Slow Down and Savor: Your Attention is Required in Middlemarch

Vickie's busted foot. Note the other shoe,
which is actually quite cute.

Title: Middlemarch
Author: George Eliot
Host: Steve

Many of us were missing for the July session for various reasons -- search committee, headache, husband's surgery, too busy, traveling, completely forgot -- but that never stops us from having a spirited discussion anyway. And, since it is, after all, the height of summer, we should be excused for all of that PLUS having read only half a book. In fact, we should get extra credit for even having book club in the summer when everyone else is off water-skiing and whatnot.

Vickie, sporting an attractive boot cast, launched our discussion of Middlemarch by distributing a helpful "tree" of characters and their relationships to each other. This is a big book with a big cast of characters and plenty of complexity to sort out, and we all wished we had had this tree at hand while reading. So here it is, in case you find it useful as we read the second half of the book.

Insights and Opinions

+ First off, it's important to note that our only assignment was to read Books 1 through 4, so that's what we did.

+ By contemporary standards, Middlemarch is a very slow read. It requires the reader to slow down, savor the language, and really pay attention. Steve wondered how many of today's writers would dare stop the narrative altogether as Eliot does to spend many pages describing Lydgate's character. Yet we're glad Eliot does as her examination of Lydgate in minute detail gives the reader critical insight into how he makes the decisions that follow. "Think of the time people had to write like this and read like this," Steve said.

+ As Blanche pointed out, Eliot is brilliantly funny. She skewers the Middlemarchers and their hypocrisy with a deft hand. Mr. Brooke is a dilettante, but such an inept dilettante. What in the world is he talking about? We couldn't make sense of it, nor could any of the Middlemarchers.

The beauty of reading a classic --
editions galore.

+ Liz noted Eliot's acute powers of observation. She is an astute student of human nature, and no nuance of behavior and the many layers of reason behind it escapes her pen. She understands human weakness and vanity. Not one of her characters is flat. They are all many-layered, living people. Causabon is so far caught up in the grandeur of his giant idea, yet so far beyond unable to actually accomplish it.

+ Vickie read My Life in Middlemarch, our book pick for September, at the same time she read Middlemarch, and highly recommends doing so.

+ Ladislaw, the romantic young relative of the prunish scholar Dorothea marries in order to elevate herself, is perhaps standing in for Eliot herself in some key conversations between himself and Dorothea, speaking with the author's voice on matters of love, life, and poetry.

+ We all agreed to being completely mystified by the epigrams that open each chapter. None of them seemed to relate to the action that followed.

+ We wondered -- who is the narrator? Often, she intrudes herself and actually becomes another character, but never identifies herself. She is hovering, no matter what is going on.

+ At this point, everyone started talking at once, making note-taking impossible. Most likely, this was when we made our most intelligent literary points.

+ Some felt that the Garth family are the best characters in the book. Mary is perhaps the most similar to Eliot herself, with her down to earth practicality. Of all of the characters, Fred and Mary are perhaps the most ideal as a couple, All of the other couples are in love with something beyond the actual person.

What happens when you don't take
the picture until too late in the game.

+ Margy wondered if perhaps we weren't missing too much by not having intimate command of the language of the time. What does Eliot mean by "an ordinary sinner" when referring to Mary? Did this phrase have specific resonance in Eliot's time? Eliot was writing about contemporary social life, but to us in the 21st century, it is a somewhat foreign land.

Other Good Things

+ The Turtle House Ink blog post on Summer and Middlemarch is particularly relevant, not to mention written by Vickie.  (This, by the way, is a wonderful blog for writers). Check it out here.