Middlemarch, George Eliot

Last month I bought a Nook, and here is a reason I really like it; it allowed me to read Middlemarch on the bus and subway, which I couldn't do before, because it's 900 pages long. (And when I finished Middlemarch I had another book I could start reading.)

It took me 200 pages to get into Middlemarch and start being interested in the interwoven stories, and then I enjoyed seeing how all the different relationships played out before and after marriage. Dorothea grew on me tremendously, Fred worried me, I wanted to slap Rosamond so badly. It's really, really interesting the way some of the marriages fall apart and Eliot does an amazing job of describing that feeling you get when you're trapped with someone and trying to be solicitous and the kinder you are the angrier it makes the other person, and why that cycle of frustration is so hard to escape. I was mildly disappointed that after some amazing depictions of all the ways falling in love doesn't necessarily bring happiness there's an afterword that gives everyone an easy happily ever after (mostly) but I was also impressed that Eliot managed to wrap everything up at all.

Grade: B

Originally posted 2010