Ooh my god. This book took me almost exactly a year of on-again, off-again, self-inflicted reading to finish. Note to others: do not try to read Middlemarch while you are in the middle of a masters program. Quite honestly, I’m having a difficult time writing this review because I really don’t want to think about this book anymore…we’ll see how well I far I get…also, not so sure I’m going to greenlight this one.
Middlemarch is subtitled A Study of Provincial Life. Now doesn’t that just sound riveting? It is the story of the members of a fictional town in England called Middlemarch in the 1830s. This book has a massive list of characters and covers many, many, subjects, but they’re basically the ones you’d expect from a novel of the time—marriage, the state of women, class, farming, medical practices, inheritance, religious experiences, and political reform. I know, you’re chewing at the bit to read this book. The central characters in Middlemarch are Dorthea Brooke, an idealistic bu,t sometimes foolish, young woman and Doctor Lydgate, a doctor, obviously. For the most part I enjoyed Dorthea’s storyline but not so much Lydgate’s…so there goes half the book.
Readability: The writing is dense, and a bit preachy. There were some sections I would be completely enjoying and then the book would take a nasty turn into the ramblings of old grumpy medical men, or gossip about some character I couldn’t remember. Also, it’s waaaaay too long.
Enjoyability (is that a word?): I’ll say I enjoyed parts of this book. I wish I had my own personal editor who would take out all the unnecessary jaunts into subjects completely unrelated to the storyline. In some books this works, but in this one it was just boring.
Favorite quote(s):
"I would not creep along the coast but steer out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars."
"But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope."
“What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?”
“Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot?”
“If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us.”
Favorite character: Dorthea, the main female protagonist. She makes many bad decisions and is stubborn, idealistic and dog
matic to a fault but her heart is in the right place. From a feminist perspective it bums me out a little bit that this independent woman ends up subordinate to two men and doesn’t end up following her passion
to be a great benefactor to society. Ooh well, the times, the times.
Least favorite character: Mr. Casaubon, Dorthea’s husband. Seriously, this man is horrible. He’s a jealous, suspicious intellectual who never really did anything with his life, and this makes him bitter, understandably so I suppose.
Social impact: A part of this novel that I wish I knew more about, being a political science major and all, were the aspects relating to the reform movement in England. The book takes place at a time when Parliament was in the process of being restructured in England. While I found some of this interesting, it was confusing because the author assumes you know exactly what happened in the movement and, not being an expert in 19th century British politics, I don’t. It was also written by a woman—something not all that common at the time (thus the pen name).
Greatest impact: Sheer length.
Recommended for: People who want their reading stamina challenged by a novel. Anyone who enjoys 19th century English romances, think Jane Austen but not as witty and longer. People interested in the English class system, position of women, social relations farming techniques and medical practices.
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