Adam Bede (Penguin Classics)
by George Eliot, Stephen Gill
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 743)
Yes, I did like it.
It was very slow to me in the beginning if you're talking plot and I have no trouble understanding what Mariannes was saying, but I knew that it was that kind of a book. "Wordy" for lack of a better word. I was happy when it kind of turned the corner from character development(although at most times I enjoyed that too) into the story! Once it got going I could hardly put it down and it did preoccupy my mind.
Poor Hetty, I knew she was pregnant when she ran a...more
It was very slow to me in the beginning if you're talking plot and I have no trouble understanding what Mariannes was saying, but I knew that it was that kind of a book. "Wordy" for lack of a better word. I was happy when it kind of turned the corner from character development(although at most times I enjoyed that too) into the story! Once it got going I could hardly put it down and it did preoccupy my mind.
Poor Hetty, I knew she was pregnant when she ran a...more
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Read in July, 2008
"In this world there are so many of these common, coarse people, who have no picturesque sentimental wretchedness! It is so needful we should remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of our religion and philosophy, and frame lofty theories which only fit a world of extremes. Therefore let Art always remind us of them; therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of a life to the faithful representing of commonplace things---men who see beauty i...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
people who like Victorian novels
I read this novel because someone told me it had opium use in it (for my dissertation), but I didn't find any. Oh, well -- it's still one more George Eliot read! This was very good, though it still doesn't touch Middlemarch or The Mill on the Floss. Starts very slowly, but becomes quite gripping. The relationship between the vain Hetty and the saintlike Dinah seems like a kind of blueprint for the less extreme Rosamond and Dorothea. And the idea of a female preacher is really interesting. But wh...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
any one who likes Victorian lit
This book is about an intelligent, handsome and strong carpenter named Adam who is admired and respected throughout the town, and even attracts the admiration of a stranger at the very beginning. He is in love with a young woman who has nothing to recommend her except her beauty, which few people can resist admiring, and who does not return Adam's love. Instead she falls for another man, the local squire, who does not know Adam loves her, and courts her without thinking things will go too far. O...more
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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...more
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Read in June, 2008
I loved this book! It took me a long time to finish it (7 months), but every time I picked it up it was like breathing a breath of fresh country air. This is a great, old-fashioned novel. It's not in vogue anymore for omniscient, 3rd-person narrators to explain her characters feelings and actions, and justify them by exhorting us to remember mitigating circumstances and think about how we would act in their places. You also don't find narrators these days digressing into discourses about old cou...more
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Read in March, 2006
When I finish reading a book, most of the time I close the cover with a sense of satisfaction about it. It's the culmination of completing the novel and the satisfaction of the fate of the characters. Well, when I finished Adam Bede, I threw the book to the floor in complete and utter contempt of it. If you read this book, you have to pay attention to the character of Seth Bede. Most people don't and they aren't bothered by the ending. I'm off on a tangent. The entire book started off very s...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to Myla by:
Mel Bennett aka Daddy-O
I loved this book! It was just a mellow fun story to read nothing riviting me to my seat and then all of a sudden I was dying! I have never in my life been completely torn; I couldn't stop reading because I had to know what would happen at the same time I had to stop reading because I was afraid to see what would happen. Never in my life have I seriously considered flipping to the back of the book to see how it ends, and I am not a spoiler of plots. Not to be cliche but I laughed and cried a...more
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Read in January, 2006
recommended to Mindy by:
Madame gave it to me.
I read the one in a compilation volume I have, but I will rate it here. I loved this story! And frankly, I was shocked at it's raciness. Of course, no sex act is ever mentioned explicitly, but I was scandalized (and then deeply saddened) by what happened to Hetty. (Not because I'm a prude, but because the popular image of the olden days is that they were so much more moral and genteel... Hah!) I adored Adam, too. I think there must've been a twinge of my Daddy (whose father was also an alcoholic...more
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Read in March, 2008
I took my time with this book. First, it was to enjoy Eliot's near-cinematic writing style in the beginning of the novel as she laid out the world and characters of "Adam Bede". Then, I read slowly to slow down the arrival of the inevitable fall from paradise. But Eliot handled it beautifully complete with cliffhangers that saw me, at one dramatic chapter, drop the book, throw my arm over my eyes and gasp for breath. You'll know where when you read it. Please do, Adam Bede's world...more
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Read in October, 2007
Fantastic read. Easygoing pace makes for a relaxing read (you know, a rainy Saturday, might-take-a-nap-with-the-book-on-my-lap kinda read). The captivatintly tangental storyline makes for delightful reading, as though someones sharing bits of juicy, provincial gossip with you, circa 1850.
