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Middlemarch

3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 · rating details · 47,246 ratings · 2,600 reviews

Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. It is her seventh novel, begun in 1869 and then put aside during the final illness of Thornton Lewes, the son of her companion George Henry Lewes. During the following year Eliot resumed work, fusing together several stories into a coherent whole, and du...more Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. It is her seventh novel, begun in 1869 and then put aside during the final illness of Thornton Lewes, the son of her companion George Henry Lewes. During the following year Eliot resumed work, fusing together several stories into a coherent whole, and during 1871–72 the novel appeared in serial form. The first one-volume edition was published in 1874, and attracted large sales.

Subtitled "A Study of Provincial Life," the novel is set in the fictitious Midlands town of Middlemarch during the period 1830–32. It has multiple plots with a large cast of characters, and in addition to its distinct though interlocking narratives it pursues a number of underlying themes, including the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism and self-interest, religion and hypocrisy, political reform, and education. The pace is leisurely, the tone is mildly didactic (with an authorial voice that occasionally bursts through the narrative), and the canvas is very broad.

Although it has some comical characters (Mr. Brooke, the "tiny aunt" Miss Noble) and comically named characters (Mrs. Dollop), Middlemarch is a work of realism. Through the voices and opinions of different characters we become aware of various broad issues of the day: the Great Reform Bill, the beginnings of the railways, the death of King George IV and the succession of his brother, the Duke of Clarence (who became King William IV). We learn something of the state of contemporary medical science. We also encounter the deeply reactionary mindset within a settled community facing the prospect of what to many is unwelcome change.

The eight "books" which compose the novel are not autonomous entities, but merely reflect the form of the original serialisation. A short prelude introduces the idea of the latter-day St. Theresa, presaging the character Dorothea; a postscript or "finale" after the eighth book gives the post-novel fates of the main characters.

In general Middlemarch has retained its popularity and status as one of the masterpieces of English fiction, although some reviewers have expressed dissatisfaction at the destiny recorded for Dorothea. In separate centuries, Florence Nightingale and Kate Millet both remarked on the eventual subordination of Dorothea's own dreams to those of her admirer, Ladislaw; however, Virginia Woolf gave the book unstinting praise, describing Middlemarch as "the magnificent book that, with all its imperfections, is one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." Martin Amis and Julian Barnes have cited it as probably the greatest novel in the English language.(less)

Published (first published 1871)

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Sep 27, 2007 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, greatfnwriting

I'm thoroughly embarrassed to admit that this book was first recommended to me by my stalker. Subsequently, I avoided MIDDLEMARCH like the plague, because it became associated with this creepy guy who thought the fastest way to my heart was to stare at me, follow me home, and leave obscene messages on my voice mail.

Flash forward 2 years, when I'm purusing yet another of my favorite tomes, THE BOOK OF LISTS. I'm intrigued to see that the one book that consistently turns up on the "Ten Favorite N...more

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Aug 21, 2010 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Virginia Woolf but Jessica made me do it

Shelves: in-by-of-england, tam-lin, reviewed, 2009, victorians-and-wannabes, virginia-woolf-recommends

Oh, my constant companion, the time has come for us to part. How shall I bear it? What will this estrangement do to me? George, please, tell me how can I go on?

I am feeling a little melodramatic. It may be that George Eliot has been my constant companion for two months and now that we are done, I am not sure, really, how to get back my old reading life. Middlemarch is that good, and that bad. I read this book everywhere: five states, four airports, trains, taxis, at home, in hotels, at bars, in...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, reading-through-history, particularly-drunk-reviews, perfect-novels

Middlemarch is a towering achievement. It's tough to find words strong enough to describe it; I mean, I just finished Madame Bovary and called it perfect, so where do I go from there? Middlemarch is almost three times as long and it's still perfect; that's more impressive. But Anna Karenina is pretty close to perfect too, so here's the best I can do:

George Eliot is better than Tolstoy.

Tolstoy is a realistic writer: his characters are real, complicated people with real lives. Among other things,...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Traveller rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, reviewed, victorian

Since I've been told bigger is better, and long reviews are better than short ones, I've decided to update my short Middlemarch review with a long one:

Although Eliot started working on the serialised chapters of Middlemarch around about 1868 (they were published three years later), it is set in roughly 1829-1832, (so writing it took place roughly 40 years after the setting) which gave her the advantage of hindsight.

It is partly this, and the fact that Eliot did a lot of conscientious research, t...more

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Aug 21, 2007 Siobhan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone alive.

Best. Goddamned. Book. Ever.

Seriously, this shit's bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. 750 pages in, and you're still being surprised. It's 800 pages long and EVERY SINGLE PAGE ADVANCES THE PLOT. You cannot believe it until you read it.

This is a writer's book. By which I mean, and I say this with love, that if you write, but you do not love Middlemarch with everything that's in you, then stop writing. Yesterday.

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May 23, 2007 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: women, particularly feminists, brit lit dorks

Shelves: fiction, brit-lit, victorian, owned, 19th-century, grande-dames, mawwiageiswhatbringsustogethertoday

I would not have read this if it were not for a class I took last spring. I will admit that. It had always intimidated me. Large size and dense, winding prose will tend to do that to one.

