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Original poster

Middlemarch - are you reading/have you read it?

37 replies

BIWI · 07/06/2026 20:43

I did it for A-level (a gazillion years ago!) and I really loved it.

Since then, I've tried to read it once again. Couldn't get into it for some reason. But seeing it being judged the most popular novel:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/16/the-guardian-view-on-middlemarch-the-greatest-novel-in-the-english-language

... thought I'd have another go.

So far so OK - although I do have to keep going back and re-reading sentences to make sure I'm understanding it!

Amazing that it's been voted as the greatest - and I wondered how many people would agree with this?

The Guardian view on Middlemarch: the greatest novel in the English language | Editorial

Editorial: George Eliot’s masterpiece of provincial life still has much to teach us about sympathy and tolerance

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/16/the-guardian-view-on-middlemarch-the-greatest-novel-in-the-english-language

OP posts:
Dorrieisalittlewitch · 07/06/2026 22:18

I've been reading it on and off since 1999. Still got around 75 percent to go. Got an excellent mark on a Middlemarch University essay though.
Might take it on holiday with me

Philandbill · 07/06/2026 22:15

It was my A level text too a very long time ago and I liked it. Currently -slowly- working through it on audiobook, usually when I'm gardening. I think that the final quote about Dorothea is very moving - * *
"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

There's a book by Rebecca Mead called "The Road to Middlemarch" which looks interesting. It's on my to read pile.

Idlewilder · 07/06/2026 22:13

I'd never read it and did so just recently after it topped the Guardian list of best novels. I did find some of it densely written but rushed through it and just skimmed over the boring bits. I absolutely loved it and it made me think a lot about what the modern equivalent of Dorothea might be. Maybe an earnest Greta Thunberg type?

I started out thinking GE was putting Mary forward as the ideal woman - so wise and moral - but by the end Dorothea had completely won me over. I was pretty much gripped and spent quite a lot of time doing the reading equivalent of shouting at the telly - "Nooooo, don't do it".

I think it would bear reading again more slowly and am tempted by the audiobook.

Pistachiocake · 07/06/2026 21:26

I think it hits differently when you're older-not necessarily being a specific age, but because of both your life experiiences/things that have happened in the world.

Lastqueenofscotland2 · 07/06/2026 21:25

I ADORE it, it does get going slowly but once I think you’re about 80 pages in the scene is adequately set and it gets going?

Original poster
BIWI · 07/06/2026 21:22

I can't do audio books. My mind just starts wondering off and I stop listening/concentrating!

OP posts:
mynameiscalypso · 07/06/2026 21:09

I do think it’s the greatest book, yes. I adore it. I’ve re-read it so many times and am wondering about another but I’m also tempted by the audio book that @BailOutChapsGingersGornSquiffyrecommends too!

Original poster
BIWI · 07/06/2026 21:08

I also have to keep looking up words. Amazed there's so much I don't understand! (I wonder how much I actually took in when I was 16/17?).

OP posts:
Menier · 07/06/2026 21:08

I don't read The Guardian at the moment so wasn't aware of this but I read Middlemarch for the first time about 12 years ago and I agree, it is one of the best novels written in the English language. Like you OP I had to keep rereading some parts to
make sure I understood them.

BailOutChapsGingersGornSquiffy · 07/06/2026 21:01

Adore Middlemarch! Highly recommend the audiobook narrated by Juliet Stevenson.

The RSC are staging it in two parts this year - I’ve got tickets for consecutive days 🤗

Original poster
BIWI · 07/06/2026 20:51

I read LOTR in my late teens and loved it. Tried again many years later and absolutely hated it!

OP posts:
LulaLulaByeBye · 07/06/2026 20:47

I did read it in my early 20s but I can't remember much about it (see also Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, To The Lighthouse, Crime and Punishment, Tristram Shandy...that was my period for reading the classics but not many of them "stuck" apart from Austen, Dickens and the Brontes!).
The Guardian had another list this weekend voted for by readers and this time the top book was Lord of the Rings...

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