![]() ![]() ![]() Why didn’t her characters seem to be going anywhere? Nobody suffered in workhouses, nobody was a filthy-rich business-owner. ![]() So, I couldn’t understand why Eliot was telling such ‘boring’ stories. There was mass pursuit of progress technological, intellectual, and moral, at the expense of human life. The wealthy were inventing and producing at the speed of light, whilst the working classes lived in abject poverty. I knew that, in 1871 (and in the 1830s, when Middlemarch is set), the UK was in the thick of the Industrial Revolution. Characters get engaged, married, deal with financial problems, and sometimes simply go about their lives like ensemble members, watching slightly more interesting things happen to their neighbours. The novel has no clear protagonist, Eliot switches the focus between various characters: A young woman with dreams of helping the poor a doctor with ambitions of becoming celebrated in his field a middle-aged banker, protective of his wealth a reverend who delights in the study of nature. Middlemarch was written and published in 1871, by George Eliot (real name: Mary Ann Evans), and it’s now one of my favourite books. ![]() If this doesn’t sound like a promising review, please hear me out… Have you ever ploughed your way through a book, struggling with its length, unsure of the author’s point, and desperately wishing something exciting would happen? Me too. Review by Megan (English Language and Literature) ![]()
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