And so we embark on Middlemarch, a brick-sized book which has daunted me over the years and which is one of those books—like Moby Dick, if we’re being honest—which I’ve spoken of in a whisper, ashamed that I haven’t yet read them. Reading Book 1, I’ve been surprised and completely engrossed in a world of well-drawn, fully realized characters, immediately distinguishable from each other by their habits, perspectives, and reactions, as well as their physical and verbal tics. (Mr Brooke’s “you know” and Celia’s staccato observations are particularly distinctive and pleasing.)
From the first page, the Brooke family’s financial and social situation is described keenly: “…the Brooke connections, though not exactly aristocratic, were unquestionably ‘good’: if you inquired backward for a generation or two, you would not find any yard-measuring or parcel-tying forefathers…” (7) We learn that the older sister Dorothea is a “young lady of some birth and fortune, who knelt suddenly down on a brick floor by the side of a sick labourer and prayed fervidly as if she thought herself living in the time of the Apostles—who had strange whims of fasting like a Papist, and of sitting up at night to read old theological books!…a man would naturally think twice before he risked himself in such fellowship.” (9) Yet, we learn, “those who approached Dorothea, though prejudiced against her by this alarming hearsay, found that she had a charm unaccountably reconcilable with it.” (9)
One article I encountered quoted Harold Bloom’s declaration that George Eliot was the only “major novelist, before or since, whose overt moralizings constitute an aesthetic virtue rather than a disaster.” I do think there’s some way Eliot is using empathy and morality as a kind of pattern integral to the aesthetic value of the story, but this is one of those thoughts I’m going to hold onto as I read deeper into the book. Bloom’s observation initially resonated with me because I was so surprised at the way Eliot uses “overt-moralizings” not as a means to an end in a fundamentally moralizing story, but to create flawed, complicated characters. I’m invested in these characters’ worldviews, beliefs, and opinions, however short-sighted, wrong-headed, or naïve they may be.
Two of the great tools Eliot is using alongside this overt moralizing are humor and the occasionally intrusive narrator. There is a wry, quick-witted funniness here, not just in the characters and their observations, but in the way the narrator sees these characters and the situations they find themselves in. One-liners abound. (e.g., “Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.” (9)) One of my favorite scenes came when James Chettem presents Dorothea with a maltese puppy : “’It is painful for me to see these creatures that are bred merely as pets,’ said Dorothea, whose opinion was forming itself that very moment (as opinions will) under the heat of irritation.” (30)
This is perhaps a good example of how Eliot’s use of “overt-moralizings” has so far subverted my expectations. I understand that I’m not expected to necessarily support Dorothea’s beliefs or agree with her. But I somehow end up loving her for her opinions, for the youthful passion of her beliefs, even when they’re made up on the spot, even when they center on an innocent puppy.
–Martha Park