Middlemarch
1 journaler for this copy...
Thinking about doing a George Elliot course, so have bought four of her books. Never read anything by her before.
Just got to start with the quote they put on the front cover of my copy : "It is never too late to be what you might have been."
This is just wonderful. It's a brilliant community epic set in the first half of the 1800s, around about 1830 I think, and looks at life in Middlemarch as well as outlying villages. We follow families, newly weds, singles, dying people, all ages, different classes and occupations - although compared to something like Adam Bede, you do feel the sharp pull away from writing about working rural folk - and all the impact of local and national politics, and that intensely life-altering machine, gossip. Families who support each other and show kindness, those that don't, and the vultures descending when one family member dies. Real life as we know it is all painfully there. And even reading it in another century, it's easy to see that human nature really doesn't change. She really gets into the mind set of these different characters, and there is such a variety. So much is told as it is, that is to say, there's not too much judgement, and everyone has their flaws to a greater or lesser extent.
Just to throw in a random aside here, for great community epics such as this, can I also recommend Winifred Holtby's South Riding, which does for the between wars for East Yorkshire, what Middlemarch does for the 1830s in middle England.
There are so many subplots, characters and twists and interconnections that I couldn't possibly account for them all or attempt to summarise them here. But I feel the need for a bit of waffle so I'll maybe write about the bits that struck me most.
Dorothea Brooke, then Cassaubon was a particular favourite of mine. She starts out as an orphan of about 18 or 19, living with her uncle, Mr Brooke (lordy, old waffling, a supposed expert on everything who dabbles) and her younger sister Cecila. She's intelligent and she wants to be doing things that make the world better, so you see her at plans at the start, drawing these cottages to provide better living for the people living on Sir James Chetton's land (he's attempting to court Dorothea, who just doesn't get it and thinks he's after her sister. How handy her sister's nickname for her is Dodo.). There's a wonderful bit near the start when he's trying to compliment her despite all the slightly awkward discussions she's having, and ..
"'You have your own opinion about everything Miss Brooke, and it is always a good opinion.'
What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting?' (p.25)
I can just imagine her rolling her eyes there. But that's not to say that she's unkind or impatient with people. She does show great kindness to people throughout the story and carries a lot of strain. Dorothea is one of three couples we see getting married during the book, and really only Sir James and Celia manage to make a go of it. The other two marriages fail because one half of the party is so self-absorbed and think that everything should revolve around their needs and comfort (the other person doesn't even have needs in their consciousness), but this being the 1800s, you don't just get a quick divorce. You put up with it. In Dorothea's case she marries Mr Cassaoubon, who is about 30 years her senior, and rich, dried out and having dedicated his life to making notes on a study he doesn't realise is already out of date (Will Ladislaw points out the Germans have already got there) in preparation for "the book" he will write - but procrastinating is his life as he never writes the damn thing. He's already lived the portion of his life where he delights in discovering new things and manages to completely suck the joy out of going to Rome on their honeymoon for Dorothea. But he's oblivious to that. His cousin, estranged from the family by his grannie's poor marriage, Will Ladislaw, is more Dorothea's age, and the two hit it off, much to Mr Cassaoubon's jealousy. So much so that he writes in his will that if she ever marries Will, she'll be penniless from him.
Old men being vindictive on the living who will survive their deaths. The archetype of this in the story however is Mr Featherstone (I did keep getting his name muddled with Mr Farebrother, the pleasant rector who was an entirely different type of person). He is childless (supposedly, and assumed by all relatives), and slowly dying. He has young Mary Garth working for him as some kind of companion, and moans on at her. He torments Fred Vincy (who loves Mary) by essentially promising him that he will get all the land and the house when he dies - and of course he ends up getting nothing. As the ends approaches all the distant relatives creep out of the woodwork and turn up at the house, humpfing about their rights, and how its right it all should stay in the family etc etc... all quite vile behaviour. Then the man dies, and none of it matters to him then for he no longer exists, but there is a gleeful ha ha as it is revealed that he has an illegitmate son, Joshua Rigg who will inherit the estate. Yeah, admit to your son to annoy your money-grubbing relatives when you die, but don't have anything to do with him whilst you're alive. My there's some lovely characters. Stone Rigg, the property he gives away, goes through a bit of an awkward history for the rest of the book, as Rigg promptly sells it, his dream being a money changer at the coast, and Mr Bulstrode, an unpopular banker in town buys it. But the property attracts greed and underhand behaviour in the shape of a man from his dark past, Mr Raffles, a drunk and an unscrupulous blackmailer.