However. It did have some things to say. The problem, of course, is that most of the subject matter it tackles- marriages, love, children, the various problems of country life are things that people can read about in many forms, and they don't need to come to such a Serious book to do it. Especially one that add...more

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Jul 11, 2008 Martine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british, favourites, film, historical-fiction, nineteenth-century, psychological-drama

Widely regarded as the quintessential Victorian novel, Middlemarch is a superb study of life among the upper and upper middle classes of a fictional rural community in 1830s England. It takes 900 pages to draw its conclusions, but they're 900 pages of some of the richest realist writing nineteenth-century literature has to offer, full of insights into society, human nature, what to do in life when one can't quite make one's dreams come true, and how to make a marriage work. I've seen it describe...more Widely regarded as the quintessential Victorian novel, Middlemarch is a superb study of life among the upper and upper middle classes of a fictional rural community in 1830s England. It takes 900 pages to draw its conclusions, but they're 900 pages of some of the richest realist writing nineteenth-century literature has to offer, full of insights into society, human nature, what to do in life when one can't quite make one's dreams come true, and how to make a marriage work. I've seen it described as a book everyone should read before getting married, and I agree -- all the lessons you need to learn about human relationships are in here, and much more besides.

To a large extent, the success of Middlemarch is due to its characterisation. A character-driven novel if ever I saw one, Middlemarch features some of the most memorable characters Eliot ever came up with: an earnest young lady who wishes to make a difference; her husband, a petty and jealous scholar; a hot-tempered doctor who is a little ahead of his time; his wife, a living embodiment of the fact that pretty girls don't always make the best spouses; a pious banker who is not the good Christian he has always professed to be; his nephew, who desperately wishes to win the heart of the girl he loves despite his mounting gambling debts; a talented outsider who doesn't quite know how to make the most of his gifts -- they're all here, and they're described in admirable detail. Like a scientist, Eliot puts her characters under a microscope, describing their every flaw and weakness, but always in a sympathetic way; even her worst characters have redeeming features, which makes it very easy to take an interest in their vicissitudes. Like an anthropologist, she then puts her characters into a socio-cultural context, showing the whole through the parts and the parts through the whole. The historical background (political changes, the industrial revolution, new medical theories) is magnificently drawn, and the stories (there are many here) are as fine as they come, featuring love triangles, thwarted prospects, intrigue, political aspirations, blackmail, gossip, characters meddling in other people's lives from beyond the grave, and a clash between old values and modern science and technology. Granted, the book takes a while to hit its stride, but once it does, it's unputdownable.

As for shortcomings, one could say that Eliot is occasionally a tad too intellectual for her own good. Frightfully well-read herself, she sometimes has her characters refer to things which seem a bit outside their scope. Likewise, she occasionally loses herself in technical and political details which slightly detract from the main stories, and takes so much time setting the scene for the great developments which are to follow later that the first half of the book is a tad dull. The second half is brilliant, though -- up there with the great French and Russian realist classics of the period, and then some. It's not the easiest read, but a patient reader will be amply rewarded for his/her trouble, especially if he/she takes the trouble the read the book more than once. Middlemarch is one of those books which yield new gems every time one reads them, and I cherish it for that.(less)

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Oct 10, 2007 Phil Williams rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: The jackanapes and mongrels who need to learn that people aren't so bad as they seem.

When I finished reading this book, I wrote in the front of it that 'This is the most rewarding book you will ever read' and left it on a bookshelf in Fiji, dreaming that someone would go through the effort of reading the whole thing based only on my comment. I doubt anyone's picked it up since then; Fiji is a strange and frightening place.

I spake the truth, though. It strikes me that most of those who've read Middlemarch these days are hapless souls who resent it as the mammoth task some crooked...more When I finished reading this book, I wrote in the front of it that 'This is the most rewarding book you will ever read' and left it on a bookshelf in Fiji, dreaming that someone would go through the effort of reading the whole thing based only on my comment. I doubt anyone's picked it up since then; Fiji is a strange and frightening place.

I spake the truth, though. It strikes me that most of those who've read Middlemarch these days are hapless souls who resent it as the mammoth task some crooked professor set them at university. I read it for myself, unwittingly, and was pleasantly surprised. George Eliot conjures a massive spectrum of characters, and gets into the head of every major player in the novel. We are shown what motivates the most despicable figures as well as those we are drawn to, and as a result there is no one in this book who you cannot relate to in some way or another, or at the very least understand. In my opinion that is what makes it such a grand read: George Eliot understood people. She shows you that everyone thinks in their own way, and it makes it hard to judge anyone when you can observe this.

Though it is that lasting impression of how we might perceive one another that really makes Middlemarch stand out, the story itself is continually interesting for its sheer breadth. George Eliot set out to give a panoramic view of a provincial town, and she achieves this incredibly. It is a long read, but every step in the story builds up to the picture of the whole. Sometimes I found myself confused as to how I'd ended up in a situation where I was reading what should essentially have amounted to little more a 19th Century soap opera, but what confused me was that I was enjoying it so much. I was desperate to know what would become of these marriages and debts and everything inbetween. This is such a detailed character study that you become genuinely interested in their lives, no matter how mundane the details might appear if you stepped back and really thought about it.

Middlemarch is not a book for everyone, I imagine. The insight George Eliot shows might bore rather interest many. But it interests me like hell, so a pox on the naysayers.(less)

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Aug 24, 2009 Sandy Tjan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature, classics, doorstoppers, 5-star-reads, 2009, bbc-big-reads, victorian-lit, eliot

" We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time..."

Delusions, self-induced or otherwise, form the central theme that runs through Middlemarch. Dorothea Brooke, thirsting for knowledge and a meaningful occupation, deludes herself that she would gain those things by marrying Casaubon, a cold, obsessive scholar more than twice her age. Casaubon himself is mired in self-delusion about his life-long research, which Dorothea soon finds out to be obsolete. Th...more " We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time..."

