The author Rebecca Mead talking about Mary Ann (George Eliot) in her teens was my connection point of the story. I remembered the way I was when I was a teenager although, this was not that many years ago, I was floating on clouds thinking I had more knowledge than all the adults. Most days, I felt as if it was my way or the highway, no one was going to tell me I was wrong. Gordon S. Haight criticism of Mary Ann’s letters before 1842 was harsh, I am sure that if we all sat down one day and read some of the letters we had written we would all be questioning ourselves. We would say how naive and innocent we were about the world and how lacking in knowledged we were to have said these things.

The teenage years are all about exploring and finding ourselves. Some of us rebel because that was what we needed to get our parents attention or because we needed to explore the possibilities. Some did not rebel because we felt what would be the point, especially when you understood where your parents were coming from. At the same time, it was all about finding our voices, our personality and who we wanted to be when we could make our decisions. To this day, although I am in my early twenties I still do not know who I am and where life will take me. I am living by thinking about the pros and cons of each action and decision that I make. With this said, could we see ourselves in Mary Ann’s time period where it was so limited for a woman to get an education, for a woman to struggle to even have a voice. I do not know about you, but I might cry, feeling the frustration of it all, knowing that I want better for myself while society is denying me this possibility.

Books are always amazing, from the time you were little to the time you grow old, books are the one constant companion you can count on. As you age, the genre of books you like change base off of your experience and the knowledge you gain. At the end of the day, books were there to enlighten our imaginations from the time we were you and gave us wings to fly when we got older. There is that one English teacher that really loves us and would encourage us to read would always say that books can take you anywhere you want to go and I found that to be true.

Rebecca Mead’s My Life in Middlemarch helped me see that you can find that one book or that one author’s story that speaks to you and how it can forever change your life. It’s almost a parallel of your life, e.g. in the beginning of the book, Mead talks about how her cover of the MiddleMarch book she received had a scene that looked like a part of the countryside in which she resides. That to me is a moment in which you feel as if the scene described in the book just jumped right off the pages and came to life.

Keulesia Webley-Sewell  

I want[ed] to go back to being a reader (p 9), declares Rebecca Mead, after her career in journalism. This is how I feel, now, after a stimulating summer season of exploring, discussing, and sharing our writings on Middlemarch. Challenged to produce an essay after each book, I appreciate those of you who responded to my efforts! This ninth article is the hardest to initiate, perhaps because I was missing more of George Eliot’s narrative, and I found Mead’s approach tedious. Too many threads of new information of hers and George Eliot’s lives; I had a hard time staying with her theme to link their experiences to the characters in the novel. Nonetheless, I am impressed that Mead has read Middlemarch so often, through various life stages. Her persistence and curiosity to discover what influenced and motivated Eliot to imagine a life of innovative realistic fiction has given me pause to consider my own recollections and their connection to why I favor certain characters.

As a serious, though naïve, freshman at Hollins in 1969, I was interested in learning. Thankfully, my mind was open to whatever education flung my way, although, in retrospect, I give more credit to the professor than to my zeal. I took a chance and signed up for a course on the Old Testament, taught by chaplain Alvord Beardslee, after my preferred course, psychology, was filled. Similar to when Lydgate opened a book on Anatomy, and his life was changed in an instant (p 52), so was mine when Mr. Beardslee pointed my spirit toward another way of being, and reflecting. His intellectual and religious viewpoints challenged my childhood preconceptions. As Dorothea was an earnest, unconventional heroine, like her author (p 13-4), I, too, was attracted to a more unusual path. I majored in religion, and chose to spend my junior year at St Mary’s Divinity School in St Andrew’s University, Scotland. Ironically, during my time there, I acted more like Rosamund and Celia, deciding to enjoy the attentions of handsome and interesting men. But, stirring beneath the fun, was my deep yearning for a meaningful life (p 21), like so many of Eliot’s characters who sought fulfillment via relationship and/or vocation. I pursued a nursing career after Hollins, longing to alleviate the suffering of others (p 18)… no surprise that Dorothea’s, Lydgate’s, and Mrs. Bulstrode’s situations spoke to my own consciousness about how compassion, in varying degrees, is experienced.