The other disaster marriage is that of Tertius Lydgate, the new doctor in town and Rosamund Vincy, daughter of the rich manufacturing family. He comes from old money but isn't massively rich. Rosamund has been brought up spoiled and self centered (but ever so polite and pleasing to people), so that she has no comprehension of the value of things or money whatsoever. Neither does her brother Fred, for that matter, who ends up dumping a big debt on the Garth family, who go near to ruin to pay it off for him, and when that happens all he moans about is how unhappy he is that he has done it to them. Well boo hoo! Rosamund and the doctor get engaged and he supplies her with a lifestyle he really can't afford, on the expectation she will get some money from her parents. She doesn't - they give nothing financial to their children, but at the same time haven't taught them to value money. Lydgate ends up in debts to about 1000 pounds, followed by rumours of being blackmailed to keep quiet about the death (or was it murder???) of Mr Raffles. You see this gossip sweeping through the pubs and the tradespeople of Middlemarch, and his reputation, and thus business as a doctor is ruined. The stress he must be under must be immense. But again, the other party in the marriage simply doesn't understand that it's supposed to be about teamwork, for richer or poorer and supporting each other (consider the Bulstrodes - HArriet Bulstrode is devastated when she finds out what her husband did in the past but she sticks by him and adapts her life to the new circumstances. Or Mr and Mrs Garth who pull together through all joys and disasters). Rosamund expects to be admired (and as the relationship is strained with Lydgate's troubles, she encourages Ladislaw thinking he loves her), and to ALWAYS be right and to have everything she wants provided without her having to think about the realities of how it is to be paid for. She ignores Lydgate's requests when he is trying to sort out the debts - stops him finding someone else to lease where they live so they can live somewhere else more cheaply, writes to his relatives behind his back for money and is horrified when they're so selfish as to say no.... and when all of this is put before her, and the creditors wanting their money, all she can think is "poor little me"
"...she was in such entire disgust with her husband that she wished she had never seen him. Sir Godwin's rudeness towards her and utter want of feeling ranged him with Dover and all the other creditors - disagreeable people who only thought of themselves, and did not mind how annoying they were to her." (p. 547)
Here is a woman who will not be told. In mid pregnancy her husband advises her not to go horseriding. She does it twice and suffers a miscarriage. Now, I'm not going to get sanctimonious about how dumb pregnant women should do as they're told etc, because even now there is a lot of patronising down to women when they're pregnant, but here is a woman who will not take anyone else's opinion into account, even to such extremes. In short, I didn't like her and I suspect she drove her husband into an early grave. Very pretty she may have been, but that was about it. And it seems the town agrees, for when all the scandals are out and being gossiped about, people say they have sympathy for poor Mrs Bulstrode, who is such a nice woman, but not for Rosamund Lydgate - apparently she needs to be taught a lesson. But having read the story and what Eliot described as the future's for her main characters, I think Rosamund was pathalogically incapable of learning or developing, and never learned her lessons.
In fact there was a bit right at the start when Dorothea was talking to Sir James about these stupid little fluffy dogs women like to have which I thought might be saying more about a message in the novel...
"I believe all the petting that is given them does not make them happy. They are too helpless; their lives are too frail. A weasel or a mouse that gets its own living is more interesting." (p24)
Anyway, I have so many quotes and sections marked off as I was reading as points of interest that I can't rattle on about them all here... will hit a word count at some point.
