Fiction offers me diversion and insight into our human journeys. I was initially attracted to this blog by Virginia Woolf’s quote about Middlemarch, as one of the few English novels written for grown-up people. I am curious what she means, and Woolf is an author whom my older daughter chose for her masters thesis. I liked Martha’s link with Moby Dick, which I have not read since AP English class in high school (late 1960s). Both books appear overly long and potentially arduous, but I recall my surprise at being attracted to an intellectual challenge. I look forward to sharing with you all, thanks to George Eliot’s wit and talent, another stealthy convergence of human lots (p 95), as we ponder Miss Brooke and friends over the summer.
What first caught my attention in Book 1? Authentic characters, with whom I could immediately relate! I count myself, along with St Theresa and Miss Brooke, an ardently willing soul (p. 3). As a 20 year old, I was naïve, idealistic, and drawn to morality; so I understand Dorthea’s passion to improve herself through knowledge and charitable action. But she is not always consistent (p 14).
Why does Dorothea sacrifice human emotion for what she imagines to be of more value, like building cottages, or choosing to marry an oracle (p 90), Mrs Cadwallader’s candid assessment of Mr Causabon? Is her life so uneventful and unimportant that individual fulfillment can be attained only by assisting this older man to organize his copious notes? Exposed to a toy box history of the world (p86), Dorothea longs for a teacher to satisfy her yearning to be a scholar (p 87). Celia empathizes with her sister’s rationale, but counters such pious sense of duty with clear judgment.
Celia’s pet name for Dorothea, Dodo, reveals an undercurrent of jest and irony. Despite the elder Miss Brooke’s earnest mind-set, who can take her seriously when she admits that fondness… is not the right word for the feeling I must have towards the man I would accept as a husband (p. 36). Nor can I understand her plan to marry someone so undemonstrative and full of moles and sallowness. At this point I moved from character- identity to a fascination in the author’s ability to amuse and have fun with her characters!
Mr Causabon’s response to his engagement is also worrisome… a hindrance to his great work (p63); he lays blame on Dorothea for his own want of male ardor; and he is weary (p 85). No surprise at Eliot’s description of his house: melancholy, in autumnal decline, exuding formal tenderness (p73-5). Through a lover’s eyes, Dodo sees only her deficiencies (p 75), not the fading soul of her intended. Several days later, she notices a sense of aloofness (p 88) in Mr C that alarms, but, once more, shuns her instinct.
As Dorothea and Mr C abruptly exit the story, Eliot introduces a whiff of fresh air with the entrance of Lydgate, Rosamund, and Fred Vincy. Animated (p 91)candor replaces pitiable acquiescence, and my spirits lifted… except for the poignant detail that Dorothea and Lydgate might have shared a zeal for reform.
Tudy Hill