Delusions, self-induced or otherwise, form the central theme that runs through Middlemarch. Dorothea Brooke, thirsting for knowledge and a meaningful occupation, deludes herself that she would gain those things by marrying Casaubon, a cold, obsessive scholar more than twice her age. Casaubon himself is mired in self-delusion about his life-long research, which Dorothea soon finds out to be obsolete. The idealistic Lydgate deludes himself that by marrying the pretty but high-maintenance Rosamond Vincy he would gain both beauty and love, without having to give up the ideals that he lives for. Rosamond's delusion is that by marrying Lydgate, whose fledgling medical profession she despises, but whose aristocratic connections she covets, she would gain status while being maintained at the high standards that she has gotten used to. Bulstrode, MIddlemarch's banker and pious benefactor, has successfully deluded the whole town of his decidedly unpious past before it came back with a vengeance in the form of a certain Mr. Raffles. Mr. Brooke, who champions the liberal spirit of the Reform Act, is under the delusion that by merely being idealistic, he has changed the world, while neglecting to reform his own estate. The main interest of the novel consists of seeing how these very human characters cope with the consequences of their delusions.

Dorothea soon realizes that Casaubon and his work are not what she thought they were, but she holds up her end of the bargain by being a loyal spouse to him, though her heart sinks when she imagines the loveless and futile years that stretch out before her. Casaubon's sudden death mercifully terminates the disastrous marriage, and Dorothea's integrity, after further trials and tribulations, is ultimately rewarded by her finding love with Will Ladislaw. Lydgate discovers how his love of a pretty face slowly compromises his ideals and ends up in mediocrity, very far from what he aims for as a young medical reformer. Rosamond selfishly persists in her delusions without any regard for what it costs her husband. She finally gets what she wants, but at what price? Bulstrode's past misdeeds eventually catch up with him and destroy the life that he has so painstakingly constructed in Middlemarch. Mr. Brooke's political dilletantism never change the world, but it successfully opens up a path to meaningful occupation for an otherwise aimless young man.

Meanwhile, all of these characters' struggles are contrasted with the Garths' earthy integrity. Mr. Garth is an estate manager who does his job capably and honorably, without any pretensions to status or unearned wealth. Fred Vincy and Mary Garth are the only couple that is not under any delusions of each other's characters and goes on to a long and happy union.

Eliot's writing is infused with penetrating insights into human nature without ever losing compassion and understanding for their frailties and errors, a quality that she shares with Tolstoy. She never sentimentalizes her characters, except perhaps for the idealized Garths. They are all believably human, and they drive the narrative instead of the other way around. Eliot also has a great eye for the ludicruous and her wicked sense of humor constantly enlivens what could have been a ponderous account of provincial English life. One may read Middlemarch for the portrait of a Midlands town on the cusp of industrial revolution in 19th century England, which Eliot admirably delivers, but ultimately it is Eliot's insight into the universal human condition that makes it eternally relevant.

Finally, this book is a profoundly wise, if rather melancholic, reflection on the loss of youthful hopes and ambitions, and their replacement by the more realistic (and inevitable) compromises of maturity. Which, Eliot says, is not a bad thing in itself, as " the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs".

(less)

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May 28, 2007 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Middlemarch may look like 1000 pages of repressed English people who won't do exciting things, but in fact, it's a thrill ride (if the ride were called "Class Consciousness and How it Will Kill Your Love Life and Your Business"). This book has more action than all three Pirates movies. George Eliot was not messing around.

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Jan 02, 2013 Denise rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

I have had this book on my shelf for quite a while, and always wanted to read it, but was somewhat discouraged by the length. Now I have finally read it, and am glad that I did; it was well worth it. I did find it slow going; Eliot is very wordy and goes into great detail about the thoughts and ideas of her characters, sometimes for pages at a time. However, the story was very satisfying to follow. It is packed full! Eliot was not satisfied with only one love story, only one family scandal, only...more

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Sep 10, 2011 Christopher H. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: victorian-literature, british-literature, historical-fiction, george-eliot, my-western-canon, favorite-rereads, british-authors-translators, favorites, read-in-2011

I have just finished reading Middlemarch, and this pretty much completes my reading of George Eliot's major works. Middlemarch truly is quite the sublime novel from start to finish. At first blush one has this sense of simply being immersed in a rather quiet and pastoral story, but there's really very much more going on here as one turns the pages.It is a story of rural England during the period of great reforms in politics, religion, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, and even transportation...more I have just finished reading Middlemarch, and this pretty much completes my reading of George Eliot's major works. Middlemarch truly is quite the sublime novel from start to finish. At first blush one has this sense of simply being immersed in a rather quiet and pastoral story, but there's really very much more going on here as one turns the pages.It is a story of rural England during the period of great reforms in politics, religion, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, and even transportation. Mostly though, it is the story of human beings, and what it means to be human.

Eliot gives us a wonderful cast of characters in Middlemarch, and they cut across all class lines from the landed gentry, tradesmen and women, and the simple country rustics that work the land and work in the manor houses. While perhaps Dickensian in cast, the peoples that populate the novel are not laden with the satire or comedy of a Dickens or Thackeray novel. No, these are all people that we can relate to even in this modern age. These are your neighbors, some rich, some poor; these are your physicians; your pastors; your shopkeepers, and so forth. The people of Middlemarch are your family, friends, and acquaintances and become even more so as the novel moves along.

As much as I truly enjoyed the plots in Eliot's Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner, I'd have to say that Eliot "kicked it up a notch" in Middlemarch. This is a stately, sedate, sophisticated, and complexly elegant novel. It really does demand the reader's full dedication and attention as it is read too, much like I found when I read her last novel Daniel Deronda. Boy, is it worth the extra effort, and one can't help but find oneself savoring the pacing and structure of the novel as Eliot lays out the tale.

