I read 1/3 of Middlemarch. Should I keep going? (No spoilers please)

[Inverted]

I've been a big reader of non-fiction, but my experience with literature is not much more outside of classics that I read in high school. My friend, who got her masters in Comparative Literature, recommended Middlemarch to me and said it was one of the best books of all time.

I read about 300 pages of it over the past month. I think I'm on chapter 28 or something like that. I definitely like it. If I didn't, my pea-sized attention span would've have gotten that far. But so far, it hasn't wholly enveloped me or absorbed me emotionally. I can't say I love it, at least yet.

From a technical standpoint, Eliot's writing is probably the best that I've read. She's very intricate and poetic. But, an average novel's worth of pages in, I haven't had an emotional hook sink into me yet.

Part of me thinks the book has done a great job at setting up a wide web of complex characters with conflicting interests. There's definitely potential for this novel to do explosive things. But part of me also thinks that if I didn't "get it" now, I may never get it.

For those who have finished it, without spoiling it, would you say that there's a big game-changer coming up in the middle of the novel that will suddenly sink me into the story and characters, or should I cut my losses?

[Poetaster]

Finish it!

[Jackson Richardson]

For those who have finished it, without spoiling it, would you say that there's a big game-changer coming up in the middle of the novel that will suddenly sink me into the story and characters, or should I cut my losses?

Maybe not, but having got so far you should finish it. Otherwise it's a bit like saying a man should only stay with his wife who gets on with if he is having fantastic orgasms all the time. And the plots do show what happens to the characters.

When I read it as a teenager and again in my early twenties there was a passage that reduced me to tears, as indeed there was in all Eliot's books at that time. I now find them rather worthy and I remain dry eyed. But I'd still want to know them.

But you should persevere. Come back when you've finished and I'll tell you which bit made me weep.

[MANICHAEAN]

It creeps up on you, so persevere.

Then once you have finished, its a bit like the film "Shindlers List." It keeps coming back and you want to delve into it again.

[Adonais]

You don't have to love every book you finish.

[kev67]

I found the first third the most entertaining. Later is becomes more serious. I cannot say I was very moved by it, but I found it interesting.

[Inverted]

You don't have to love every book you finish.

That's an interesting point. With movies, for example, I only watch the best ones (not whatevers on HBO). I never considered consuming something I didn't love in a while.

But maybe you're right. Maybe I have to finish a few books that are 7/10's to me, before I find that magical 10/10. Sometimes books get much better in the third act and I need to be patient. Though at 900 pages, the opportunity cost is in question. Reading 600 more pages, that's two novels I could loving spent one one novel I might not love.

But if I want to be versed in literature, I do need to see things out to the end.

[ennison]

So? Did you finish? Or did you wimp out?