Middlemarch by George Eliot - Readalong

[CramptonHodnet]

This is the Readalong thread for anyone feeling brave enough to tackle this huge novel this autumn/winter

Can I join in?
Thanks to Skimble I managed to download a free ePub version from here and then open it in iBooks. A first for me.

www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/145

Yes, welcome Peggy

Ok I've read my first chapter and my in-depth scholarly analysis is that I want to shake every single character and tell them to stop being drippy. (I know it improves, just need to plough through the annoying preciousness!!)

I also have a question about all the judgemental stuff in chapter 1 about how the girls have no ancestors who were shameful enough to be "in trade" (references to yard measurers etc). Is that GE being sarcastic? Or representing what the girls think of themselves and others? Or possibly being sincere...?

A bit prickly about it because my FIL asked me when I first met him what it was like to be "in trade" (was a corporate lawyer at the time)

Being 'in trade' back in those days was really not 'the thing'. I can't remember any sarcasm in the book, at least not in the beginning, so it probably does reflect the mores of the times. (That's not to say that GE wasn't being satirical about them though!)

I'm going for a chapter a day (aiming high). Got through chapter 1 last night. I was pleased there were only three characters in the chapter so I had a chance of not instantly getting lost.

Being "in trade" then was shorthand for being "jumped up" in today's parlance. Just as many people now sneer at footballers' wives types who, however many millions they may have, simply don't cut the mustard.

Love the term 'jumped up', if you've read Our Mutual Friend the Veneerings (name gives it away) are an extreme example, 'nouveau riche' and no 'breeding', understanding of class conventions, although the sources of their wealth not immediately clear. People in 'trade' were also, I think, despised by trad. landed gentry as 'troubled' class boundaries.

Of course now can't get that Smiths's song out of my head...'A jumped-up pantry boy who never knew his place...'

I have downloaded it to listen to - hope that's not cheating! I am ashamed to say that even though I posted on the original thread about reading the first few chapters last month, I seem to have very little memory of them . My memory is TERRIBLE. Hope I will be able to remember enough to keep up with you!

My granny was born in 1883 and used a lot of those phrases. In trade, self-made man, not out of the top drawer, new money, not a gentleman etc.
She looked after me while my mother worked, so I suppose a lot of my childhood was influenced by a real Victorian.
She was a terrible snob, but also loved the music hall so I also know a lot of vulgar sayings, songs and poems. 😀

My nan used to talk about people being well bred. A friend's nan said that big ankles were a sifn of poor breeding.

I guess at the time the book was written ideas about the poor being feckless and this being inherited would have been common.

Yes about the thick legs and ankles - a sure sign of a long heritage of pulling up mangel-wurzels [eyeing my Dune wide-calfed boots with not much pride].

Didn’t Wallis Simpson think the Queen Mother common because she was short? Centuries of good diet would have marked out the tall aristocracy from the aspirant short arses.

IrmaFay Dune has wide-calfed boots? Any good? Asking for a friend

Whoops, I meant Duo . Just so you can tell your friend

That's interesting about your grandmother, MissClimpson. Mine was born in 1892, so another late Victorian. She had a different life, though, one of ten children, brought up on a farm, went into service until she married relatively late at the end of the 1920s. There was always that perceived class difference between her and my other grandmother, who looked down on her for having been in service . Horrible attitude to take, and she was a terrible snob, purely because she was lucky enough not to need to work before marriage. I know which grandmother I preferred

Nancy Mitford's novels are a good source for seeing the snobbishness of class differences. There's a good bit in The Pursuit of Love where Linda Radlett is marrying Tony Kroesig and Lord Alconleigh disapproves of the Kroesigs because they are "trade" (respectable banking family). He also dislikes the term "weekend" for that reason.

Yes Nancy Mitford is great for that CramptonHodnet, though I think Lord Alconleigh had other objections to Tony, especially that he was a bore. In the immediate aftermath of my broken leg, it was Nancy Mitford that I wanted to read; she always makes me laugh.
My granny wasn't posh herself, her father ran a pub and she was one of nineteen children. I think defining people by social class was a sort of obsession for her and for my mother. In my mother's case I was never allowed to look "villagey" so no red coat allowed. 🤔

Yes I remember he did turn out rather dull

Nancy Mitford also devised the U and Non-U guide to correct speech eg lunch not dinner (midday), lavatory not toilet etc etc. Jilly Cooper followed up with her take on the class system with her book written in the 1970s, Class.

Crampton hadn't realised that about Jilly Cooper, may read it! I've read The Pursuit of Love as well as Hons and Rebels several times, both hilarious.

Wasn't Tony a 'ferocious counter-hon?'.

What do we think of the first four chapters? How's the reading going?

I'm enjoying George Eliot's slow building of characters. Mr Brooke needs a good talking to about his low opinion of women's intellectual capacity. Would love to give Dorothea a shake and tell her not to do it. I like Celia - she has made me laugh a few times with her observations of Casaubon. Feeling a bit sorry for Sir James Chettam at the moment.

Sir James Chettam would be much more fun as a husband Crampton!

Really enjoying MM so far. Although, reading the Prelude, it's understandable why so many people are put off from reading classics .. all the St Theresa stuff was hard going, but once you get into the relationships between the sisters and their uncle, and also the contrast between Mr Casaubon and Sir James, the themes become universal and relevant to any period.

I like George Eliot's social observation:

Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. Very Daily Mail!

And her way of nailing a character, e.g. Dorothea's feelings about riding:

she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to renouncing it

But this one chilled me:

The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it

So pleased to be reading this brilliant novel again

I agree with all that. My Granny would have said Casaubon was "a bit of a stuffed shirt" and I think Dorothea should run like the wind.
What I do notice is how desperately the two women are missing a good education and a career and have to resort to piety and good works. Such a sad loss of opportunity and potential for Victorian women.

Oh, and agree with PP that Celia is an excellent character .. a great quote from her:

Notions and scruples were like spilt needles, making one afraid of treading, or sitting down, or even eating

I'm picturing Celia married to Sir James, with an Aga, a jolly bunch of children and a couple of Labradors

(I read the book 40 years ago but can hardly remember anything)

YY missclimpson - Dorothea has all that intelligence and intellectual curiosity and can't find an outlet for it apart from living vicariously through a husband