Middlemarch in Around the World in 80 Books

Apr 25, 2015 Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance rated it it was amazing

Shelves: the-classics-club

I started Middlemarch on January first and lingered over it for weeks, months, before finally finishing it off during the twenty-four hour readathon. It really wasn't until mid-book that I grew to love it, the characters, the plots, the intrigues, the small-town gossip that fueled so many difficulties. I came away with a new appreciation for the power of acting out of interest for the benefit of others, bravely, despite the possible consequences. So happy I read this book. ...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Maria Yohn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favorites, favorite-classics, great-love-stories

I put off reading this book for a long time because of its sheer enormity(1,000 pages!) and now that I'm finished with it, I wish it would have gone on for another 1,000 pages! This book is truly a masterpiece of Victorian Brit lit. I can't rave enough about it. ...more

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Jan 26, 2023 Linda Martin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: geo-england, fiction, 2023, romance, classics, historical-fiction

This book is monumental in more than just page length. The author was an absolute genius and master of the English language and written word. She offered a plethora of wise aphorisms to ponder and created characters that will stay with me a long time, no doubt.

This is one of those books I should have taken notes on as I was reading. The vocabulary lessons alone are priceless.

Middlemarch is the name of an English village with a variety of middle to upper class families we get to explore, visit, This book is monumental in more than just page length. The author was an absolute genius and master of the English language and written word. She offered a plethora of wise aphorisms to ponder and created characters that will stay with me a long time, no doubt.

This is one of those books I should have taken notes on as I was reading. The vocabulary lessons alone are priceless.

Middlemarch is the name of an English village with a variety of middle to upper class families we get to explore, visit, eavesdrop on and make judgments about as they go about their somewhat dramatic fictional lives. The drama does get more intense near the end of the novel, but all along we see people making difficult decisions that will greatly alter their lives.

A young doctor arrives in town with innovative ideas that spark suspicion in the minds of Middlemarch residents. With such a promising career ahead, what could go wrong?

The two teenage marriageable maidens we meet at the start of the book will stay with us through many chapters so we get to see who they marry and how that turns out, for each of them.

In Middlemarch we witness pregnancies, old age, insane egos, pretentious hopes, and the finality of death. We also occasionally see compassion and charity - a light in the darkness. These characters reveal themselves in their attitudes and actions. Some change for the better and some for the worse.

It is hard to name just one theme for the book. Is it money, health, human kindness or the lack of it, wisdom, or just plain life in all its permutations? Whatever you want to learn about, there could possibly be some key advice lurking in the pages of this long-loved novel. George Eliot had plenty of good ideas and wise observations about humans and their relationships.

I read this with both a Kindle version and an audiobook. I received the audio version free of charge through Audible because I subscribe to their service. It was a great narration by Juliet Stevenson. I recommend it. The Kindle version I downloaded from Project Gutenberg - also free of charge. It has wide margins but otherwise is a perfect copy. It includes the epigraphs (poetic chapter headings) but the audiobook did not.

It is a long book, between 650 and 900 pages depending on the publisher. There are 86 chapters divided into 8 books. It took me almost a month to read and three chapters daily felt like a good speed for most of the month. I started reading more than that toward the end because I wanted to know what happened next! It helped that I read this with a friend. Her participation encouraged me to keep going. ...more

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