Inder's review
Middlemarch (Penguin Classics)
by George Eliot, Rosemary Ashton
Inder's review
Middlemarch (Penguin Classics) by George Eliot, Rosemary Ashton
Inder's review
rating:
bookshelves:
1001-books,
19th-century,
alltimefaves,
to-reread
** spoiler alert **
I read this in high school, mostly to prove that I could. Back then, I was known to read to impress. And I've been riding on it ever since - "No, I've never read War & Peace; no, I've never read Faulkner; no, I've never read Gravity's Rainbow; but I have read Middlemarch."
It's a daunting book, no question. Big. Very big. Philosophically as well as physically (at 800 or so pages).
This is Victorian realism at its best. George Eliot's ideas on marriage and femininity were far ahead of her time, and yet, she was a pragmatist too. I think this is one reason that Virginia Woolf famously remarked (I paraphrase) that Middlemarch was the only novel ever written for grown-ups. Although the novel contains drama, it is never "dramatic." Although it contains many moral lessons, it rings clear and true throughout.
This book takes place 30 years before it was written, on the verge of industrialization in England. Tradition and progress are constantly in conflict thr...more
It's a daunting book, no question. Big. Very big. Philosophically as well as physically (at 800 or so pages).
This is Victorian realism at its best. George Eliot's ideas on marriage and femininity were far ahead of her time, and yet, she was a pragmatist too. I think this is one reason that Virginia Woolf famously remarked (I paraphrase) that Middlemarch was the only novel ever written for grown-ups. Although the novel contains drama, it is never "dramatic." Although it contains many moral lessons, it rings clear and true throughout.
This book takes place 30 years before it was written, on the verge of industrialization in England. Tradition and progress are constantly in conflict thr...more
