by George Eliot
This is a long book encompassing the lives of a nineteenth century English manor, village, and country-side, so it is full of lots of different stories, if not a lot of actual "action." Though all inter-twined, the stories themselves cover a variety of circumstances from romances and surprising heirs to disreputable pasts and tenuous futures. The whole is far more than I could write about in my little blog post.
One of the themes explored in the novel is that of making a good marriage. Two marriages in the novel are apparent failures though for different reasons: Dorothea finds herself in a marriage to a man who refuses to fully accept her as a wife.
He distrusted her affection, and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?When Dorothea married Mr. Casaubon, it was tacitly understood that he was the more educated and intelligent and that she would assist him. Before long she realizes his life's work is essentially meaningless. Her strength of character and innate goodness, her intelligence and continued devotion to him, repel him. He maintains a barrier between them and jealously attempts to control her life after his death.
Dr. Lydgate and Rosamond marry not after discerning they can be helpmates to one another, but because Lydgate finds her beautiful and Rosamond believes his high connections will raise her social status. Instead, he incurs great debt while continually failing to please her and her selfishness prevents her from understanding or adjusting to his life.
The strongest example is that of Mary Garth and Fred Vincy. Fred is a lackadaisical young man who lives in anticipation of an inheritance. His first and only love, Mary, refuses to marry him unless he makes something of himself in honest work.
"As if it were any pleasure to me to think ill of you," said Mary in a mournful tone. "As if it were not very painful to me to see you an idle, frivolous creature. How can you bear to be so contemptible when others are working and striving and there are so many things to be done--how can you bear to be fit for nothing in the world that is useful? And with so much good in your disposition, Fred, you might be worth a good deal."Their relationship is assisted by the reverend Mr. Farebrother, who obtains Mary's promise to wait for Fred at Fred's request despite his own love for her. He later gently but firmly assists Fred in avoiding temptation and the loss of Mary.
"To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!"Another example of a strong marriage is actually that of the Bulstrodes. As a young man, Mr. Bulstrode deceives his first wife into believing her daughter has died so he can inherit her fortune, a fortune built of ill-gotten gains in pawnshops.
There may be coarse hypocrites, who consciously affect beliefs and emotions for the sake of gulling the world, but Bulstrode was not one of them. He was simply a man whose desires had been stronger than his theoretic beliefs and who had gradually explained the gratification of his desires into satisfactory agreement with those beliefs.Throughout his life, Mr. Bulstrode sought wealth and power in order to serve God, but he did so in a pompous and arrogant way and callously threw aside the rights of others he deemed unworthy.
The service he could do to the cause of religion had been through life the ground he alleged to himself for his choice of action: it had been the motive which he had poured out in his prayers. Who would use money and position better than he meant to use them? Who could surpass him in self-abhorrence and exaltation of God's cause?...[snip]...There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men.When his deception is revealed, destroying his carefully created pious persona, his wife sets aside her fancy gowns but does not desert him, humbly enduring his misery as she had enjoyed his wealth.
As Mary encourages Fred to undertake meaningful work, the idea of a legacy is interpreted through the thrwarted desires of Dr. Lydgate, who must give up his research to accommodate his wife and their life together and Caleb Garth, Mary's father, who steadfastly and skillfully manages estates around Middlemarch, repairing and building structures, shaping and improving the land.
The last paragraph of the novel speaks of Dorothea, who forgoes her desires to build something grand to improve life for great numbers of people when she marries for love and retires to a modest life.
Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive, for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on un-historic acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.Given its length and slow quiet pace, I was surprised how much I enjoyed reading this novel. It was a lovely way to spend my time.
Some notes on the edition: I read this Penguin Drop Caps edition checked out from our library. Despite its length, the book did not feel heavy in my hands. The pages are soft on the hands and gentle on the eyes without over-glaring white. The text is a nice size, too. However, there are quotes before most of the chapters. When these were originally in Latin or French, there is no translation provided by an editor. Also, I found the cover color glaringly yellow-orange.
