Middlemarch by George Eliot - Readalong

[CramptonHodnet]

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

Okay the last time I read this I was a lot younger than Dorothea's character and I found her really irritating. Now of course I realise how young she is. The way her response to Casaubon is represented reminded me of the students who have obsessions with a lecturer. Dorothea doesn't have the knowledge to question his ability or intellect, to her he's older and he knows more, but also he knows more about ideas she has no access to - or at least that's what she thinks. I also was more aware of Casaubon's delusions, he only perks up when it's clear that she has clerical abilities, which is essentially what he wants.

What Casaubon and Dorothea seem to have in common is that neither of them seem to have any sense of the romantic or the physical side of a relationship. I thought the comment about her riding and the 'pagan, sensuous' demonstrated trouble ahead, because clearly she has a suppressed passionate side.

I still don't like Dorothea. She is so silly, and self-satisfied, and martyrish!! My face feels permanently like I'm rolling my eyes when I read any of her bits 🙄🙄🙄

She reminds me of a super self-righteous vegan roommate I had in college who loved when everyone would get ice cream in the summer so she could stand to one side being oh so special in her saintly veganness and reminding you how disgusting and evil you were for having dairy.

I think Celia sees straight through her as well.

The other thing that struck me was that I hadn't taken on board, or I'd forgotten, that this is a historical novel. So, for Eliot's original readers this would have been their country's past. So I was more interested than before in the setting, a time of upheaval and change. The beginnings of the railways, the opening up of government to more middle-class MPs, extension of voting rights, reform of voting areas. I think it was a time when there was a hope that things would become more democratic. So I kept wondering how Dorothea's character related to Eliot's interest in writing about the period, when Eliot herself would have been a teenager.

Actually the vegan room-mate comparisionworks for me too, she's really idealistic, but she doesn't have much to work with, does she? Little education, the time prior to railways meant travel restricted, very small circle of possible acquaintances. No prospects other than marriage, and since she's not into fripperies or dreaming about weddings, because she's a bit different she's stuck. I wondered how much of Eliot was in the character, she grew up in a provincial town and didn't fit in.

Dottie you're absolutely right about the bright student lecturer adulation!! That's the perfect parallel.

I feel like GE is being darkly sarcastic pretty much the whole time. All the comments - like the one about the principles being needles - feel like she's just making sarky barbed jokes constantly. It's like reading a Victorian Dorothy Parker.

Yes I get that, it's much funnier in a dry, witty sort of way than I remembered, I thought the scene where she turns down the puppy was hilarious.

But I agree with you about Dorothea, I'm more sympathetic to her than before, but she is not a likeable heroine; and I do feel sorry for Celia, who's obviously got more to her than she's credited with. I love the Dorothy Parker comparison btw.

Hello!!!

I think that the stuff about St Theresa of Avila right at the start is about Dorothea, that at one time girls like that would have been given credence through the church but in Dorothea's position in life she's just an oddity with fine feelings at odds with what she's supposed to do in life in terms of her station which is be a amiable hostess, wife and mother.

I also thought Mr Brooke was rather telling seemed very ignorant but claimed to have read everything about everything at the dinner party. We all know a Mr Brooke.

I am loving the jokes too. Beautiful writing to with jokes thrown in - ideal. Commentary about the restrictions women lived within, but done humorously to make it easier to digest. More effective than any straightforward rant about injustice.

I'm like pp, first read mm years ago, now coming back to it in middle age. The first time I found Dorothea annoying, now I feel sorry for her.

On the 'feeling sorry' I agree, GE makes it obvious when Dorothea decides on Casaubon that others marry for equally superficial reasons, so she's not as odd as she seems - that point gets made later with the other marriages. It's just that her reasons are not the conventional ones, like looks or social status.

Pawnee agree re: Brooks and in some ways he's as ill-informed as Dorothea, but GE comments on how men can get away with this, they still retain their station, at least if they have money. A bit chilling that someone like him has power of life and death, that casual conversation when he comes back from the trial of the sheep-stealer who's been sentenced to death - and the fact that Casaubon is no help in pleading for the man is also very telling.

