time. At the heart of ADAM BEDE is a story so sordid I wonder whether it could be broadcast on network TV today, and Eliot tells it without vulgarity but without ever shying away from its ugliness. My most serious criticism of the book is that Eliot didn't quite trust herself enough not to tack an unconvincing (and, worse, uninteresting) happy ending onto her story. But the hair-raising drive of the middle two-thirds of the book is something you'll never forget.
Rating:
Summary: What did George Eliot's contemporaries think?
Review: Adam Bede is a wonderful, tragic story in the very best tradition of 19th century English novelists. You will be swept away by the marvellous enigma that is Hetty. I came across an original review of Adam Bede on The Atlantic Monthly's website. ... if you are interested, go to their website and under the section entitled "Books and Critics" type in "bede". The review itself was posted in October 1859.
Rating:
Summary: What did George Eliot's contemporaries think?
Review: Adam Bede is a wonderful, tragic story in the very best tradition of 19th century English novelists. You will be swept away by the marvellous enigma that is Hetty. I came across an original review of Adam Bede on The Atlantic Monthly's website. ... if you are interested, go to their website and under the section entitled "Books and Critics" type in "bede". The review itself was posted in October 1859.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful tale of mismatched lovers.
Review: Adam Bede is my second favourite book by George Elliot. This is a wonderful story about a young dairymaid who is seduced by a country squire - an old story it's true, but George Eliot handles this in her own unique way. No one can create a sense of scene and paint imagery with words like she can. The story is sad in its honesty, but it does not leave one with the feeling of partaking of a tragedy. Perhaps it is the sense of hopefulness that brims through the pages. This novel is one of George Eliot's earlier works, and her character development and writing skills do get better with later works, but her wonderful skill is still very apparent in this book. The women characters in this book seem to be the stronger, but Adam Bede himself is a wonder. Ms. Eliot was a wonderful writer.
Rating:
Summary: the threshold of compassion
Review: Adam Bede is the perfect pastoral, combining qualities of the Golden Age with the eye of an occupant of the Iron Age. This novel has wonderful religious allusions, making it a second tale of Eden's jests. Over all, a wonderful moral pastoral which places an emphasis on the need of human compassion. A great summer read.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining
Review: Adam Bede, the main man who as it may seem be to good to be true. However, he does have his flaws. Adam is the first of four major charater each whith a flaw that makes them interlink in more than just one way. This is a good story of good work pays off and takes a nasty shot at the social order.
Rating:
Summary: Goodness prevails
Review: Adam Bede, the titular hero of George Eliot's first novel, is of a character so sterling that one little anecdote serves to define his whole life and work ethic: He's a carpenter, and he had done some work for a lady whose father, an old squire named Donnithorne, suggested that she pay him less than the fee he requested. Adam insisted that he would rather take no money for the job, for to accept a reduced amount would be like admitting he overcharges for shoddy work. By standing on his principles, he won his full fee in the end and cemented his reputation as a businessman of honor and acumen, proving his fairness to both his customers and himself. Thus he seems an unlikely match for Hetty Sorrel, the prettiest girl in the village of Hayslope. Vain, selfish, materialistic, hating her laborious farm chores, Hetty bears more than a passing resemblance to Flaubert's Madame Bovary. However, while Madame Bovary's unattainable dream world is inspired by her reading romances, Hetty "had never read a novel" so she can't "find a shape for her expectations" regarding love. Unable to foresee any possible consequences for her actions, she allows herself to be seduced by Arthur Donnithorne, the old squire's grandson, who stands to inherit the land on which most of the Hayslopers live. Arthur is a radiant example of Eliot's mastery in complicated character creation. Acutely aware of his position in society, he has the kind of charisma with which he can talk to his tenants politely but with just the slightest hint of condescension and completely win their respect for his authority. In fact, he is so accustomed to receiving nothing but admiration for his apparent moral integrity that it comes as a genuine shock to him when Adam, a man he truly likes, reproaches him for his reckless behavior with Hetty, a girl both he and Adam truly love. And the tragic irony is that Hetty doesn't really deserve either of them. Religion plays a curious role in the story. Adam's brother Seth is infatuated with a woman named Dinah Morris, a cousin's cousin to Hetty and a Methodist evangelistic preacher who was inspired by Wesley in the flesh. Her influence among the villagers comes to the attention of the Anglican Rev. Dauphin Irwine, the vicar of Hayslope, who visits her to try to figure out her game and concludes that she's essentially a good woman with a good heart. Indeed, she is the first one to sense that Hetty may be headed for troubled waters and earnestly offers her spiritual guidance, to which Hetty responds with distrust and irritation. Most powerful of the novel's images is that of Hetty wandering through the darkness and dangers of the English countryside in desperate search of the departed Arthur, carrying with her a symbol of their tormented love, and oblivious to the goodness of Adam, whose only desire is to protect her from the disappointment, shame, and disgrace that result from her pitiful reliance on Arthur's ability to buy her pretty things. But Eliot is too fond of her hero to let him suffer for long when the tides of fate come crashing violently to their inevitable shores, and the ultimate product is a novel of great compassion for its characters.
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