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Rating: 
Summary: The Promethean heroine
Review: Allowing myself the use of a preciously rare adjective, I will call George Eliot's "The Mill on the Floss" a Wordsworthian novel in the sense that it is a deeply personal work to the point of being semi-autobiographical, adores nature with imaginative poeticality, and shows a great affection towards a sibling. Like all of Eliot's major novels, it is a masterpiece of form, developing from a pastoral about childhood into a brooding love story concerning five young people who are motivated by a complex web of emotions involving pity, loyalty, and spite.
The two protagonists are Maggie Tulliver and her older brother Tom, whose father owns Dorlcote Mill on the river Floss near a town called St. Ogg's. Maggie, Eliot's presumable alter ego, is a normal little girl in most respects but extremely bright and quite mischievous, cutting off her hair to rebel against her remonstrative mother and nattering aunts and uncles and pushing her pretty cousin Lucy Deane into a puddle of mud in a fit of jealousy. Tom, on the other hand, is a pragmatist rather than a Fury; he lives strictly according to the principles set forth by their father and believes people should be held accountable for their actions. While Maggie enriches her mind through her own reading, her father, who believes girls have no need for education, sends the much less bookish Tom to a prosaic tutor named Stelling to fathom the mysteries of Virgil and Euclid.
While visiting Tom at Stelling's, Maggie meets the only other person in the novel whose intellect matches her own--Philip Wakem, a sensitively artistic but deformed boy whose father, a lawyer, is the sworn enemy of Mr. Tulliver. Philip, painfully aware of his unattractiveness, falls in love with Maggie because she is the only girl who has ever shown any interest in him; but Tom, loyal to his father and mindful of the harm Mr. Wakem has done to their family, warns her not to socialize with him. The trysts of Philip and Maggie--the hunchback and the tall, gawky girl--may seem like a grotesque parody of Romeo and Juliet, but there is touching sincerity and truthfulness in their scenes together.
Years pass, and a new man enters the story--Stephen Guest, the handsome heir to a shipping business which is co-owned by Maggie's uncle Deane (Lucy's father) and employs Tom, who is trying to make enough money to buy back Dorlcote Mill, swindled away by Mr. Wakem. Stephen is ostensibly Lucy's boyfriend, but he soon becomes attracted to Maggie, who has turned into a graceful young lady. He also happens to be Philip's friend, and this can lead to nothing good. Maggie is thrust into a gnawing dilemma--she loves Stephen but feels too much pity for Philip to abandon him; her love for Stephen is consumed by guilt. And on top of this, Stephen reveals himself to be remorselessly selfish, concerned only for his own happiness.
The ending, it must be said, is tragic, but not in the classical sense of being a consequence of the characters' flaws. It is more dramatic than it needed to be, but it may just be Eliot's expression of the eternal unity she felt with her brother, a fate not to be shared by any traditional romantic partner, and the novel could hardly have concluded with greater force and pathos. I praise many writers for a variety of skills, but Eliot stands high above the rest in her creation of these literary worlds of such extraordinary fineness and delicacy and in her exalted level of communication. In my opinion, the art of the novel has no greater practitioner.
Rating:
Summary: An autobiographical novel, that tells a good story.
Review: George Eliot's works are varied and wonderful, and although this is not the book that she's most noted for, it is one that she held most dear. It is a "no-holds barred" autobiographical account of her own life. George Eliot's real name was Mary Anne Evans, but she used the pen name of George Eliot because society at that time thought it was not correct for women to be authors, and she wanted her books read on their own merits. In this book we read of Maggie Tulliver who was intelligent, imaginative, idealistic and ambitious like George (Mary Anne) herself. The book goes into the continuous conflict between Maggie and her environment, and the frustrations that she encounters in her search for fulfillment and love. George Eliot bared her soul in this novel, but it also contains her trademark wonderful dialogue and characterizations. I have read all George Eliot's works, and found them all richly and disturbingly illuminating. They certainly do make you think about her and the struggles that she encountered within the moral and religious strictures of her society.
Rating:
Summary: The finest, and most autobiographical, of Eliot's novels
Review: Having read most of George Eliot's novels, I can say without reservation that I believe this one to be her finest. It's also likely her most accessible, and the pacing of it is superb. THE MILL ON THE FLOSS is a very autobiographical novel, to a heartbreaking extent. I highly recommend reading this one alongside a bio of Eliot as it really highlights the aspects of Maggie Tolliver that come directly from Eliot herself. A brilliant, brilliant read, and one of my favorite Victorian novels.
Rating:
Summary: A Sophisticated and Engaging Victorian Love Story
Review: The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot, stands among the greatest nineteenth century British novels. As engaging and readable as anything by Austen or Dickens, this novel adds a degree of psychological and emotional complexity that few novels, of any period, can match. The novel seems to have the breath of life in it, so that the characters and circumstances seem true and real, even to the modern reader so far removed from the pastoral life of two hundred years ago. To those who may feel intimidated by the book, don't be. The writing is accessible to any 21st century literate and the controversies of Victorian-era farm life are far more compelling than they may appear at first blush. Give it a try; you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A Sophisticated and Engaging Victorian Love Story
Review: The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot, stands among the greatest nineteenth century British novels. As engaging and readable as anything by Austen or Dickens, this novel adds a degree of psychological and emotional complexity that few novels, of any period, can match. The novel seems to have the breath of life in it, so that the characters and circumstances seem true and real, even to the modern reader so far removed from the pastoral life of two hundred years ago. To those who may feel intimidated by the book, don't be. The writing is accessible to any 21st century literate and the controversies of Victorian-era farm life are far more compelling than they may appear at first blush. Give it a try; you won't be disappointed.
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