Our Reading Life in Middlemarch

Title: My Life in Middlemarch

Author: Rebecca Mead

Host: Blanche

As a refresher: Our group spread the reading and discussion of George Eliot's Middlemarch over two months to give us all a long, leisurely read. Then, we read Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch as the frosting on our three-month literary cake.

In Mead's own words: "I first read Middlemarch, which many critics consider the greatest novel in the English language, when I was seventeen. The novel tells the interweaving stories of several residents of a provincial town in the Midlands; but to describe it this way is a bit like describing Everest as a really tall, ice-covered mountain…So revisiting Middlemarch by writing a book about it was also a way of reckoning with the life I had lived so far: of looking at the choices I had made, the paths I had taken, and considering the alternatives lives I had left unlived."

Insights and Opinions

+ We started with an emailed comment from Vicky, in absentia: "If I could be there tonight, I would talk about how much it meant to me to see how Rebecca Mead connects the novel to her life. One of the last steps in the discussion method I used for years asked that the learner relate the material to his or her life. This often was the most challenging for students. Frequently, they would give general answers and move on. Yet I think it is one of the most important parts of truly absorbing what we read or study.

"So, as I read both the novel (Middlemarch) and Mead's book, I was asking myself 'how does Middlemarch relate to my life? Why am I so moved by the writing?' I see myself in each of the characters. Also, I see how, like Mead, I would have rejected and judged people in my youth, but how I'm hoping I have a wider view with age -- and maybe a little more compassion and tolerance for both myself (all my selves) and others.

"I also appreciate Mead's clarity and understanding for George Eliot and her life -- Eliot's appearance and how others judged her, but how she was able to rise above that and write so beautifully. It would be difficult to save my admiration and love for this novel and for Mead's memoir until the end of the discussion, I know. I'd probably be tongue-tied!"

George Eliot

 + Readers appreciated learning the back stories of each character, which made us sympathetic to the characters in the various circumstances of their lives. Linda thought that understanding and sympathy were what Eliot meant to accomplish. Steve observed that this is a good definition of great art.

+ Everyone agreed that Mead's wonderful command of the English language, along with the elegance with which she employed that language, made the book a joy to experience. She is a writer who is able to convey so many connections in just a sentence or two.

+ We enjoyed the comments from those of us who have been, or are, academics, about "surviving" the teaching of literary criticism as described on page 145 of My Life in Middlemarch. Here, Mead notes: "Books -- or texts, as they were called by those versed in theory -- weren't supposed merely to be read, but to be interrogated, as if they had committed some criminal malfeasance."

+ Shirley liked Mead's description of different reactions to Causaubon, and asked "Doyou agree with Rebecca Mead that Mary was the wisest character?" Our readers saw in Mary, not the fire and passion of other characters but, rather, that she was plain, wise, and funny, perhaps like Eliot herself. Dorothea, on the other hand, hung on to her idealized version of the world longer than she might have had women had more options.

+ We discussed how Mead's book brought attention to Eliot's feminism at a time when such voices were scarce, e.g. giving Dorothea ambition and curiosity with nothing to attach it to but her husband and his work. This led to a discussion of marriage, the difficulties of matrimony not always acknowledged, Eliot believing that there was a limit to the degree of self-suppression and tolerance that even marriage could demand. As Gail said "In marriage, acceptance is rather important."

+ Readers found many comparisons between the working class and the aristocracy and asked "what was Eliot trying to say to us?" Linda pointed out Eliot's trenchant observation in a letter to friends about visiting Dickens' house, awed to be in the man's presence. "Splendid library, of course, with soft carpet, couches, etc. such as become a sympathizer with the suffering classes. How can we sufficiently pity the needy unless we know fully the blessings of plenty?"

+ We wrapped up by discussing how Mead identified with Middlemarch throughout her life and how certain books have influenced our own lives -- perhaps a discussion worthy of our next meeting when we've had time to think about it.