The Mill on the Floss (The)

[Kelly_Hunsaker_reads]

4 stars

Wow! I have never read any of Eliot's books or seen any adaptations. In fact, I had not heard of this book until a few months ago.

This book is mostly quiet without a complex plot, and with few characters. Up until the last few pages I was convinced it was a completely average book worthy of 2 to 2.5 stars. But then... the ending got me! This book was like riding a slow-moving tourist train winding its way through the countryside, which on the downhill side of the mountain loses control and careens wildly down the last mile. It was a huge surprise to me and for the excitement and shock I awarded it that third star.

So why 4 stars, right? Well, in the weeks since I completed my reading the book has returned to my mind many times. I am more intrigued by the characters than I had originally thought.

[Kristel]

This story, written in 1860, by George Eliot is a story of two siblings, Tom and Maggie, who live with their mother and father at the mill on the River Floss.

I was impressed with the the imagery that Eliot was able to create with words. I could see the mill and river when she described them. I also was impressed with the character development. I so wanted to love Maggie and hate Tom but just when I thought I was right, the author could turn it around by giving you positives for Tom and negatives for Maggie. These characters were both ones you could feel sympathy for, though much easier to with Maggie than Tom.

The author also gave us a picture of family dynamics and faults, community positives and negatives, and the difficulties of being a female in this time in history.

The plot is full of symbolism with the mill, the Floss, St. Oggs, Maggie's eyes. The themes; loss of innocence, communal verses individual interest, gender disparity, difficulty of choice, renunciation and sacrifice.

Example of how the author could paint a picture; “These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows - such things as these are the mother tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day, might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception into love.”

A quote that looks at the loss of innocence from childhood; “The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the distant road - were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow.They had gone forth together into their new life of sorrow, and they would never more see the sunshine undimmed by remembered cares. They had entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood had for ever closed behind them.”

[Diane]

Rating: 4 stars

This is a story of sibling rivalry and hardship. Tom and Maggie have never seen eye to eye. Their father is bankrupt and their family has lost their mill in a lawsuit. What can finally bring them together in the end?

I have always loved Eliot, but this is one of her bleaker books. Definitely not for the person who seeks happy endings.

[Gail]

A 4 star book for me. It is my first George Elliot and I was astonished by the way she was able to help me visualize the countryside and the complexity of each of the limited amount of characters. Her love of words really rose to the forefront, sometimes a bit too much for me, and the book had a slow methodical flow to it until the last two books, when like the river Floss, it flooded the plot with action.

A brother and sister, Tom and Maggie, are inseparable as children but grow slowly apart as the brother goes off to get an education and matures away from his sister's unpredictable quirkiness. Their father, a man of some arrogance, takes to the law to find justice and finds instead misfortune and bankruptcy. Maggie as a child, is a wonderful mix of willfulness and obstinacy mixed with a deep love of her father and brother and is further a very smart girl who is very aware of her own wits.
Eliot really is able to make Maggie a full character as she matures into a beautiful woman who struggles to do the ethically right thing in the face of a divided character, one who loves out of goodness and one who loves out of passion. Even though she is often unable to understand in full the social nuance and judgements that those actions and passions will invite.
According to others, this is not Eliot's best book so I am in the delightful position of being able to look forward to her other 1001 list books.

[Pip]

I was awarded this book as a school prize in 1958 and the little leather bound volume has travelled with me all my life - unread. I started it in 1959, but the tiny print and slow plot development put me off for 64 years! It has been on my To Be Read list since, but to my surprise I could not find it on my newly reorganised bookshelves. I am in the midst of death cleaning and, somehow, I have displaced my much annotated 1001 Books to Read Before You Die as well. I am devastated. However, for the first time I mixed listening to an Audiobook version and reading from the Open Library, which is a great way of getting through a large book in no time at all.

I absolutely enjoyed the book, particularly the descriptions of the English countryside. It had me reflecting on my childhood love of the New Zealand bush, a very different environment, but one which invokes similar feelings in an adult, looking at it anew. The story centres around siblings, Maggie and Tom Tulliver. Maggie is a clever but wilful child, who adores her big brother, who constantly hurts her feelings by his rebuffs as he goes away to school and his world expands. As they mature they draw further apart. Eliot explores the themes of social class, education, and the tensions between individual desires and societal expectations. The characters are very well described, particularly Tom's childhood friend, Bob Jakin, and Maggie's aunt. Mrs Glegg. Eliot has an acute ear for dialogue. It is rightly judged a 10001 book.