Religion was never mentioned in Middlemarch, and Mead touched on this. I admired both Eliot’s genuine love for her father, and her candid admission in a letter to him regarding her resistance to his Christian faith. This notion- that we each have our own center of gravity, but must come to discover that others weigh the world differently than we do- is one that is constantly repeated in the book. The necessity of growing out of such self-centeredness is the theme of Middlemarch (p 159). Eliot told her story from the perspective of many characters, so that we, her readers, could release our arrogance in order to appreciate the notion of sympathy (p 158). Thank you, George Eliot, for helping me accept Mr. Casaubon and Rosamund. I think I was more drawn to them, instead of Raffles, because of the esteem I felt for their spouses.

Virginia Woolf’s now familiar observation that Middlemarch is appropriate for “grown-up people” (p 47) continued to intrigue me. How have I ‘grown up’ since Hollins, and does this mean I enjoyed Middlemarch more than I would have 40 years ago? My ‘soul’ is still recognizable to me, my emotions are heartfelt, and I strive to share empathy. I recognize the characters of Dorothea and Lydgate; but, thanks to Rebecca Mead’s research (p 164), I also acknowledge Mr. Casaubon’s dread of failure and, even, his caution with those close to him. Eliot’s style of probing our psychological depths appealed to my questioning nature. WHO are we…and WHY are we this way? In my 50s, this yearning I had for something more, turned into learning, as Mead describes Eliot (p 41). Living in a medieval town in England for 10 years, allowed me an opportunity to study to become a guide in St Albans Abbey. My peers were retired history professors, architects, civil servants; all of them educated in the English system. I learned through error, practice, and strong support from the group of 100(!), to become passionate about sharing this unique abbey with the public. My spiritual motivation drove me, keeping me sane in demanding situations (like presenting a lucid explanation of the Abbey’s historical, artistic, liturgical space to large groups). And I was reminded, when Mead explained her thrill at handling Eliot’s manuscripts (p 200), of my work transcribing 18/19^th century vestry minutes. I inhabited that era for several years as I labored to understand and communicate that part of Abbey history.

A book may not tell us exactly how to live our own lives, but our own lives can teach us how to read a book (p 110). As I continue to ‘grow-up’, exploring my desire for an intellectual life, along with a passion to understand compassion and sympathy- the ethical precepts that Eliot believed were worth salvaging from the Christianity she had rejected ( p 224), I realize that life is not ideal, but it is satisfying; without many regrets, I am grateful.

Tudy Hill

You know how you will write in a diary how your life sucks and nothing great will ever happen. You can think you are the most boring person and you’re destined to live the same lives as your parents, because that is what you were told to do. You are never going to be the next Jane Austen, J.K. Rowling or George Elliot for that matter. You are going to be living in a rat infested apartment wishing you had published your boring life to inspire some person half way around the world to not be you. Rebecca Mead may have thought like that. Instead of moping about it she got a decent education and dedicated her life to finding out everything she could about her hero. George Elliot.

After reading both books I see why we had to read this one last. We would have been totally lost had we read it first. We wouldn’t know anything and it would have kind of weird. We wouldn’t have known any of the characters or their relationships with any one. We also wouldn’t have known where Elliot got the idea to write the book. Mead also shows a new side to the book that you can’t really get to know unless you know the history.

Mead showed us how she fell in love with Middlemarch and had to know more about it. She shows us how Elliot took people from normal everyday life that she knew changed their name and maybe gave them a bit more personality and made them more provincial. Elliot wrote a book that turned into eight installments through out her life. Mead also shows us why Middlemarch is “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people,”

Eliot also seemed to make herself the main female character whoever you may think that is in her book. Whether you think it is Rosamond, Celia, Mary, or Dorothea you can probably find a little of George Elliot in some aspect of the female characters in Middlemarch. She also told us where Mary Ann Evans got her pen name that she is best known for. She actually got the name from a married man that she was in love with and who she was living with. She also had to use a male’s name to be taken seriously in a misogynistic world of Victorian England where women were suppose to be supported by a man and just have kids.

Eliot was apparently a forward thinker as shown in Middlemarch and Meade tells us. She apparently lived on her own and supported herself by writing Middlemarch. Eliot also was given an excellent education and seemed to always be reading. That was probably the reason she decided to become an author. She was already an editor and her own editor loved her work and was one of the few people who actually knew who George Eliot really was.