Eliot herself compares one of her primary characters, Dorothea Brooke, to St. Theresa de Avila. She is a genuinely decent human being who very much cares for the welfare of all of those around her, including even the man she marries early in the novel--Edward Casaubon. Interestingly, at least to me, that through the novel there was an almost tidal 'ebb and flow' of how the reader viewed many of the characters. The one exception was Dorothea, as she always stayed above the fray and maintains her 'saintliness'. I suppose that some could say that maybe Dorothea's saintliness was laid on a bit thick, but I think the character of Dorothea and her actions are important in helping to bring home the novel's overall message and moral impact. I think that this was also true in different degrees with some of the other characters, such as Tertius Lydgate, Rev. Farebrother, Caleb Garth, his wife, and their daughter Mary Garth. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the novel though is Eliot's ability to make her readers empathize and even sympathize with the characters that are not so likeable, e.g., Bulstrode or Casaubon.

Finally, I have to again say that somehow I really think that George Eliot had to have been some sort of inspiration for, or influence upon, the later works of Thomas Hardy. I really do see a somewhat similar approach to realism and naturalism in the works of these two important authors. While Eliot's novels don't showcase the impact of Fate or Chance perhaps as prominently as Hardy, they both inject a big dose of reality in the day-to-day lives of their characters. Bad things do happen to good and bad people alike, just like Life. The beauty of Middlemarch is that it depicts the indomitable Human spirit at its finest (and, dare I say, at its worst at times too). Those who wish to do good can; and for those who don't, well they get caught out.

Great book! I highly recommend reading this novel. I have to be honest and fess up that I tried to read this book off and on for 20+ years, and it just never took with me. I was finally able to sink my teeth (and brain) into it and just let myself become immersed in the peoples and landscape of Middlemarch, and what a profoundly satisfying and enriching experience it has been. In all reality, I think that I am at a point in my reading and comprehension these days that I was finally ready for what Virginia Woolf described as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." I do look forward to re-reading it again at some point and thinking about the messages and lessons of this rich novel that George Eliot has crafted and left us.(less)

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Oct 07, 2010 Manny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: older-men-younger-women, the-goodreads-experience

Since it's still Stalker Week here on Goodreads, I decided to create a new shelf, which I've called older-men-younger-women. I hope that's neutral enough that I won't get flagged. My criterion is simple: a relationship between a man and a much younger woman needs to play an important part in the story.

Well, as I was saying to Meredith, I knew ahead of time that Twilight and Lolita would be there. I trust we've already absorbed all the lessons that can usefully be drawn from these books, so I won...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by: Good Reading: 100 Significant Books; Kandice Sharren

Shelves: classics, 100-significant-books, fiction, literary-fiction, novels, romance, 2013-around-the-world

I'm amazed (and annoyed with myself) that it took this long for me to read anything by George Eliot. I had long heard she was one of the greatest female novelists--indeed, one of the greatest writers of either gender. Her Middlemarch is on a list of "100 Significant Books" in Good Reading. There are only 27 novels on that list, and the only other one by a woman is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Eliot was never assigned me in high school or college and from somewhere I got the idea she was in...more I'm amazed (and annoyed with myself) that it took this long for me to read anything by George Eliot. I had long heard she was one of the greatest female novelists--indeed, one of the greatest writers of either gender. Her Middlemarch is on a list of "100 Significant Books" in Good Reading. There are only 27 novels on that list, and the only other one by a woman is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Eliot was never assigned me in high school or college and from somewhere I got the idea she was insufferably stuffy. It turned out, at least in the case of Middlemarch, that couldn't be farther from the case.

It was a slow read, and by that I don't mean it was a slog, which is what I usually mean by that. I didn't feel as if the book badly needed an editor--either to cut away massive digressions such as the case in novels by Henry Fielding, Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy and Herman Melville or because it read like a rough first draft afflicted with parts that went nowhere or a rushed ending. (Defoe, Melville and Twain, I'm looking at you.) No, this is as well-structured a novel as any I've read. But it is dense--very packed and you can't speed through this prose. This is very much in the Victorian style of novel-writing. Several pages can go without dialogue, and there is a lot devoted to internal thoughts, and at times the narrator intrudes with "I" statements to comment on her characters. I remember Jane Austen, a great favorite, as better in balancing and integrating exposition and scene, more flowing in narrative and prose style and faster paced. Yet, although in lesser hands Eliot's style has aspects I often deplore in others as too "tell, not show," I can't complain of it here; Eliot isn't flabby--she's taut and you feel as if every word and scene was carefully shaped. And I didn't just love the novel, I enjoyed the process of reading it--truly it was a pleasure.

Eliot's characters came alive on the page in a way I rarely find in fiction. I would grow annoyed or irritated or outraged with them as if they were real people I knew. (Believe me, there were plenty of times I would have loved to give Dorothea Brooke or Fred Vincy a good shake.) Her characters are more rounded, more people I can imagine meeting than what I've read in say, Dickens, as vivid as his characters are, they rarely felt as real. And unlike Dickens and many another 19th century author, Eliot in Middlemarch never overstepped into melodrama or treacly sentimentality. Her psychological penetration and insight into character is as profound as in any author I've ever read. She finely depicts the shaping of moral character in critical but seemingly small moments. Middlemarch really has only one out and out villain, a minor character who appears half-way into the novel. Others are more carefully shaded. Bad things happen more because of what characters do to themselves, their foolish choices, than the malice of others. Not that Eliot is gloomy--she isn't a Thomas Hardy--for which, much thanks.