Adam Bede, the main character, is as appealing an antihero as any. His puritan virtue is as implausible as it is charming, and the absolutely sinful situations he finds himself in and his dealings therein re...more
Adam Bede, the main character, is as appealing an antihero as any. His puritan virtue is as implausible as it is charming, and the absolutely sinful situations he finds himself in and his dealings therein re...more
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recommends it for:
boring carpenters
george eliot's ideal man seems to be a carpenter who would have been the teacher's pet had he gone to school. inordinately boring.
wallace stegner writes into his book angle of repose that george eliot's problem is that she hardly gets done creating her characters before she starts judging them, and i think this is the source of my boredom with adam bede. she s...more
wallace stegner writes into his book angle of repose that george eliot's problem is that she hardly gets done creating her characters before she starts judging them, and i think this is the source of my boredom with adam bede. she s...more
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Read in May, 2008
100% engaging. This is one of those books that you feel more human for having read.
What the plot may lack in scope, the writing makes up for tenfold with tender and true insights into pain, hope, vanity and prosaic life. It's a true, true, true book, that beats with an honest heart. You get to love the narrator in the very fact that the narrator is open about her love for the characters. this book is a treasure, in all its homely ruggedness and sometimes shocking, but inevitable events. ...more
What the plot may lack in scope, the writing makes up for tenfold with tender and true insights into pain, hope, vanity and prosaic life. It's a true, true, true book, that beats with an honest heart. You get to love the narrator in the very fact that the narrator is open about her love for the characters. this book is a treasure, in all its homely ruggedness and sometimes shocking, but inevitable events. ...more
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Read in December, 2007
George Eliot always amazes me with her insight into human nature. This made the first half of the book truly wonderful. The second half had some aspects that annoyed me, but George Eliot's characters and prose can make up for a lot of faults. Dinah, and even Seth to a certain extent, simply seemed too good to be true, and the way the book ended for them just didn't seem plausible to me. I also thought Hetty's story ended in a slightly sensationalist manner, and that (for me, anyway) undermin...more
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Read in June, 2008
The book was a lot longer than it needed to be, but if you can get used to the slow pace there's actually a fair amount of drama in the story. The characters were one-dimensional, but one think I like about George Eliot is her strong female characters. (Dinah Morris in this book.) They don't act like the men of their time, but have traditionally feminine traits like being really nurturing and emotional, and the traits are a form of strength for them rather than a sign of weakness.
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Read in June, 2008
This was just way too long to be so relatively uneventful. It's been on my "classics to read" list for about 15 years and I just decided to do it or forget it. Now that I've done it, I'm afraid I'm going to forget it anyway. The plot could have been thoroughly covered in about three chapters, there wasn't anything historically interesting about it, and the writing didn't impress me much. You win some, you lose some.
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If you aren't ready to tackle Middlemarch then this is a good introduction into Eliot. It isn't as long but it has some similarities. I particularly like the character of Dinah. She could have been a sappy, angelic creature but instead she feels real despair for the trials of those around her. It is lovely that while all around her are judging Adam and Hetty she saves them with love.
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Read in January, 2008
I really liked this book. It was a little tough in the first 50 or so pages to get into the accent of the characters, but I became accustomed and would find myself repeating in my brain the same funky accent.
I love the way she gives little personal insights throughout the book both by calling it out clearly and by writing it through a character's thoughts.
Great book!
I love the way she gives little personal insights throughout the book both by calling it out clearly and by writing it through a character's thoughts.
Great book!
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How this book would be perfect:
So to open, George Eliot describes the green trees and the thatch roofs and the dirt on the path, with such vivid detail, it's as if a sorceress set us down in that town. Eliot describes birds and shit. She describes Adam Bede's bloated body floating face down in the fish pond, a sturgeon nibbling at the end of his fingertips.
The end.
So to open, George Eliot describes the green trees and the thatch roofs and the dirt on the path, with such vivid detail, it's as if a sorceress set us down in that town. Eliot describes birds and shit. She describes Adam Bede's bloated body floating face down in the fish pond, a sturgeon nibbling at the end of his fingertips.
The end.
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I started out thinking I would not be able to read this book because of the difficult accents some of the characters spoke in, but once I decided to really try it I found it to be very touching. It is also heartbreaking and full of wonder and love. It is a beautiful story of how differently love affects human nature and how that love can change a person's life.
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