Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Middlemarch by George Eliot *****

In MiddlemarchMiss (Dorothea) Brooke, Miss (Rosamond) Vincy, and Miss (Mary) Garth all married against the advice of the patriarchs and most everyone else. Though their marriages were difficult, they persevered and followed their own paths to a happy life.  Set about two decades after Jane Austen’s books, this opus (800 pages) of village life expands on Austen’s themes and scope. Read Austen first. If you love Austen, this is the next step.

The women all have strong (and sometimes misguided) opinions.
“Surely,” said Dorothea, “it is better to spend money in finding out how men can make the most of the land which supports them, than in keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it.”
With small changes this could be repeated in the 21st century.

“If anybody was to marry me flattering himself, I should wear the [hideous mourning clothes] two years for him, he’d be deceived by his own vanity, that’s all.”

“Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like scolding anyone else so well, and that is a point to be thought of in a husband.”

On the subject of marriage, the author makes two strong points:
1)    Never expect the marriage to be an improvement over the courtship.
2)     Marriage is work, but with love and perseverance it can bring happiness.

The author discusses privilege the same as someone might do today.
“When a youthful nobleman steals jewelry we call the act kleptomania, speak of it with a philosophical smile, and never think of his being sent to the house of correction as if he were a ragged boy who had stolen turnips.”

Another observation appropriate to the current day:
“But oppositions have the illimitable range of objections at commend, which never need stop short at the boundary of knowledge but can draw forever on the vasts of ignorance.”

“For the egoism which enters into our theories does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied, the more robust is our belief.”

The scope of Middlemarch includes UK politics of the 19th-century Reform Bills, the risks of debt, gambling as a disease, the folly of class, and the history of medicine.

Remember the plot device where a play script calls for one actor to kill another actor, but the second actor really dies? George Eliot used that plot device in 1871.

George Eliot throws out many good one-liners. She would have been great on Twitter.
“Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.”
“I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really doing it.”

A novel of strong women in the nineteen century for Austen readers who want more, much more.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

No comments: