Middlemarch - have just noticed it is very long

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Originally Posted by osho

I have started reading the novel but the Victorian England as incomprehensible and particularly the manners and mores, the cultural fabrics, their language and their beliefs and one has to be part of the society or cultural setting or heritage to find the book written within that frame and on their socio- cultural themes. I do not like her the way I like Dickens though he too was a writer of the nineteenth century he is somewhat familiar and his stories have internationally been popularized. I did not like even Austin. Russian stories written in the ninetieth century are more ubiquitous and I enjoy reading them more than those written by British and American writers and one book I like of America exceptionally is Gone with the Wind

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Austen isn't from the Victorian era. I think it's the Regency era.

Yes, Middlemarch does require a certain knowledge of Victorian politics, particularly regarding reform. I would call it a novel of manners because you need some understanding of the workings of nineteenth century society (both early and late) in order to appreciate. Dickens is a characaturist/melodramatist, so his novels are understandable on a simple level if not a deeper one. Even though Hard Times is about utilitarianism, it has the more universal message of the dangers of destroying fantasy and imagination and turning people into machines. I think that Eliot's prose is slightly dryer and not as biting as Dickens, but then, Dickens can be dry at times as well. It's that typical Victorian style.

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Originally Posted by kev67

I wonder whether this book called be called a melodrama. I once listened to a lecture, not about literature, where the speaker said that there were basically four types of story. It was very interesting. After dredging my memory, I think the four story types were quest, ironic, downfall and melodrama. A quest is any sort of adventure or romance. A downfall plot is one in which the main protagonist cannot escape his/her doom. An ironic story is a bit difficult to describe. I think it is a plot like 1984 or the film Get Carter. The good guys don't win. Evil triumphs. The protagonist loses your respect. That just leaves melodrama. Melodrama is usually taken to mean a story in which characters over-react emotionally, but I believe it also means a plot which interweaves a lot of character plot lines.

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Oh, out of those, Middlemarch is very much a quest. Dorothea is on a quest to find her vocation. Eliot criticises melodramatic 'romance' novels. I would say that a melodrama involves a strong amount of intrigue (as in, who killed X? Who is cheating on Y?), an element of threat or danger (the moustache-twirling villain), high emotions and incredibly contrived unbelievable situations (Mary is actually your long lost mother!), and obviously good hero and heroine. Dickens would be a good example, though of course, many novels of the period relied on contrivances and coincidences.

In Middlemarch's subtitle, Eliot refers to the novel as 'a study', so I guess you could also call it that. She is reporting on what she finds to be the ways of this particular society; again, that's what can make the novel dry for those with no interest or knowledge in the era in which it is set

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Originally Posted by kev67

I have just finished the first part, so only another 74 chapters to go. The humour is laugh out loud, but sometimes I struggle to follow the narration. It's an odd book. What would you call this sort of book with a large set of loosely connected characters and story strands? It is too knowing for a romance. It is not an adventure. It is not exactly a comedy. Perhaps satire best describes it. It reminds me a little of New Grub Street.

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I don't think it's satire, it feels very true to life, it doesn't have the excessive humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule found in satire. It does expose and criticize people's stupidity, and partly in a context of contemporary politics, so it's dealing with same issues you find in satire. But I think part of its greatness is that it deals with political issues (and many more) without having to indulge in satire. I found that "New Grub Street" reminded me, a little, of Middlemarch. It's also a work of some depth and seriousness, written in straightforward, wonderful Victorian prose, but it has nothing like the range and variety of Middlemarch.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

Oh, out of those, Middlemarch is very much a quest...

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I agree with this, though would add that several characters are on a quest, like Lydgate, who want's to be the new Pasteur. Some quests fail, making Middlemarch partly a tragedy.

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In Middlemarch's subtitle, Eliot refers to the novel as 'a study', so I guess you could also call it that. She is reporting on what she finds to be the ways of this particular society; again, that's what can make the novel dry for those with no interest or knowledge in the era in which it is set

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If it's a study, it's partly a study of greatness, which makes it extremely exciting, hardly "dry". The lead characters are involved in quests that are, surely, of interest to all serious readers in any culture - to be a great scholar, to be a greatest poet, to be a great scientist - aren't these universal themes that should make any serious person interested in the novel, whatever society they come from? I can see how bank managers, or readers of pulp detective novels, might find it a bit "dry" as they struggle to identify with the leads, and find themselves identifying with the "old boys" instead.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

If it's a study, it's partly a study of greatness, which makes it extremely exciting, hardly "dry". The lead characters are involved in quests that are, surely, of interest to all serious readers in any culture - to be a great scholar, to be a greatest poet, to be a great scientist - aren't these universal themes that should make any serious person interested in the novel, whatever society they come from?

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In a sense it's a study of greatness but Eliot doesn't think much of their quests, as Lydgate and Dorothea are shown to be misguided. Far better to be Mary and tie yourself down to an idiot like Fred. It's quite a depressing novel really.

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

In a sense it's a study of greatness but Eliot doesn't think much of their quests, as Lydgate and Dorothea are shown to be misguided...