I found not just the moral but spiritual dimension of the novel very interesting. Religion is very important to her characters--but never in a preachy way. I couldn't tell, at least not from Middlemarch, whether Eliot was an orthodox Christian or an atheist. Dorothea is certainly partly a victim of a dream of martyrdom; Fred is pressured to become a clergyman, a career for which he has no vocation; Bulstrode is a narrow religious bigot--but one vicar, Farebrother, is presented as very likable. I couldn't say if Eliot finds religious belief admirable or deplorable. At best I can say I suspect she's sympathetic as to people's spiritual aspirations but wary of how it can be abused. But I just couldn't pin Eliot down that easily: her treatment of the theme is too complicated and subtle.

That said, not all five star ratings are equal--not for me. I admire this book and the writing more than I can express--but I'm not sure that Eliot will ever be the favorite Jane Austen is for me. I cry and laugh with Austen and reading her I feel all is right with the world and am warmed. I could imagine Austen as a friend I could gossip with over tea. Eliot is more... forbidding. This is not to say she is without humor--she often displayed a caustic wit. I don't know that I could say Austen is more good-natured. Eliot judged her characters with an evident compassion. But I didn't fall in love with Eliot's characters the way I have with characters of Austen. Maybe that's what made the difference with me. I can feel for Eliot's characters: I certainly can't say I admire any of them. They're true to life, but not larger than life or in any way heroic or very gifted or even (with the exception of Mary Garth) someone I could imagine wanting as a friend. Mind you, the above criticism feels a mere quibble, my trying to process a complex reading experience and before my memory fades fix my impressions in this review. But I can say it has been years since I've been so impressed with a novel--and I read a lot. I'll definitely be reading more of Eliot in the future and imagine Middlemarch is a novel it will pay to revisit.(less)

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Jul 16, 2011 El rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-list, late19th-centurylit, big-effing-books

This is the book that I would answer if I were hypothetically asked what book could have single-handedly become the reason that my relationship would ever fall apart. More so than Infinite Jest or Proust, other examples of books that have consumed or are consuming my life in one way or another. I didn't realize I had a reading problem until I realized that my boyfriend was unpacking around me; literally unpacking boxes right from under my feet - while I sat there and turned the pages. Or when I...more This is the book that I would answer if I were hypothetically asked what book could have single-handedly become the reason that my relationship would ever fall apart. More so than Infinite Jest or Proust, other examples of books that have consumed or are consuming my life in one way or another. I didn't realize I had a reading problem until I realized that my boyfriend was unpacking around me; literally unpacking boxes right from under my feet - while I sat there and turned the pages. Or when I realized the house was suddenly quiet because he had taken the dogs out for a walk. He could have lit his face on fire and I'm not entirely sure I would have even noticed. Even while I was helping with the moving, or at work doing work-y types of things - I was usually thinking about Middlemarch. So, people in my daily life? The glazed look on my face, all of the, "I'm sorry, what did you say"'s? It was because of this book. And there's not even a good reason for that.

Infinite Jest is the kind of book that it seems okay to let the rest of your life fall apart around you as you read it. It seems appropriate to become one of those people while reading Infinite Jest. It lends itself to that sort of behavior. But George Eliot? Middlemarch? Pshaw! I would have said before I read it. Are you kidding me? Get a life, woman!

But, dude. I totally became that person. Admitting there is a problem is the first step to seeking help. So I'm here. Seeking help.

Just like Infinite Jest it's a book that could be re-read numerous times and you'd probably get something different out of it each time. That Eliot was a whip-smart woman, and I bemoan the fact that I just don't know enough about history at times to keep up with a brain like hers. The notes in the end were exceptionally helpful, though annoying at times when they pointed out chronological mistakes - like the characters couldn't possibly have known about a certain popular book yet because in the real world it hadn't been published yet during the time in which the story was to take place. Whoops! I don't need to know those sorts of things, but thanks anyway.

If you don't like details about every little thing, you won't like this book. There's so much detail it makes the whaling chapters in Moby Dick sound almost appealing. (Never mind, I just got over it. Whew.) I can't imagine writing a book like this, just like I couldn't imagine David Foster Wallace writing a book like Infinite Jest. The amount of time, and energy - holy cats, the psychic energy that must have gone into putting down so much information that covered such a wide variety of topics - it makes me need a nap just to process it.

Middlemarch - the 19th-century answer to Infinite Jest? Hmm.

Highlight: Oh dear, I just found out that there was a 1994 TV version of the story - with Rufus Sewell. You know how most women are all ga-ga over Colin Firth and none of them can really explain why? I'm that way about Rufus Sewell.

He's the dreamboat in the red coat. Just in case anyone thought I was all drooly-cup over the old guy.(less)

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Nov 22, 2010 Dawn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Henry James said "Middlemarch is a treasure-house of details, but it is an indifferent whole." And while I had a blast reading this and want to duke it out with him, I can't exactly remark on the whole of it without, well, indifference. There's no great coming-together or falling-apart here. It's a testament to the incremental. Characters with big plans end up either total failures or adjusting their ambitions to the tenor of their littler surroundings. Reminds me of another M-town I would like...more

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Feb 28, 2013 Stela rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: realism-naturalism, reviews

