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Title: Middlemarch
Author: George Eliot
Genre: Classic literary saga of middle class people screwing up their lives through shitty marriages
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: The story of everyone ever to live in this one town, and why sexism caused people to make bad marriages and ruin their lives forever.
Thoughts: I have to say, despite the random ramblings about proto-Zionism, I liked Daniel Duronda better.
Nearly everything in this story is driven by marriage. People making terrible decisions about who to marry, people twisting their lives around to try to get someone to marry them, people twisting other people's lives to prevent them from marrying someone, past unwise marriages destroying people's lives for generations. It's fascinating, as sexism drives a lot of these shitty decisions and the author talks a lot of the talk of women being weak and illogical. But the fact that the writer is in fact female, if only disguised, and the fact that her characters actual actions reveal the same levels of wisdom and foolishness amongst the male and female characters turns the entire thing into a subtle refutation that men are intellectually superior to women. But because of their beliefs in this fallacy, the characters completely screw up their lives. Dorothea's belief that her role as a pious and intelligent woman requires her to prostrate herself before her husband leads her to marry a man who turns out to be a lousy scholar with subpar work. Rosamond's angelic looks and sweet manners makes Lydgate believe that she is docile when in fact she's a selfish idiot. Only Mary insists on setting her own conditions and only Mary and Fred have what seems like a functional relationship at the end.
I did enjoy this book, but I remain baffled as to why it's hailed as one of the best novels in the English language. I found Landislaw, who I suppose is the closest thing to a real romantic hero we have, to be immature and entirely unworthy of Dorothea. A lot of the symbolism seems a bit heavy-handed to me. Fred and Mary's story takes up a huge chunk of first half of the book, and then they disappear for the entire climax and only pop up again in the epilogue, making the whole thing feel unbalanced. There's some really good insights into people, but on the whole, this felt clunky to me. I realize this is far more ambitious than, say, Jane Austen, to choose a contemporary. But the sprawlingness feels less epic and more undisciplined, as though Eliot just included random bits as they occurred to her and without any thought of how it furthered the goals of the novel as a whole.
Author: George Eliot
Genre: Classic literary saga of middle class people screwing up their lives through shitty marriages
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: The story of everyone ever to live in this one town, and why sexism caused people to make bad marriages and ruin their lives forever.
Thoughts: I have to say, despite the random ramblings about proto-Zionism, I liked Daniel Duronda better.
Nearly everything in this story is driven by marriage. People making terrible decisions about who to marry, people twisting their lives around to try to get someone to marry them, people twisting other people's lives to prevent them from marrying someone, past unwise marriages destroying people's lives for generations. It's fascinating, as sexism drives a lot of these shitty decisions and the author talks a lot of the talk of women being weak and illogical. But the fact that the writer is in fact female, if only disguised, and the fact that her characters actual actions reveal the same levels of wisdom and foolishness amongst the male and female characters turns the entire thing into a subtle refutation that men are intellectually superior to women. But because of their beliefs in this fallacy, the characters completely screw up their lives. Dorothea's belief that her role as a pious and intelligent woman requires her to prostrate herself before her husband leads her to marry a man who turns out to be a lousy scholar with subpar work. Rosamond's angelic looks and sweet manners makes Lydgate believe that she is docile when in fact she's a selfish idiot. Only Mary insists on setting her own conditions and only Mary and Fred have what seems like a functional relationship at the end.
I did enjoy this book, but I remain baffled as to why it's hailed as one of the best novels in the English language. I found Landislaw, who I suppose is the closest thing to a real romantic hero we have, to be immature and entirely unworthy of Dorothea. A lot of the symbolism seems a bit heavy-handed to me. Fred and Mary's story takes up a huge chunk of first half of the book, and then they disappear for the entire climax and only pop up again in the epilogue, making the whole thing feel unbalanced. There's some really good insights into people, but on the whole, this felt clunky to me. I realize this is far more ambitious than, say, Jane Austen, to choose a contemporary. But the sprawlingness feels less epic and more undisciplined, as though Eliot just included random bits as they occurred to her and without any thought of how it furthered the goals of the novel as a whole.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 06:47 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 07:14 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 07:23 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 07:26 pm (UTC)From:We also do have a friend reading Daniel Duronda at the moment, which is rather more obscure than Middlemarch.
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Date: 2011-11-22 07:32 pm (UTC)From:And I've never even heard of Daniel Duronda. Also didn't know George Eliot was a woman.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 07:46 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 08:09 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 08:15 pm (UTC)From:I think of "attractively ugly" like, Christopher Walken.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 08:17 pm (UTC)From:...I'm sorry I've hijacked this thread. -_-
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Date: 2011-11-22 08:26 pm (UTC)From:And why is Lie to Me not a fandom? Seriously. There are so many potential pairings, including two canon het ones. And most of the pairings would be interracial. Plus you've got Cal's long, tortured, mysterious past. I don't understand why fandom isn't aaaall over this.
...this has nothing to do with Middlemarch.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:16 pm (UTC)From:It tried to have a fandom briefly when it first started, but it was competing for attention with things like Dollhouse, FlashForward, and BSG, at least among the writers that I knew. It was like it was everyone's second favorite, and so it never really gelled. :/
...it would make a poor Middlemarch AU.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:20 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:20 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:33 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:47 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:50 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:53 pm (UTC)From:Actually, if someone who's good at picking up others' emotions walked into Middlemarch and told Lydgate that Rosamond is a shallow twit and the reason why his business is failing is because he hasn't tried to make himself part of the community, Dorothea that Casaubon is afraid she's going to sleep with Ladislaw, Rosamond that Ladislaw will never love her, Fred that old Featherstone isn't going to leave him the money, and everyone that Bulgrode is totally hiding secrets that will wreck everyone's lives, then people would end up a lot happier. Mary doesn't need to be told anything, because she's not an idiot.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:54 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-22 09:59 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 07:11 am (UTC)From:I'm usually very fond of Victorian fiction, but clearly Middlemarch failed to make a big impression on me, because I remember very little about the plot except for the Dorothea/Casaubon thread. Regarding that, I distinctly remember *wanting* to identify with Dorothea because of the way she valued education and intellect... but actually wishing I could smack her the whole time because she was so effing pious and priggish. And I totally agree that George Eliot didn't really have a handle on the structure of this novel. It just kind of meanders, there are a ton of characters, and I didn't find any of them especially likeable or interesting.
So yeah, I didn't really care for it much.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-25 03:02 pm (UTC)From:War and Peace is equally doorstoppable, but it's quite a bit better.