Penguin English Library Middlemarch
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World' The Penguin English Library Edition of Middlemarch by George Eliot 'She did not know then that it was Love who had come to her briefly as in a dream before awaking, with the hues of morning on his wings - that it was Love to whom she was sobbing her farewell as his image was banished by the blameless rigour of irresistible day' George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as 'one of the few English novels written for adult people'. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
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This is a genius work of literature, a masterpiece. For those wishing to read, I recommend taking some time to understand the background, for this book, as its subtitle states is ‘A study of provincial life' during an era of reforms and change. I started this book blind(hadn't even read the blurb), but a few chapters in, I had to pause and reconsider what I was getting into. There's much depth to it where we see a sort of emotional evolution of the characters with political and psychological underpinnings. Rich complex characters, and no singular protagonist. I'd say ‘provincial life' could possibly be the protagonist of this book. Everything is purposeful - from the prelude to the finale, the literary devices used, just everything. I've never read a book like this one before. While I could see a resemblance to Jane Austen's works at the beginning of the book (courtship, familial ties, etc.), it goes much deeper and more complex in comparison. It's a book I'm certain I'll be coming back to.