“…certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.”
This quote summarizes the spirit of Middlemarch. This slight superior tone in which the auctorial voice keeps treating the characters, sometimes ironizing them cordially (“Mrs. Waule’s tears fell, but with moderation”), sometimes directly commenting their actions (“said Rosamond, with a great sense of being a romantic heroine, and playing the part pret...more “…certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.”
This quote summarizes the spirit of Middlemarch. This slight superior tone in which the auctorial voice keeps treating the characters, sometimes ironizing them cordially (“Mrs. Waule’s tears fell, but with moderation”), sometimes directly commenting their actions (“said Rosamond, with a great sense of being a romantic heroine, and playing the part prettily”), revealing their thoughts and the community opinion of them in free indirect style (“Miss Brooke (…) was usually spoken of as being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her sister Celia had more common-sense”), always winking at the reader (“Mr. Rigg Featherstone’s (…) nails and modesty were comparable to those of most gentlemen,”)who is her steadfast accomplice in the creation of this complex web which is the provincial life in 19th century England.
Without being truly biased, the omniscient narrator is never invisible, walking in houses and minds, finding general truths in the behaviour of the characters (“Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand”), voicing ironic, sarcastic or only amusing opinions (“No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention: the frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the cawing of an amorous rook”) that seem to justify their actions even when they are not. How sincere is, for example, the word “excusable” in the following?
“Rosamond, in fact, was entirely occupied not exactly with Tertius Lydgate as he was in himself, but with his relation to her; and it was excusable in a girl who was accustomed to hear that all young men might, could, would be, or actually were in love with her, to believe at once that Lydgate could be no exception.”
Built around two themes, matrimony and vocation, the novel follows mainly the destiny of three couples, whose sentimental and/ or professional choices lead to their happiness or their doom. In a Realist manner, a typology is established: Dorothea – the saint, whose idealistic stubbornness is a little bit irritating in the beginning but who becomes increasingly interesting with her unaffected spirit of sacrifice and generosity, Mary – the practical, whose common sense will put her future husband Fred on the right path and Rosamund – the coquette, whose narcissism will be a cause of her husband’s failure. Even if women’s portraits are more complex, there is at least one memorable male figure – Lydgate, the young doctor so eager to discover new treatments and improve the medicine practice, defeated in the end by a mixture of bad choices and bad chance.
The illusion of life, so forceful all along the narrative, is maintained, in the same Realistic spirit, by the Finale that succinctly informs about the characters life after the events, suggesting to the reader that their destiny is not over when the novel is over.
Overall, I’d say, like Virginia Woolf, that Middlemarch was "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."
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Nov 19, 2009 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Daniel by: Rose

Shelves: 2009

How does one review "Middlemarch?" Is doing so different than reviewing life itself? Both are a succession of births, deaths, marriages, debts accrued, debts paid, careers made, careers finished, love affairs begun, love affairs ended, love affairs left unconsummated, dreams fulfilled, dreams destroyed, and dreams deferred. As in life, many of the people encountered in "Middlemarch" are unlikable, and even the ones who are likable have myriad flaws. "Middlemarch" is very long and parts are kind...more How does one review "Middlemarch?" Is doing so different than reviewing life itself? Both are a succession of births, deaths, marriages, debts accrued, debts paid, careers made, careers finished, love affairs begun, love affairs ended, love affairs left unconsummated, dreams fulfilled, dreams destroyed, and dreams deferred. As in life, many of the people encountered in "Middlemarch" are unlikable, and even the ones who are likable have myriad flaws. "Middlemarch" is very long and parts are kind of boring, but the overall achievement is staggering -- kind of like life itself.

Virginia Woolf called George Eliot's book "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." As such, "Middlemarch" is incredibly realistic -- almost aggressively so. Nothing happens in "Middlemarch" that wouldn't happen in the real world. This is not Dumas, for better or worse. Swordplay, revenge plots, high-level political intrigue, and murder are all absent. (Well, there might be a bit of murder; that's open to interpretation.) In their place we get what we get in our own lives: gossip, grudges, low-level political posturing, and death from illness and old age.

My description may make "Middlemarch" sound dreary; it's anything but. George Eliot's writing is so sharp -- so biting, so sardonic, so wise in the ways of the world -- that even the slowest parts of her book are intriguing. The following is just a small sample of Eliot's wit from near the book's end (spoiler alert, I guess, though the book's 135 years old, so I don't know that spoiler alerts are still needed at this point):

All who have cared for Fred Vincy and Mary Garth will like to know that these two made no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual happiness. Fred surprised his neighbors in various ways. He became rather distinguished in his side of the county as a theoretic and practical farmer, and produced a work on the "Cultivation of Green Crops and the Economy of Cattle-Feeding" which won him high congratulations at agricultural meetings. In Middlemarch admiration was more reserved: most persons there were inclined to believe that the merit of Fred's authorship was due to his wife, since they had never expected Fred Vincy to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel.

But when Mary wrote a little book for her boys, called "Stories of Great Men, taken from Plutarch," and had it printed and published by Gripp & Co., Middlemarch, every one in the town was willing to give the credit of this work to Fred, observing that he had been to the University, "where the ancients were studied," and might have been a clergyman if he had chosen.

In this way it was made clear that Middlemarch had never been deceived, and that there was no need to praise anybody for writing a book, since it was always done by somebody else.

I toyed with giving "Middlemarch" four stars because of its tendency to drag at times, particularly in its middle third. But, no, fuck that. It's a brilliant book. Five stars.(less)

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Jun 16, 2007 Mala rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From this book, I learned that I'm not fit to hold a pencil.