Mead probably felt the book was written for adults, because what kind of teenager even back then, would go through half of the stuff the characters went through. Adults loose their spouses more often than young girls. They get thrown into debt without actually thinking of the consequences. It also takes some maturity to see how greedy some relatives and other people can be. It is hard to see when people show their true colors after a relative dies or is close to death. Mead tells the entire life of George Elliot in a few hundred pages. No every famous person stories has to be long or glamorous just look at what Mead had to say about Eliot.

Julia Rogan

During my reading of Middlemarch, I found myself hating many of the characters. It took multiple readings and days of meditation before I was willing to forgive some of the characters and try to understand their motivation. I was really jealous of several of the other Middlemarch bloggers because they seemed to understand the characters in ways I could not. Reading My Life in Middlemarch invoked a similar feeling within me. Rebecca Mead understood the characters on a level that transcended my own understanding. Mead’s explanations of each character highlighted their progress as people, not just as characters, and allowed me empathize more easily with characters that I hated.

Dorothea really bothered me throughout most of Middlemarch. I found her cerebral and charitable nature very annoying. I could not understand the impact of living in a town like Middlemarch, to be in the country with very little society or experience, having an intimate knowledge of your immediate surroundings but only a vague concept of life outside of your confines. Mead combats this beautifully when she speaks about her own journey to get out of her small English town and head off to university. Dorothea had a mix of arrogance and charity, a final spark of youthful innocence and optimism that I don’t really see in people her age (and im 20), and when I do, I run the other way. Mixing Dorothea’s story with her own allowed Mead to mire Dorothea in reality a bit more and helped me appreciate where Dorothea was coming from.

This illumination didn’t stop with Dorothea. Mead uses her personal journey and her years of experience and personality change to comment on how the reader’s relationship with the characters is a constant evolution. The young teenager Mead delighted in Dorothea where the older reader found solace for failed ambition with Lydgate and later with Celia. Mead also talked about Elliot’s personal evolution and how her growth showed up in her characters. There was something immensely special about understanding the change from idealistic Elliot to rebel (living with a married man) to mother. George Elliot became a person, much like her characters, though this reading. It is so easy to abandon the story of the author as the author gets lost among her creation. By breathing life into Elliot, several characters where explained.

Mead illuminated Middlemarch for me, making me tempted to go back and re-read it for myself and catch more of the subtle character changes. I think I will wait five years until I walk back into Middlemarch. Maybe I’ll finally have patience for Dorothea. Maybe I’ll not want to slap Rosamond. Maybe I’ll find my way back to these blog posts and be embarrassed by my lack of empathy. I can be certain that this book with still resonate with me, characters will find paramours in my real life, and my perception will most assuredly have evolved. Middlemarch is a personal journey, with each character representing different stages of life and understanding. And like any good home town, I know they will be waiting to welcome me home.

– Valerie Harrison

There is so much information available in My Life in Middlemarch that is overwhelming.  The background, history of Eliot’s life and how it intertwined with the author was quite interesting.  It appears that in most cases, Rebecca Mead could identify with each of the characters at one or more points in her personal life journey.

But, what is very interesting are Mead’s story telling abilities for Ms. Mary Ann Evans.  Wild in her thoughts and actions, Mary Ann is truly an innovative woman.  She openly defied the confines of organized religion, set up house and openly lived as a husband and wife with a married man, was prosperous and a smart business woman in regards to her publications.   It surprises me in many ways is that during my educational years, George Eliot was not heralded as such a brave and unique woman.  The actions that Mary Ann Evans took were not in the norm and while it appears by Mead’s historical references Evans was not applauded but I did not gather that she had been ostracized as a person as much as maybe the Bulstrod’s.