Found this short article on the historical side of 'Middlemarch' on the British Library website if anyone's interested:
www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/middlemarch-reform-and-change

I have been really enjoying GE's characterisations. The gentleman's family versus trade thing (came up earlier in the week upthread) doesn't bother me too much because novels were such a huge part of the Victorian response to the increasingly blurred edges of social hierarchy -- that's part of the attraction of VicLit for me, the attempt to work out tensions around class and other systems that can be a bit analogous, like empire.

I don’t know how much I really thought about Dorothea’s changing maturity last time I read it like someone else said ^^, reading it this time I'm more thinking about how young she was I think I’ll be looking at that more carefully this time. I love GE’s affection toward both Dorothea and Celia – I think it’s clear that Dorothea is the principal, but although Celia represents a more conventional type of nineteenth-century womanhood, I don’t read GE as being critical of that and I really like the way that she uses Celia to gently mock Dorothea’s Puritanism. She’s quite tart, isn’t she? (GE, I mean.) A lot of that is expressed through Celia.

I only realised this time that both Casaubon and Dorothea have poor eyesight as (presumably) a metaphor for their lack of awareness. And I love the jewel scene - apart from Celia's (GE's) wry observations about Dorothea, I love the mention of Dorothea feeding at the "fountains of pure colour" which tells you so much about her true character, and the part of it that's going to be bitterly disappointed by the colourless Casaubon.

Great points Delores the comments re: social status did remind me of Elizabeth Gaskell though, particularly North and South. partly because of the themes but also because the heroine is similarly socially isolated.

Agree about the jewel scene but was more struck by the comments at the end of that chapter about 'yoked creatures' and how that might relate to ideas about slavery but also a foreshadowing of the nature of Dorothea's relationship with Casaubon.

Something I noticed :

You know how Dorothea wants to sort Uncle's papers and is embarrassed when he dismisses her ability to Casaubon

It's because Brooke doesn't really have any great intellect and therefore doesn't have important papers to be organised - he's just pretending. He's all pomposity.

Yes, Brooke is all bluff, claiming to know so many people now conveniently all dead.

He's all pomposity he really is, isn't he! But I think he honestly doesn't realise that he doesn't know anything. I think (the way I read him) it's like he honestly thinks that he must have important papers because he's a man, and he's travelled, and he's listened to lots of ideas, so therefore, type of thing.

yoked creatures Yes! Brilliant! Foreshadowing of Dorothea & Casaubon's relationship, definitely, but loads of other events and relationships as the book goes on can be read against that one little comment.

Gawd, I'd forgotten that about MM - every narrative line has something you can really dig into.

Grr, oh for an edit function on MN. Meant to say that the yoked comment can also be read against C19 ideologies as well as interpersonal relationships. Which pretty much fits the slavery model, but also gender stuff - and I use the term advisedly, because C19 expectations of what it meant to be masculine could be fairly problematic as well.

Delores see what you mean but know some people haven't read it before so trying not to do 'spoilers' which is harder than I thought; although there are whole swathes of plot I've forgotten. I suppose slavery was uppermost in my mind because not far off the 1833 act.

Which brings me to the question :

This week is 1-4

So is 4-8 next Saturday or before? @CramptonHodnet

We're reading the next 4 chapters (5-8) this week, ready for discussion from next weekend.

If anyone is reading ahead, or knows the story, can we try and keep the discussion to those four chapters, to avoid spoilers?

Dottie I know, I am also at pains to avoid spoilers! It's really hard, as I wanted to mention Lydgate, but I decided I couldn't do it comfortably (and it makes it harder that we can't delete posts on MN if we look at them with hindsight and decide they were a bit ill-judged!)

Delores It's okay I knew you meant Lydgate. His plot thread is still vivid, partly because I was more interested in him than Dorothea when I read it before. Just didn't talk about him in response because spoilers.

Crampton will do, thanks so much for organising this.