Middlemarch Readathon: Book 4 – Three Love Problems

Paul’s thoughts on Book 4 of Middlemarch

Apologies: this blog post is much later than I anticipated. I am really enjoying the gradual section-by-section process of reading Middlemarch, and I look forward to dipping in, not wanting it to end. Interestingly, our book group in Wrexham is split: some, like me, are liking the gradual pace, and others couldn’t put it down and had to keep reading to the end. Which camp do you fall into?

Book 4 definitely takes us beyond the halfway point, but there feels as if there is a long way to go for the multifarious plot threads to be resolved or followed through. The initial scenes of Mr Featherstone’s funeral, and the circling vulture-like relatives waiting for his will to be read, are as worthy of (if not better than) Dickens at his best, in my opinion. George Eliot fleshes out even some of the minor characters with great skill and really enhances the reading experience. In the end, all the relatives, including Fred Vincy, are disappointed as Featherstone leaves all his estate to Rigg, an illegitimate heir – although in another plot twist, poor Mary Garth feels guilty at not having got involved in Featherstone’s final reiteration of his will and thus blames herself for adding to Fred’s increasingly desperate situation. On the upside, the sun starts to shine brightly for the well-meaning family, as Mr Garth is offered a new position as steward of Chettam’s estate, which of course enables Mary to remain in Middlemarch in a confused situation regarding Fred and beginning to be quietly pursued by Mr Farebrother. A love problem indeed!

Dorothea’s misery continues with the ailing Casaubon but of course Eliot skilfully eases Will Ladislaw in as a member of Middlemarch society, working for Dorothea’s uncle against her husband’s wishes. Love problem number two:

“Dorothea had little vanity, but she had the ardent woman’s need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul. Hence the mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette opened in the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny air.”

Finally, Lydgate hurtles obliviously towards a deeply unsatisfactory marriage with Rosamond Vincy. Love problem number three! What a sophisticated soap opera this is turning out to be. In this blog, John Mullan points out that George Eliot is “rueful in her depiction of her key female characters.” However, “It is Eliot’s genius as a novelist to use fiction to question most of what she herself believed.”

In the background there, George Eliot gives glimpses of the political turmoil of the times: Bulstrode desperately trying to acquire land to cement his nouveau riche status, and of course Mr Brooke’s ill-fated candidacy in the forthcoming election as a reformer. One of our book group members was disappointed that there is only passing reference to politics, but you can find more about Middlemarch and the Reform Bill in the blog quoted above and this interesting piece from the Law Librarians of Congress in the US.

There is so much in this novel, I really don’t want it to end. I’ll be back in just over a week, when I’ve read the next book with the ominous title of ‘The Dead Hand’.