Middlemarch Readathon: Book 1 – Miss Brooke

Paul’s thoughts on Book 1 of Middlemarch

How have you got on with our first fortnight’s reading? Please do let us know in the comments box below.

I should start by saying that I am no expert on George Eliot or Middlemarch; like you, I am just going to enjoy the experience of diving into a great work of literature and see where it leads. Every couple of weeks I will post a short blog to tell you how I’m getting on and hopefully to get some discussion going. As a librarian I will also liberally sprinkle the posts with links for further reading in case you are so inclined.

My first encounter with George Eliot (real name Mary Ann Evans) was reading Silas Marner for my A Level English Literature. There are similarities to Middlemarch in that Silas Marner explores the interaction of characters at different levels in a small English provincial community; however, the big difference is that it is about a quarter of the length of Middlemarch and, as such, weaves a less complex tale. Reading Silas Marner encouraged me to read many of George Eliot’s other novels including Middlemarch. (You can find a full list of her published works here.)

It has been at least thirty years since I first read Middlemarch, long enough for me to have forgotten how it begins. I must say I was pleasantly surprised; I consumed the first few chapters in one sitting. I can see why some readers are put off, though, as the prologue (albeit only two pages) reflects a solid Victorian style, but almost immediately after this we land into the brilliantly described life in and around an English provincial village around the early 1830s and the characters and their complex relationships that exist within this small world. What struck me most was how well George Eliot brings her characters to life and how I wanted to get to know them better and live among them for the next few weeks to see where the story will lead. This is best illustrated every time Casaubon appears, and especially when he writes the appalling letter of proposal to Dorothea; I kept quietly screaming inside, “Don’t do it!” – to no avail, obviously. There were a couple of occasions where Eliot’s prose style slowed me down a little, but overall I loved this first section and I really did feel I was listening in to conversations as if I were there. On the back of my very old Penguin edition, there is a quote by the literary critic FR Leavis, in which he says George Eliot’s analysis of human nature achieved “…a Tolstoyan depth and reality.” Although the geographical world of Middlemarch is much smaller than Tolstoy’s imperial Russia, I can see many similarities with War and Peace. Even Virginia Woolf liked Middlemarch and said it was “…one of the few English novels written for adult people”: high praise indeed!

Middlemarch was George Eliot’s penultimate novel and was published in eight instalments between 1871 and 1872. It is a historical novel, as it is set forty years earlier, with parliamentary reform playing a key part in the background of the novel. Initially she had ideas of separate novels, one featuring Dorothea Brooke’s story and the other Dr Lydgate’s. In the end she decided to bring the two together, and Middlemarch was born. You can find out a lot more about George Eliot and Middlemarch by going to the George Eliot Fellowship’s website. Middlemarch often appears in lists of the top 100 novels of all time, and is currently part of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World, where they suggest the following questions for book groups just like ours, which you may find useful as you read:

1. Middlemarch often feels very contemporary in the way it tracks family drama and relationship turmoil. How relevant do you feel the novel is to how we live today?

2. Do you feel there is a central protagonist to Middlemarch, or is each character given equal weight as the novel spans the life of the community?

3. Are there any defining events in the novel, or specific critical moments in the narrative that turn the course of events? If so, do they feel realistic?

Please feel free to share your views in the comments below. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks when I have read Book 2. In the meantime, happy reading!

© Paul Jeorrett 2022