Middlemarch in The Toast

Jul 24, 2018 Adam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, audiobook

This certainly is a unique and impressive novel. It is impressive in no small part because I don't think anyone in the entire 800 pages does anything remotely interesting. Nothing about the characters is remarkable, either. They are all aristocrats with dull ideas and drab ambitions. It isn't really even about some larger social change. It brushes up against changes in medical practice and the advent of the railroad and the passage of some unspecified reform legislation, but those are all decide This certainly is a unique and impressive novel. It is impressive in no small part because I don't think anyone in the entire 800 pages does anything remotely interesting. Nothing about the characters is remarkable, either. They are all aristocrats with dull ideas and drab ambitions. It isn't really even about some larger social change. It brushes up against changes in medical practice and the advent of the railroad and the passage of some unspecified reform legislation, but those are all decided after thoughts. Yet despite working without any of those advantages, it manages to be consistently, unflaggingly engaging for 35 audiobook hours.

It's appalling that plot ever managed to fall out of favor as a cheap genre fiction reliance when a book like this has been in the canon for almost 150 years. While nothing really happens, Eliot uses the inherent restraint and politeness of her upper-class characters to create this kind of shadow plot, which feels rich with ups and downs and intense quandaries simply because she is so good at immersing us in the patterns of their thoughts. No one even proposes adultery or premarital sex, much less commits them, and yet there manages to be a story about that simply through implication and miscommunication. The social mores at play for such an effective barriers to certain kinds of communication that the plot can derive drama from discrepancies that in a modern setting would feel unrealistic.

The plot that those building blocks construct is so intricately and uniquely woven, too. It isn't surprising to learn that the book is constructed from what were originally separate novels; actually, it's a bit surprising that there were only two of them, rather than three. There are three main couples, whose arcs are all nominally about the fate of their romance, but which mostly take their stakes and sources of conflict from issues of personal development. People often talk about the importance of "flaws" for making a character relatable. The feelings and positions characters take in Middlemarch illustrate how infantile that framework is compared to genuinely skilled characterization. A lot of the characters in this book are annoying, entitled, deluded, and even whiny (especially the young men). But these aren't traits added to existing characters/plots. They emerge from the whole web of families and personalities and social opportunities and expectations the novel creates. As such a limited snapshot, particularly in terms of class, it's hard to justify saying that this is a true "portrait of a community." Even saintly Dorothea spends a lot of time thinking about poor people and literally no time, at least on the page, actually interacting with them. Regardless, within the scope of its chosen social circle, the intricate and manifold links between these three plot lines creates the strong sense that all the characters must find their way as a piece of this larger whole, flexible but not compliant to their desires.

Despite all of the things to admire about this book, and the undeniable baseline enjoyment of pretty much all of it, I can't say I necessarily loved it. Eliot is good at making each character's perspective and personality clear through the narration. I don't know if it was the stakes or the buttoned up attitudes or what, but something kept me from really engaging with these characters emotionally. Dorothea is a great character and it's really interesting to listen to her think about marriage and charity from her naïve and overly self-effacing perspective. I just couldn't ever bring myself to root for her romance. In fact, I kind of found myself rooting against all three of the relationships. Two of them seem to be clear misandrist situations, with shitty men wheedling their way into the lives of over-patient women with limited options. The other is the same thing along a class axis (and like I said at the beginning, the whole medicine thing is definitely an afterthought, but it's interesting to note how negatively aristocrats see doctors as a profession. Everyone seems quite comfortable with the idea that old medical techniques work well enough and don't seem particularly excited about scientific reform, but the economic stature of doctors has clearly risen with the effectiveness of their techniques.) All of those choices are good from a theoretical point of view; I'm not asking for a happier ending. Just noting the distance there. ...more

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Apr 19, 2012 Felicity rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pre-1900, read-multiple-times, fiction, favorites, 2013, female-author, 2018

I hope I read this book at least once every five years for the rest of my life. It's truly glorious. Although I have underlined sentences on almost every page, today the very last one is resonating particularly strongly in my heart: "for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts..." I think if everyone read and understood this book there would be a lot more good in the world, maybe not radical, epoch-altering good, but small, resonant, important good between people. I ...more

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Dec 18, 2022 Melanie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical, read-harder-2022

2022 Read Harder Challenge #9: Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest.

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Jul 14, 2008 Sharone rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ladies

I loved this book when I read it (for fun!?! Why?? For the same reason I'm in grad school...I'm punishing myself for some dark thing I did in childhood). It's on the syllabus for 19th c. fiction in the fall, so I'm looking forward to reading it again and figuring out what I loved about it. ...more

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