Resumo de Middlemarch - George Eliot

Middlemarch is generally considered to be Eliot's best work, and it certainly is a magnificent piece: both in terms of it size and also its quality! It is less sentimental than some of her other works, and spans an enormous social range. The size of the book and the enormous amount of detail within it can be slightly intimidating at first, but don?t let that put you off. It is an engaging tale follows the interweaving lives of the rich and poor in the small town of Middlemarch, and will reward the diligent reader with a highly entertaining read.

I have read this book several times, and this was the first one of Eliot?s books which I came into contact with, so naturally it is my favorite. Granted, it is massively complex, but with a little perseverance it is extremely enjoyable. While many of her contemporaries were focusing on the engagement and build up to a marriage, Eliot takes us into the homes of several couples to look at their trials once the glamorous, romantic honeymoon period has worn off. This makes it a far more realistic book than many others of the Victorian era.

There are several story lines; the unsuccessful marriage of Doctor Lydgate to a foolish young girl who anticipated a wealthy lifestyle and much fun and frivolity, only to be disappointed by the realities of life. This is in strong contrast to the marriage of willful interwoven Dorothea to a much older man, where Dorothea relishes the idea of the minutiae of married life, helping her husband with his work, and eschewing all thoughts of fun. However, her husband is not all what she imagined, and the strange and romantic history of his distant relation Will Ladislaw fascinates Dorothea and her family.

These are just the main threads of the novel, and there are many more, as the tales of each character's lives overlap and impact upon one another. There are secrets that must come out, and secrets that must be hidden. It is a wonderful representation of small town life in the past, and even to a modern reader, Eliot's characters still seem fresh and real - so many old writers seem incomprehensible by modern standards.

Eliot tells tales that are still largely relevant today, whilst also filling them with a great deal of the character and history of her period. Her skill in capturing the mind of the individual is such that you can really identify with all of her characters, even those who you would prefer not to like at all. A very uncritical writer, Eliot shows her characters warts and all, offered up equally for the reader to make their own judgments.

Middlemarch is a long book, which takes a fair amount of reading, especially if you are not used to the style of Victorian writers. However, it rewards the diligent reader with a fascinating, albeit slow moving, tale of love and disillusionment in a small town during the Victorian era. It is set in a backdrop of politics, which Dorothea?s uncle always manages to bring up, however, this is not really vital to the book, and one can read it quite comfortably without any understanding of the historical time period in which it is set.

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