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I thought Eliot admired Lydgate's scientific quest, but shows him to be deeply flawed in non-scientific matters, and these completely derail his quest. Is this depressing? That a genius like Lydgate can screw up so royally makes my screw ups look smaller, that eases my depression! Maybe you need to be older to get this therapeutic response...

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Originally Posted by kelby_lake

In a sense it's a study of greatness but Eliot doesn't think much of their quests, as Lydgate and Dorothea are shown to be misguided. Far better to be Mary and tie yourself down to an idiot like Fred. It's quite a depressing novel really.

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Since the Garths are minor characters in Middlemarch, we see mainly their good side. All the major character, including Lydgate and Dorothea, are shown to be misguided in various ways, just as we are.

Eliot thinks highly of Dorothea's quest but not of the way she furthers it. Like Lydgate, Mrs Bulstrode, Casaubon and Celia, all of us make life-changing choices from limited options - choices that have serious downsides. Incidentally, do we know that either Dorothea or Lydgate regret their unfortunate marriages?

kev - I don't quite get you thinking the genre is a bit odd. It is a Victorian novel with subplots and a broad range of characters - almost any Dickens, lots of Trollope and Vanity Fair are all similar.

I suppose it is a bit like a modern day television series, maybe like Mad Men. It has no central character. Things happen, then other things happen, but there is no end goal. I cannot remember reading too many books like that.

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Originally Posted by kev67

I suppose it is a bit like a modern day television series, maybe like Mad Men. It has no central character. Things happen, then other things happen, but there is no end goal. I cannot remember reading too many books like that.

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Honest, kev, you should read more Victorian novels. (Wuthering Heights is utterly untypical, not least in its comparative brevity.) Middlemarch is long, but I'm not sure it is that much longer than Little Dorrit, The Newcomes, Armadale or The Last Chronicles of Barset. Like a typical Victorian novel it was published in monthly parts. I've just read two monthly episodes of Vanity Fair in two days, so for the original readers it would not have seemed such a marathon reading it. I've tried reading The Newcomes in monthly episodes. The downside of this approach is that by the time you get to the last few episodes, you've forgotten the details of the plot in the early parts.

How about "panoramic" to describe their approach, without a central character? (Thackery describe Vanity Fair on its title page as "A Novel without a Hero".) I suspect the major influence in trying to cover a whole society is Balzac.

Kev - to me it had at three central characters on a quest for a meaningful & significant life, and several other significant characters vying for centre stage. But each character's quest was ill defined and changeable, as such quests must be. I didn't think it was as "bitty" as you seem to be making out. You might like to try "Silas Marner", if you want to attempt a short work by Eliot with one central character.

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Originally Posted by mal4mac

Kev - to me it had at three central characters on a quest for a meaningful & significant life, and several other significant characters vying for centre stage. But each character's quest was ill defined and changeable, as such quests must be. I didn't think it was as "bitty" as you seem to be making out. You might like to try "Silas Marner", if you want to attempt a short work by Eliot with one central character.

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I don't think it's bitty. I just wondered how you would classify that sort of book. I wondered whether it could be called a state of the nation book, but then it was written forty years in Elliot's past. Besides, the book it most reminded me of was New Grub Street, but that was a state of the writing industry book. I wondered melodrama, but that does not really fit as it is fairly realistic without too much exaggerated emotion. Mona Anon suggested novel of manners, but I have never heard the term before. Perhaps a roman fleuve, but I think those are books which follow their characters lives over decades. Middlemarch happens over two or three years. I was talking to someone this evening who is reading The Game of Thrones books. He said the books are massive and each chapter picks up the story of one of a number of characters. That sounds quite similar, but Game of Thrones would be classified as fantasy. I suppose Middlemarch could be classified as Victorian literature, classic literature or Brit Lit, but that does not describe the type of plot.

Anyway, I have heard Silas Marner praised before, so if I read another George Elliot book, I would probably make it that one.

I haven't read Silas Marner for some fifteen years, but I was in tears almost all the time when I did. (I was in a particularly vulnerable space at the time.)

Has anyone compared the length of Middlemarch with other Victorian novels? I'm not sure that it is that long by those standards.

And the panoramic nature is definitely in Balzac and Tolstoy.

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Originally Posted by JonathanB

I haven't read Silas Marner for some fifteen years, but I was in tears almost all the time when I did. (I was in a particularly vulnerable space at the time.)

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While I enjoyed reading Silas Marner after Middlemarch, for me The Mill on the Floss was the most moving. The central character Maggie is as developed as Dorothea and rather more complex.

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Originally Posted by JonathanB

I haven't read Silas Marner for some fifteen years, but I was in tears almost all the time when I did. (I was in a particularly vulnerable space at the time.)

Has anyone compared the length of Middlemarch with other Victorian novels? I'm not sure that it is that long by those standards.

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Other Victorian novels are long but Middlemarch is particularly long. Middlemarch is over 800 pages; some of the others are more like 500-600. I suppose as a panorama it has to be long and that is why some people think it's the greatest novel written in the English language, which I am inclined to disagree with but I can see why the statement is made in the sense that England doesn't have many 'epic' novels in that vein.

Not every Victorian novel is a dull Dickensian tome; the Brontes and Hardy wrote relatively normal-sized books.