Has anyone read MIDDLEMARCH (George Eliot)?

This is my favorite book. No qualifiers. Not “favorite 19th century novel” or “favorite British novel.” I go into raptures just thinking about it. In part, it is because I love books that not only tell the stories of all their characters but really re-create an entire world for you that no longer exists. I loved Moby Dick for the same reason.

Plus, I LOVE the characters in Middlemarch. Some of them take a while to really get to know, but the payoff is absolutely worth it. I didn’t really warm to Dorothea Brooke until near the end, but then I was just overwhelmed by how amazing she is, and how she is struggling SO HARD to do something good and meaningful with herself, despite the fact that she has the misfortune of being born a woman in the 19th century… That really spoke to me, because I feel like I, too, struggle to do something good and meaningful with myself, even though I’ve got a lot more options.

The interlacing plotlines are great, and provide a wonderful mix of domestic, local and national issues, and very different characters from different class backgrounds.

In summary: I think this book is amazing and George Eliot is a genius. You’ll have to tell me what you think!

Yay once again to you christybird for your fine heart and eloquence and for loving this
sane, insightful book. I read it without understanding it as a freshman in college and made the same mistake Dorothea made at that age, that is, I fell for my own vision of
some older man’s superiority, only to have to admit much later that he was pathetic and I was a fool. Thank you thank you thank you George Eliot for helping us (that is, Dorothea) out of that pickle.
No more plot giveaways here.
Then I read it again in my fifties and
was amazed by what I had missed. Christybird is telling it true about Eliot’s ability to give us a whole social and physical context. Therefore Mill on the Floss is another delight – for those of us who like this kind of thing.
Interested in Gail’s disinterest. The other heavies she mentions were not as entrancing to me as “M-march”. How to explain? I don’t think length is the common thread.

Thank you, ladies; I am now hooked. It took a little while for me to feel comfortable w. the innuendo and inference combined w. all the circumlocution. And I was carrying around the memory of having read SILAS MARNER, which defeated me at 16.

I have not yet noticed much discussion of national interest, but the rest of the mix has me entranced. I am now at the vignetter of Fred, his debts and his misadventures with the local horse traders. (I should add that I am listening to it on tape, read by a woman w. a beautiful BBC accent…so I am not tempted to skip some of the more abstract musings.)

And I have been watching, every Sunday night, the BBC 90 minute portrayal of the major Austin novels…so I am in the mood….