Middlemarch by George Eliot; Read Classic

MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot

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'Read Classic', an occasional series of posts on 

Kitchen Table Writers

Last year, I read Andy Miller’s hilarious best seller, The Year of Reading Dangerously. His

bonkers idea? That he should actually read all the classic novels that he daily pretended he had already read. Books like Don Quixote, Beowulf, War and Peace…fifty in all…consuming them on his long commute to work as a publisher’s editor.

Alan Bennett describes a classic novel as one that; everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.  As I chuckled my way through Miller’s entertaining book, I too, wondered if there were any classics out there I had ‘pretended’ I’d read

I came up with George Eliot's definitive, eight part, four volume masterpiece, Middlemarch. I’d started it yonks ago, and really

enjoyed the first chapter, which introduces us to two spirited and contemporary sisters, Dorothea, a quick, bright girl who has a hugely honest and socially-aware heart, and Celia, who is focused on finding a rich hubby. 

For some reason, I laid it to one side and forgot about it. When the novel was televised, some years ago, I didn’t have a TV, but did catch one episode on someone else’s screen, where I quickly worked out that we were all supposed to hate Edward Casaubon, who is cold, insecure and mean-spirited. Quite soon in the novel, Dorothea makes a disastrous error of judgement and marries this unpleasant man. She believes he is a great intellectual whom she can assist and learn from.

I knew I wasn’t alone in my fascination for the Reverend Casaubon after coming across this in an agony aunt online page; 

Masterpiece Theatre production;

Edward Casaubon played by Patrick Malahide

My boyfriend has been reading me the novel Middlemarch out loud, and the character we both find the most compelling is Dr. Casaubon. We’ve had long discussions about his foibles and the pathos of his insecurities. My boyfriend recently brought up the hypothetical idea of “solemn play”—someone who has a fetish for pretending to be like Casaubon toward Dorothea, refusing sex and making her instead do long, pointless tasks for him. In his eyes, this role-playing would be rife with erotic sublimation. At first I thought this was hilarious, but he has brought it up several times and mentioned buying a cassock…

(To read the advice given, click here )

With that scintillating image in mind, I started Middlemarch again at page one, ploughing through while bearing Miller’s words in mind…that, ‘a few hundred pages in, I realised I cared about these people. Suddenly, I couldn’t put the book down’.

It soon became clear I was reading a story that was modernistic in its plot and structure, and that Virginia Woolf was right; it is ‘written for grown-up people’. 

Eliot subtly yet penetratingly delves into the the minds of the many main characters; their hopes, their fears, their failings. I visualised this huge cast of perfectly ordinary provincial townspeople as they rode or walked its streets and byways and went in and out of town houses, cottages and the country mansions that were satellites around the town.

Soon, I fully believed that they were as real as I was. Like Miller, I couldn’t put this book down. It was heavy, yet I carried to to France in February because I couldn’t bear to leave these characters behind. I was hooked.

We focus in on three sets of lovers; the ordeal of Dorothea’s life with Edward Casaubon; the ‘too hot to not cool down’ romance between Terious Lydgate,  a progressive doctor who truly wants to do good for the health of the townspeople, and Rosamond Vincy, who’s head is full of fashion, flounces and other fancies. 

Her brother Fred is as shallow as she is. If they lived now, they’d be minor Youtube stars, letting us into their lavish lifestyle, which neither of them can afford. Fred is deeply in love with Mary Garth, the level-headed daughter of Caleb and Susan, lower-middle-class people

 who are struggling financially. Mary loves Fred, 

but refuses to marry him until he finds a steady occupation.                 

As Dorothea comes to doubt her husband’s unfinished magnum opus, she develops a friendship with Will Ladislaw, his idealistic cousin. Casaubon shows his true colours; controlling and jealous. He changes his will to make sure she never marries Ladislaw if he dies…which he then proceeds to do with more drama than he’s ever done anything before in his entire life.

Business, politics religion and society are all examined under Eliot’s, microscope, helping her further unpick the complications of human motivation. Rosamond’s expensive lifestyle has led the Lydgates into financial ruin, and Lydgate seeks a loan from Nicholas Bulstrode, a widely disliked banker. Balstrode is being blackmailed by Raffles, who knows about his unsavoury past. Raffles falls ill and Balstrode asks Lydgate to tend him. He deliberately ignores the doctors advice, and Raffles dies at Balstrode’s great house. Questions arise, and the Lydgates’ position in the town becomes untenable. Only Dorothea, has the power to help them, but Rosamond already believes that the wealthy widow is a threat to he marraige.

As I hurtled towards the final chapters, there were so many questions to answer, and so many issues to resolve. Would Terious and Rosamond stay together? Would Fred finally come good and win Mary’s hand? And what is the future for Dorothea? Could she find

the inner strength to throw over her huge inheritance, ignore 

her late husbands coercions and marry Will Ladislaw?                                                                                                        

The only way you can find out is by reading the book.

                            It’s dangerous, but I fully recommend it.

Check out the other 'Read Classic' Reviews; 

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Frontispiece illustration is 

Copyright  Eleanor Davis, 

 cartoonist and illustrator  

 3 final illustration from top down;                                         Dorothea and Will Ladislaw, 

Tertious and Rosamond Lydgate,

 Mary and Fred,

all courtesy of Wikipedia.