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Jun 04, 2012 Terry rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Recommended to Terry by: Richard Derus

Shelves: this-may-take-awhile, audio-books

I was wavering at around 4 - 4.5 stars on this, but in the end I have to give it a full 5. _Middlemarch_ by George Eliot (aka Mary Anne Evans) is, first and last, an extraordinary achievement. Other writers have worked with a large and varied cast. Other writers have written social commentaries with verve and wit. There is something about Eliot’s work, though, that is somehow unique. Two other writers come to mind with whom Eliot could (or even should), perhaps, be compared. Dickens is one of th...more I was wavering at around 4 - 4.5 stars on this, but in the end I have to give it a full 5. _Middlemarch_ by George Eliot (aka Mary Anne Evans) is, first and last, an extraordinary achievement. Other writers have worked with a large and varied cast. Other writers have written social commentaries with verve and wit. There is something about Eliot’s work, though, that is somehow unique. Two other writers come to mind with whom Eliot could (or even should), perhaps, be compared. Dickens is one of these, another Victorian writer concerned with the social mores of his day and whose cast of characters are as broad (and certainly stranger) than Eliot’s, but he leaves me cold. I have yet to enter the world of Jane Austen, whose own commentary on the society of her day is apparently one of ironic wit, but I find it hard to believe that she will excel Eliot (I gather her range of view is a little more restricted than Eliot’s).

When I started this book I was overawed and quite frankly worried that I would never finish it (I don’t always have a great track record with high page-count classics…War and Peace has been more or less ear-marked as a failure for me after three attempts, all of which ended at exactly the same fairly early page), but Eliot has managed to pack a very long and incredibly intricate story into what I found to be a fairly quick moving and definitely enjoyable reading experience. Ok full disclosure here: I ‘read’ the audiobook version narrated by the engaging (and quite frankly wonderful) Nadia May. Just step-off all you audiobook haters, ok? There, now that that’s out of my system let’s proceed.

The story of _Middlemarch_ is both large and small. Large both because it takes as its backdrop many of the great reforms that were beginning to change life in Britain in ways as varied as medicine, politics, transportation, and social life, as well as its large and varied cast of characters running the gamut of English provincial society. Small because it concentrates minutely on the internal thoughts and feelings that make up these individual’s private lives as well as the seemingly minor details of their everyday lives. While this book certainly takes a holistic approach to examining the lives of its characters it was ultimately, for me, a book about the various ways in which hopes and expectations can come crashing down in ruins (or at the very least be significantly changed) when they meet with reality…especially in the sphere of marriage. One might take as this book’s motto the insight of the character Dorothea Brooke relatively late in the novel that “Marriage is so unlike everything else. There is something awful in the nearness it brings.”

Eliot presents us with a myriad of characters and families all of whose lives revolve around the insular world and concerns of the fictional town and environs of Middlemarch. To name only a few members of the cast that make up the vast narrative we have: the Brooke family made up of the saintly Dorothea, her pragmatic sister Celia and their buffoonish though lovable Uncle and guardian Arthur Brooke; the dry and pedantic scholar-clergyman Edward Casaubon and his distant and impoverished cousin Will Ladislaw; the genial though superficial Vincy family made up of father Walter, mother Harriet and two of their children: Fred and Rosamond; the fiery and idealistic new physician Tertius Lydgate; the sanctimonious and deluded banker Nicholas Bulstrode; the pragmatic and devoted Garth family (father Caleb, mother Susan and daughter Mary) as well as numerous others. What could have been an unwieldy mess becomes an almost balletic performance as Eliot guides us through the interweavings of these lives in moments of hope and crisis. What Lydgate says about his own life could just as easily have been said of Eliot’s challenges in creating the book: “…it’s uncommonly difficult to make the right things work: there are so many strings pulling at once.” She succeeds admirably.

To go into the details of the plot would be of little use, or interest…just read the book! However I must say that Eliot’s ability to create a cast of fully rounded characters was extremely well-done. Some lean more towards villainy and others towards heroism, but none are simply black or white and all are given the sympathy of their creator who goes out of her way to be as impartial as possible when presenting their thoughts and motives. Everyone is a human being, however good or bad an example of the species they may be.

Eliot also avoids the saccharine that might be expected in a Victorian novel about marriage. While I won’t say there are no happy endings, there are certainly no easy roads and even those endings considered happy have their own trials, worries and cost to those involved. Sometimes the cost may seem more than one ought to bear. More than one character comes to realize that in the necessity of interacting with others lies the quandary that “He had meant everything to turn out differently; and others had thrust themselves into his life and thwarted his purposes.” This could easily be the second motto of Eliot’s book. Still, regardless of the pain that interacting with others involves: the changing of one’s own plans in order to placate the desires and interests of another, the constant danger of rejection and pain, and, perhaps most of all, the constant threat of societal disapproval and public censure, we are forced to make the best (and sometimes the worst) of our relationships since we cannot live truly alone in utter isolation. It is a constant surprise to the characters of _Middlemarch_ how significantly their lives are able to be impacted and changed by others: “To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!”

Looking back I’m not sure if I was able to pull this together into a truly coherent review, but suffice it to say that _Middlemarch_ truly is one of the greats. Eliot’s delightful prose, wry wisdom, and fully-fleshed out characters make what might have been an utter snore-fest into an insightful and enjoyable examination of what it means to be a member of the human community…in any era.
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Jun 26, 2009 julieta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: siglo-xix, favorites

I have to confess my weakness for small towns in a story. Small town mentality, attitudes, interest in your neighbours private lives and all that happens when you know everything about your neighbours and they know about you, your parents, grandparents and etceteras. I grew up in a small city, I wouldn’t call it a town, (2 million people), but, the attitude was always unmistakably small towner in every way.

