Middlemarch - are you reading/have you read it?

[BIWI]

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?

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...

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

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 🤗

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.

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?).

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!

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

I really want to read it. I am halfway through Silas Marner at the moment, which is absolutely wonderful.

Just to flag there's an adaptation available on iPlayer

I read it years ago when I was in my early 20s, should probably reread it now I'm older. The adaptation on iplayer is excellent, think it was Andrew Davies first big hit.

I read it twice. There's a long section about medicine in the middle that I didn't find interesting. Otherwise I liked it.

I'm the same with anything audio. I need to be doing something undemanding with my hands, eg washing up, then I can listen without my mind wandering off, or even falling asleep.

I lived it as a teenager but was less keen later. What struck me as an adult was how clearly autistic Dorothea was!

I'm listening to it. 11 hours left and I see why it's one of the GOATs. The language and the insight she had into the psychological states of her characters, wow. The version I have is narrated by Maureen O'Brien. I'm at the part where Dorothea and Casaubon are back home from Rome and she's both becoming self aware and realising her marriage was a big mistake.

Have just finished listening to the audio version - having dipped in and out of it in the past but never read it all the way through. I absolutely loved it. Can see why it was voted favourite novel. I thought she was fair to all of her characters - although she seems to struggle with Celia! Made me want to read a biography of George Eliot as I only know bits and pieces about her.
Yes, I did think Dorothea (and particularly Casaubon) showed ND traits.

It’s the book that got me out of the wilderness years of reading only for or with the children.
The first 300 pages are very dry, but that only makes the scandal and horror more shocking.
I liked the character arc of the young doctor (name?) . How to ruin a promising young man with an unsuitable marriage.

I'm realising, as I'm reading, just how little I understand some of the contextual/cultural references. If I don't get them now I clearly had absolutely no clue when I was doing it for A-level.

But on the Reader's Best Books list, Middlemarch still camed 2nd! So real people do honestly love and appreciate it.

I've read it twice and (except for the dull medical stuff as per PP) I think it's superb. I love how Eliot pokes a bit of fun at Dorothea's crusading spirit while also loving her for it.

I've read books that are more exciting or more fun but I've never read anything that was better.

I also read it for A-level (a long time ago!) and loved it. It helped that I was also doing A-level history and was mad about the Victorian era - it’s hands-down my favourite period and I went on to do a history degree, so I feel I've partly got George Eliot to thank for that!

I've never re-read it, though, and I must.

(BTW I can’t do audiobooks either. It’s print all the way for me)

@OttersOnAPlane

But on the Reader's Best Books list, Middlemarch still camed 2nd! So real people do honestly love and appreciate it.

I know! It was Lord of The Rings (LOTR) I was commenting on.