Read it. I know it's long and looks like a hefty tome, but it is simply brilliant.
This is just wonderful. It's a brilliant community epic set in the first half of the 1800s, around about 1830 I think, and looks at life in Middlemarch as well as outlying villages. We follow families, newly weds, singles, dying people, all ages, different classes and occupations - although compared to something like Adam Bede, you do feel the sharp pull away from writing about working rural folk - and all the impact of local and national politics, and that intensely life-altering machine, gossip. Families who support each other and show kindness, those that don't, and the vultures descending when one family member dies. Real life as we know it is all painfully there. And even reading it in another century, it's easy to see that human nature really doesn't change. She really gets into the mind set of these different characters, and there is such a variety. So much is told as it is, that is to say, there's not too much judgement, and everyone has their flaws to a greater or lesser extent.
Just to throw in a random aside here, for great community epics such as this, can I also recommend Winifred Holtby's South Riding, which does for the between wars for East Yorkshire, what Middlemarch does for the 1830s in middle England.
There are so many subplots, characters and twists and interconnections that I couldn't possibly account for them all or attempt to summarise them here. But I feel the need for a bit of waffle so I'll maybe write about the bits that struck me most.
Dorothea Brooke, then Cassaubon was a particular favourite of mine. She starts out as an orphan of about 18 or 19, living with her uncle, Mr Brooke (lordy, old waffling, a supposed expert on everything who dabbles) and her younger sister Cecila. She's intelligent and she wants to be doing things that make the world better, so you see her at plans at the start, drawing these cottages to provide better living for the people living on Sir James Chetton's land (he's attempting to court Dorothea, who just doesn't get it and thinks he's after her sister. How handy her sister's nickname for her is Dodo.). There's a wonderful bit near the start when he's trying to compliment her despite all the slightly awkward discussions she's having, and ..
"'You have your own opinion about everything Miss Brooke, and it is always a good opinion.'
What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting?' (p.25)
I can just imagine her rolling her eyes there. But that's not to say that she's unkind or impatient with people. She does show great kindness to people throughout the story and carries a lot of strain. Dorothea is one of three couples we see getting married during the book, and really only Sir James and Celia manage to make a go of it. The other two marriages fail because one half of the party is so self-absorbed and think that everything should revolve around their needs and comfort (the other person doesn't even have needs in their consciousness), but this being the 1800s, you don't just get a quick divorce. You put up with it. In Dorothea's case she marries Mr Cassaoubon, who is about 30 years her senior, and rich, dried out and having dedicated his life to making notes on a study he doesn't realise is already out of date (Will Ladislaw points out the Germans have already got there) in preparation for "the book" he will write - but procrastinating is his life as he never writes the damn thing. He's already lived the portion of his life where he delights in discovering new things and manages to completely suck the joy out of going to Rome on their honeymoon for Dorothea. But he's oblivious to that. His cousin, estranged from the family by his grannie's poor marriage, Will Ladislaw, is more Dorothea's age, and the two hit it off, much to Mr Cassaoubon's jealousy. So much so that he writes in his will that if she ever marries Will, she'll be penniless from him.
Old men being vindictive on the living who will survive their deaths. The archetype of this in the story however is Mr Featherstone (I did keep getting his name muddled with Mr Farebrother, the pleasant rector who was an entirely different type of person). He is childless (supposedly, and assumed by all relatives), and slowly dying. He has young Mary Garth working for him as some kind of companion, and moans on at her. He torments Fred Vincy (who loves Mary) by essentially promising him that he will get all the land and the house when he dies - and of course he ends up getting nothing. As the ends approaches all the distant relatives creep out of the woodwork and turn up at the house, humpfing about their rights, and how its right it all should stay in the family etc etc... all quite vile behaviour. Then the man dies, and none of it matters to him then for he no longer exists, but there is a gleeful ha ha as it is revealed that he has an illegitmate son, Joshua Rigg who will inherit the estate. Yeah, admit to your son to annoy your money-grubbing relatives when you die, but don't have anything to do with him whilst you're alive. My there's some lovely characters. Stone Rigg, the property he gives away, goes through a bit of an awkward history for the rest of the book, as Rigg promptly sells it, his dream being a money changer at the coast, and Mr Bulstrode, an unpopular banker in town buys it. But the property attracts greed and underhand behaviour in the shape of a man from his dark past, Mr Raffles, a drunk and an unscrupulous blackmailer.