So this weakness of mine has a cause. And when I came to start middlemarch, it was like c...more

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Jun 04, 2008 Akemi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: school

My other favorite (along with Emma) from my 19th Century British Novel class. The writing is just amazing. Throughout my reading of the book, I just marveled at how perfectly Eliot phrases everything. The only parts that I disliked were her ramblings on medicine- possibly because it's outdated science, possibly because it seemed like she was just showing off her own knowledge for no apparent reason. Although at one point in the novel, she point-blank says that everything she wrote had a purpose...more My other favorite (along with Emma) from my 19th Century British Novel class. The writing is just amazing. Throughout my reading of the book, I just marveled at how perfectly Eliot phrases everything. The only parts that I disliked were her ramblings on medicine- possibly because it's outdated science, possibly because it seemed like she was just showing off her own knowledge for no apparent reason. Although at one point in the novel, she point-blank says that everything she wrote had a purpose connecting to the novel itself (but I have my doubts). Oh, and I could have lived without some of the chapters on Lydgate and Rosamond's failing marriage. But other than those two complaints, I loved this novel.

One thing that struck me about Middlemarch is how modern it seems. I guess it wasn't written that long ago, but it's still intriguing to see where current problems had their root. For instance, hardly any of the young people in the novel know what they want to do as a career. Sound familiar? The whole idea of a middle class that could choose a career that was more than just a job but a vocation, a calling, something they enjoyed and that would contribute something meaningful, originated at this time period and continues today. Another modern idea discussed in the novel is the difference between city life vs. small town life; Lydgate leaves London because he thinks the city has too many distractions, only to find that Middlemarch politics and social pressures interfere with his life even more directly (a la Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls).

I found Middlemarch strangely similar to All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren, which I had to read in my senior year of high school. I'm sure there is no actual connection between the two (though who knows?), but there are an uncanny number of similarities. Mary's insistence on Fred settling on the right career before she agrees to marry him reminded me of Anne's similar problem with Jack (except Jack never figures it out and thus loses the girl whereas Fred and Mary live happily ever after- the difference between the 19th and 20th centuries...). Bulstrode's plan to construct a hospital and his manipulation of Lydgate, the idealistic young doctor, is ridiculously similar to Willie's plan...to construct a hospital..while manipulating Adam, the idealistic young doctor.

Favorite quote: "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence."(less)

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Jan 05, 2008 Skylar Burris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

Having been slightly bored by Silas Marner, I was not expecting much gratification from this massive tome. But I had heard good things about Middlemarch from others, so I steeled myself and dug in. I was quite figuratively blown-away by the quality of writing. It is not just that Eliot is an excellent satirist, but that she makes penetrating psychological insights and crafts very well-developed, imminently human characters, who are sympathetic despite their faults. She also exhibits a brilliant...more

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Apr 03, 2007 rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of my two all-time favourite books (the other is Lolita). I could gush about it for hours. George Eliot is so delightfully snotty, observant, and sensitive. Every time I read it (uh, I think this is my 6th time through) I notice something new, sympathize with a new character, catch a new allusion, etc.
I think the best thing about the book is the complete picture Eliot paints of each of her characters' personalities. There are no heroes or badguys, and even the most sympathetic charac...more

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Jun 07, 2008 Gerrit rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, read-in-2008, read-in-college, read-in-2005

One of the best novels out there; If you want to know how to write a good book, take a serious look at Eliot's masterpiece. She has an amazing ability to do two things:

1) the characters drive the plot, not the other way around (Rowling?). Everything that happens in the book is a direct result of a BELIEVABLE action by one or several of the characters, considering their individual personalities and quirks. The novel progresses because the characters force it to.

2) somehow Eliot makes it difficult...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Stacie marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned, 1001books

I got a little over halfway through...it was OK, but I just couldn't keep my mind from wandering when I read it. I put it down one day and picked up another book and can't bring myself to pick it back up. One day, I will read it from cover to cover. But, with a little help from my friends I have made the executive decision to just quit - there really are more books in the world to read that won't make me feel like I am doing something I should be doing rather than something I want to be doing. T...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Zeljka added it · review of another edition

Napokon smo dočekali prijevod i ovog, po meni jednog od najboljih djela engleske književnosti. Nažalost, bilo bi bolje da nije napravljen. Naime što se ovdje dogodilo? Prevoditeljica ima uistinu bogat rječnik i stvarno se lijepo izražava - ali ono što je prevela, nije ni blizu originalu. U nekim poglavljima, počevši od samog uvoda, smisao je potpuno krivo preveden i shvaćen, a u nekim su spisateljičini izrazi (riječi i rečenice) doslovno izmijenjeni toliko da više nemaju nikakve veze s originalo...more

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Feb 19, 2010 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-reads, classics, 1001-books

I expect to like this book. Not only was I not disappointed but it was better than I had anticipated. Was it a truly old-fashioned romance novel? Well, there was a bit of that, admittedly. My favorite quote: "Dorothea had not distinctly observed but felt with a stifling depression, that the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in her husband's mind were replaced by ante-rooms and winding passages which seemed to lead nowhither."

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Dec 18, 2010 Gail rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, classic-british, victorian-fiction, own, 2010, revisited, tioli

Why oh why did I put this off for so very long? A great, great book with living characters, inticate and almost soap-operish plotting, and some great zingers strung along the way. A most marvelous read. A very minor off tick for the overuse of the words "ardent", "ardour" and variations thereof.

Probably the best Victorian novel.

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Apr 14, 2009 Miranda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My third attempt at getting through Middlemarch finally proved to be successful and discovering George Eliot’s delightfully sardonic and deeply psychological writing was a revelation. While I now have a frame of reference for the Dorothea Brooke allusions I come across occasionally, it was the character of Rosamond Lydgate, nee Vincy, that intrigued me the most. Not written as a likable character, and certainly one that would have been despised by Eliot’s contemporary readers, to a revisionist f...more

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About George Eliot

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Mary Ann (Marian) Evans, better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological perspicacity.

She used a ma...more

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