Middlemarch in Clean Reads

Jan 26, 2023 Linda Martin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: geo-england, 2023, fiction, 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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May 03, 2011 Michele rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-of-2012

This is a book I did not finish in my English Lit. class in college. I swore to myself I would complete it and twenty years later, it is time!

She said some things just so beautifully. She described me perfectly so many times, I had to stop and pause. How could I have read this in college? I think to truly grasp the meaning of this book, you have to have had some life experiences. Fallen in love a few times, understand heart break, or it wouldn't and couldn't mean much to you.

I found I didn't ca ...more

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Sep 26, 2016 Paul Stout rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

I suppose it won't make much difference to George Elliot if I review her book Middlemarch, but I found this classic period romance quite delightful. I felt like I was watching a 30-hour PBS mini-series, but with much better depth. The book is actually an indictment of towns where everyone gossips about others, an indictment of of a society controlled by men, and, most powerfully, an indictment of people who are selfish, lazy and lack true affection for those around them. Her soliloquys can be ra ...more

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Mar 05, 2018 Tracie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Great literature, but patience required!

The characters were fascinating, the plot good, the writing superior. However, some of the back stories, tangents, and other narrative observations and analysis started to get a bit exasperating. But putting that aside, I still think this book is fantastic and I am so glad I read it.

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