The other disaster marriage is that of Tertius Lydgate, the new doctor in town and Rosamund Vincy, daughter of the rich manufacturing family. He comes from old money but isn't massively rich. Rosamund has been brought up spoiled and self centered (but ever so polite and pleasing to people), so that she has no comprehension of the value of things or money whatsoever. Neither does her brother Fred, for that matter, who ends up dumping a big debt on the Garth family, who go near to ruin to pay it off for him, and when that happens all he moans about is how unhappy he is that he has done it to them. Well boo hoo! Rosamund and the doctor get engaged and he supplies her with a lifestyle he really can't afford, on the expectation she will get some money from her parents. She doesn't - they give nothing financial to their children, but at the same time haven't taught them to value money. Lydgate ends up in debts to about 1000 pounds, followed by rumours of being blackmailed to keep quiet about the death (or was it murder???) of Mr Raffles. You see this gossip sweeping through the pubs and the tradespeople of Middlemarch, and his reputation, and thus business as a doctor is ruined. The stress he must be under must be immense. But again, the other party in the marriage simply doesn't understand that it's supposed to be about teamwork, for richer or poorer and supporting each other (consider the Bulstrodes - HArriet Bulstrode is devastated when she finds out what her husband did in the past but she sticks by him and adapts her life to the new circumstances. Or Mr and Mrs Garth who pull together through all joys and disasters). Rosamund expects to be admired (and as the relationship is strained with Lydgate's troubles, she encourages Ladislaw thinking he loves her), and to ALWAYS be right and to have everything she wants provided without her having to think about the realities of how it is to be paid for. She ignores Lydgate's requests when he is trying to sort out the debts - stops him finding someone else to lease where they live so they can live somewhere else more cheaply, writes to his relatives behind his back for money and is horrified when they're so selfish as to say no.... and when all of this is put before her, and the creditors wanting their money, all she can think is "poor little me"
"...she was in such entire disgust with her husband that she wished she had never seen him. Sir Godwin's rudeness towards her and utter want of feeling ranged him with Dover and all the other creditors - disagreeable people who only thought of themselves, and did not mind how annoying they were to her." (p. 547)
Here is a woman who will not be told. In mid pregnancy her husband advises her not to go horseriding. She does it twice and suffers a miscarriage. Now, I'm not going to get sanctimonious about how dumb pregnant women should do as they're told etc, because even now there is a lot of patronising down to women when they're pregnant, but here is a woman who will not take anyone else's opinion into account, even to such extremes. In short, I didn't like her and I suspect she drove her husband into an early grave. Very pretty she may have been, but that was about it. And it seems the town agrees, for when all the scandals are out and being gossiped about, people say they have sympathy for poor Mrs Bulstrode, who is such a nice woman, but not for Rosamund Lydgate - apparently she needs to be taught a lesson. But having read the story and what Eliot described as the future's for her main characters, I think Rosamund was pathalogically incapable of learning or developing, and never learned her lessons.
In fact there was a bit right at the start when Dorothea was talking to Sir James about these stupid little fluffy dogs women like to have which I thought might be saying more about a message in the novel...
"I believe all the petting that is given them does not make them happy. They are too helpless; their lives are too frail. A weasel or a mouse that gets its own living is more interesting." (p24)
Anyway, I have so many quotes and sections marked off as I was reading as points of interest that I can't rattle on about them all here... will hit a word count at some point.
Read it. I know it's long and looks like a hefty tome, but it is simply brilliant.