Middlemarch

Middlemarch, written by George Eliot (nee Mary Ann Evans), was published in 1872, and is thought by some to be the greatest novel written in the English language. I wouldn't go that far--the Victorian style is too ornate for me, and there passages that go by where I realize none of what I have been reading has sunk in (this is confirmed by reading plot summaries, where I realize I have missed chunks of it). But there is plenty in this very long book that sings, as Eliot chronicles a small English town, and the follies of those that live in it.

The title refers to that town, in the Midlands, from 1830-32. There are dozens of characters, but mostly it concerns three relationships. Dorothea Brooke, an idealistic girl of 19, spurns the attention of a rich lord, Sir James Chettam, who lives in the estate next door, and marries Edward Casaubon, a minister and scholar, who is more than twice her age. Chettam calls him a "dried bookworm," but Dorothea believes in his work and her altruism. Her more material sister, Celia, is aghast at this union, but finally admits, "Dear me, Dorothea, I suppose it would be right for you to be fond of a man whom you accepted for a husband."

Meanwhile, a new doctor in town, Tertius Lydgate, something of a reformer in terms of medicine, becomes the apple of the eye of Rosamund Vincy, a beauty and the mayor's daughter. She sets her cap at him and before he really knows what happening, they are married.

Rosamund's hapless brother Fred is in love with Mary Garth, but she will not have him if he persists on going into the church as a profession. Another man, a minister named Farebrother, is also in love with her, and there's an awkward scene in which Fred, who has cost Mary's family a great deal of money by defaulting on a loan, asks Farebrother to intercede for him to win Mary.

The two marriages end up rather badly. Casaubon turns out to be a dried bookworm indeed, and a honeymoon in Rome quickly sours Dorothea on her grand aspirations. Casaubon begins to suspect that a cousin of his, Will Ladislaw, is in love with his life, and he becomes disenchanted as well. "Poor Mr. Casaubon! This suffering was the harder to bear because it seemed like a betrayal: the young creature who had worshipped him with perfect trust had quickly turned into the critical wife; and early instances of criticism and resentment had made an impression which no tenderness and submission afterwards could remove."

Lydgate soon realizes that Rosamund has imagined a far more glamorous life that he can provide for, and he goes quickly into debt. When he tries to tell her that they need to scale back, she goes behind his back and thwarts his efforts, even writing to a rich relation to borrow money. The two soon hate each other, which seems all the more sharp become Eliot had painted such a happy, spritely courtship. This may not be a book for anyone contemplating marriage.

There are many other plot threads, such as when an old miser, Featherstone, is on his deathbed. He has crafted two wills, and has asked his serving girl, Mary Garth, to get them so he can burn the one he doesn't want carried out. She refuses, though and, horrified, Featherstone dies before he can destroy the will (this unwittingly costs Fred a fortune).

There's also the story of Mr. Bulstrode, the banker, who controls the finances in town. He has a secret, and when a rascal named Raffles shows up, threatening to tell all, Bulstrode ends up indirectly killing him, and implicates Lydgate at the same time.

The novel was subtitled a "Study of Provincial Life," creates a world, and it is especially apt that the novel is named after the town, for it is front and center. Eliot does not glorify provincial life--there are sections that perhaps too closely describe the tedium of everyday life, such as the wrangling around the hiring of a curate for the new hospital. But for those who disparage the town, such as when Lydgate says, "'I have not yet been pained by finding any excessive talent in Middlemarch,'" she also points out, "But I have noticed that one always believes one's town to be more stupid than any other. I have made up my mind to take Middlemarch as it comes, and shall be obliged if the town will take me in the same way. I have certainly found some charms in it which are much greater than I had expected."

Eliot can be both mordantly funny: "He was loud, robust, and was sometimes spoken of as being 'given to indulgence'--chiefly in swearing, drinking, and beating his wife,'" and philosophical: "He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?" And then there are similes worthy of Raymond Chandler: "his rank penetrated them as if it had been an odor."

It is coincidental that I read this while also reading Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot, for Middlemarch is one of the best examples of that genre. Though two marriages come to bad ends, there is still hope in Eliot's world: "Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic--the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet memories in common."