But, in that same respect, through Meade we find evidence of Eliot’s life mimicked in Middlemarch in the same way that we can identify with the story in our personal lives the same that Meade does.  For example, in Eliot’s early life – she is much like Celia – seeing the world and rational as a young adult.  Celia was Dorothea’s balance and I also find Eliot like Dorothea – loving and devoted to the older gentleman and giving a great portion of her being to Thornie just as Dorothea did with Casaubon.  Eliot was chastised by many just as the Bulstrod’s and made positive impressions on the lives of others just as Mary and Fred.  I also found interesting the similarities in the idea of what some of us wished – if Dorothea and Lydgate would have come together.  I wondered if maybe their relationship would be similar and comfortable like Eliot and Lewes was.  When Eliot would be writing and Lewes would be “examining specimens under his microscope” (Mead pg. 249).  There is so many similarities between the author presented to us by Mead that an entire paper is possible to compile, but that is not my aim.

I find it ironic that Middlemarch is still so relevant.  Many of the same situations and busy body tendencies are still present in today’s times.  It makes me wonder if human kind has evolved at all with respect to social relationships.  We deal with gossip, snotty and snide people, those who have self-absorbed ideas who pleasure in shutting down the others around them.  I can pick out the Rosamund’s in my neighborhood.  These are the “keeping up with the Jone’s” type of people, usually as spouse who is jealous of others or wants to make the impression that they are successful when they are barely getting by.  I also know who the Bulstrod’s are and that I feel for them more because of reading Middlemarch.  I recognized immediately the gossip mongers in my neighborhood:  which is ironic as it is a group of men who walk their dogs together every morning instead of the town’s women gathering for tea in the shop down the street.  The neighbors around the corner from me is the Mary and Fred couple of the area.  You just go past their house and with the kids playing in the yard under Mom and Dad’s watchful eye and feel the love ooze from their home.

As for myself, I have yet to identify exactly who I most resemble.  In many ways, I feel as though I am much like Mead where different parts of my life can place me in different characters as times pass.  Overall, while I appreciated the in-depth analysis of all the characters in Mead’s book, I found the historical references more intriguing.  As a person who always prefers real or historical non-fiction as a general read the presentation that Mead gives us is so conversational I was surprised when it was finished opposed to when Eliot’s was completed I was relieved.  All being said, Mead has piqued my interest to go seek out and read (when I get some free time HA!) The Mill on the Floss.

In her book, My Life at Middlemarch, author Rebecca Mead manages to capture the many unarticulated feelings impressed upon me when I read George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Mead’s book illuminates the life of George Eliot and how she came to write her epic piece of work, including personal insights from the Mead’s own life and impressions of the novel in a beautiful convergence of past and present.

Rebecca Mead focuses on the idea that while certain books have to power to change us as readers, these books also grow with us as we mature. Just like you can never step in the same river twice, Mead asserts that you can never read the same story twice; both the reader and the text are transformed by time and the events that have passed with it. While I felt like Mead spent a great deal of time discussing the details of Eliot’s life, it gave me a different perspective into the lives of the characters of Middlemarch. I could see a little bit of Eliot in all of the residents of that little imaginary town as well as those who were dear to her, after spending most of the novel seeking out incarnations of myself and those I know as the various townspeople.

One focus of the book that I found slightly disconcerting was the focus on Eliot’s physical appearance. I do not think that Mead was wrong for including this information, but this focus felt heavy-handed at times. In spite of my reservations, I admit that, especially for women, one’s physical appearance affects the outcome of one’s life in small or large ways. It is inescapable; you cannot run away from your own face. Perhaps my discomfort came from the fact that while I do not style myself as a “great beauty”, I do not feel burdened by a particularly homely appearance. I did wonder if Mary Garth was made to be exceptionally plain in tribute to her creator, and I felt gratified when Mead all but confirmed the connection between the two.

Perhaps my favorite discovery in reading My Life in Middlemarch was Eliot’s departure from organized religion. I was impressed with the presentation of morality in Middlemarch, and took pleasure in learning that such a tone and outlook was provided by someone who could be considered a secular humanist. As someone who has departed from her own branch of faith but not her morals, I felt at home with Eliot’s brand of ethics.

As a whole, Rebecca Mead’s companion book to Middlemarch felt like a perfect wrap-up to Eliot’s novel. While certain aspects felt repetitive or self-gratifying, the work expanded my understanding and my appreciation for Middlemarch. I cannot help but look forward to my second reading of the novel, wondering whether book will change me, and how it will change with me throughout the years.

Emily Fleischhauer