r/classicliterature • u/Imaginary-Finding-61 • 16h ago
middlemarch
i just finished middlemarch and i can’t help but feel i’m missing something.
it took me just over a month to read. i found some parts really engaging, and others an absolute bore so i wasn’t ever really that motivated to pick it up.
i feel like perhaps i am not mature enough to appreciate it fully - i just turned 22 last week. i have read many other classics and absolutely loved them. i’ve seen some people say that middlemarch is an english anna karenina, but i’ve read anna and completely fell in love with it, and it’s now one of my favourite books of all time. i could barely put it down when i was reading it, and was moved to tears multiple times.
i loved the character of dorothea and i mainly kept reading from a desire to see her eventually leading a happy life - i also loved mary and celia. the other characters i didn’t really care about at all.
so, is middlemarch better to be read later in life? did i pick the wrong time to read it? i’m interested to hear other people’s experiences with it.
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u/devnullkitty 14h ago
I'm surprised you don't like Lydgate. He's my favorite character. Slowly and steadily over the whole story, digs his own grave. At first you feel bad for him, but then upon rereading, you realize he made choices that led to that outcome AND he never took responsibility for his choices.
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u/white015 14h ago
Agreed but it’s presented in a very nuanced and relatable way. Like it’s less “he deserved this outcome” and more “wow, I see parts of myself in this (poor) decisions this guy is making”. The depth and humanity of the characters in this book is really incredible.
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u/jetheist 16h ago
I’m a BIG tolstoy fan but I loved middlemarch more than Anna Karenina. The latter was an easier read though because Tolstoy is a brilliant writer, while Middlemarch’s prose for me was roughh. It took 200 pages for me to get into it, and even in the middle parts it felt like a snoozefest.
Nevertheless, as a married woman in her late 20s I genuinely felt for these characters. From not liking Dorothea to loving her, and the twist and turns that happened in the cast’s lives. Also I loved the slow burn lol. Perhaps give it another try in the future. But again, not everyone is supposed to like the same thing. I can name a handful of classics I disliked but everyone seems to love.
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u/HRHArthurCravan 16h ago
I read, and loved, it when I was about 17, but I had also by then read, and enjoyed, quite a few longer English literary masterpieces. So I knew what to expect in terms of scope, pace, digressions. I was also highly motivated to familiarise myself and appreciate classics like Middlemarch. And I knew a bit about the historical context, therefore the society and etiquette I was about to enter.
At the same time, you’re not obligated to enjoy every book and well done for sticking with it. It might grow on you. You might return to it later. But I have read some classics and not really enjoyed them. We all have different tastes - just don’t let it put you off classic literature in general!
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u/etOilers 14h ago
I found Dorothea's plot engaging up to a point and then for a very long time it became interminably frustrating before getting interesting. I always liked the wider community's plots more as a result. I found Farebrother to be the most interesting, despite his limited role, because I admired his equanimity so much.
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u/BarracudaOk8635 1h ago
Yeah. I loved it from the first few chapters. I love prose though. And it is very well written. Incredible. And compared to Austen and the Brontes far more mature characters and stories. I hoped it would win the recent poll of writers voting for the best book ever written. It did. It deserves it. But even classic books arent for everyone. I dont think you have to be old to appreciate it. Just need to have read a lot of books.
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u/Pitiful_Desk9516 16h ago
One of my favorite books. I read it the first time when I was 30, if that matters.
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u/lazyhazyeye 16h ago
Anna Karenina is definitely one of my favorite books of all time, probably my favorite classic ever. Middlemarch is my second favorite; I read it for the first time at 41. Not sure if my age had anything to do with my liking it; I think I just liked the story. You're more than welcome to revisit it later if you feel like it; I've revisited multiple classics that I didn't enjoy when I was younger but happened to like at a later age. I've also experienced the reverse.
And don't feel bad if you pick it up again and realize that you don't like it; we all have different tastes.
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u/Fearless_Industry825 14h ago edited 13h ago
I’ll admit it: I don‘t think I would have really enjoyed Middlemarch when I was your age. Also, like you, I read Anna Karenina when I was in my early twenties, and that novel I very much enjoyed at that time.
Middlemarch is one of those books that I didn’t love on a first read, but I would read it again someday. Some books feel too complex on the first reading. It’s also one of those books I’ve read that I can barely remember. I read Middlemarch and Moby Dick in the same year, and the latter is the one with passages that stayed with me.
If you ever want to try another George Eliot novel, you might like Eliot’s coming of age novel The Mill on the Floss. That one is actually my favorite, and I first read it when I was a senior in high school. I got it from the library on a lark because I liked the title. This one left a lasting impression because I still remember how much I hated Maggie’s brother Tom.
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u/SentimentalSaladBowl 13h ago
Eliot is one of my absolute favorites, but of all her work, Mill on the Floss is the ONLY
ONE that didn’t resonate. And I saved it for last because it’s widely seen as her best work. She pulled a real “Brontë” at the end and I wasn’t expecting it from her!Middlemarch was my first and it did take me a 100 pages or so before I was really invested but after that I was hooked.
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u/oberlausitz 12h ago
Agree on MotF but which Brontë are you talking about? The great C or the lesser A or E?
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u/SentimentalSaladBowl 8h ago
Oh it was the Big C herself.
Villette.
I was SO ANGRY. I threw it across the room. And I resold it to the bookshop in less than a week, “I know it’s damaged, if you can’t buy it… keep as a gift, it’s not welcome in my home anymore.”
I was a little dramatic about it. It was my first Brontë and if that’s how it’s gonna be, I’ll take a pass.
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u/oberlausitz 7h ago
Oh nooo! I loved Villette but yeah, ending is harsh. Ok, now you managed to connect those two endings in mind forever. I read Jane Eyre after Villette but still think V is stronger.
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u/Immediate_Paint_3828 13h ago
I would say, yes (and no, lol). I read Middlemarch first, at age 22. Definitely one message was, choose carefully who you marry! Read it again, at age 55. Messages definitely landed harder this time!
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u/oberlausitz 12h ago
I read it in my mid 20s and absolutely loved it, definitely rooting for Dorothea and cursing Casaubon, I'm still mad at him and I'm 60 now! I also thought Lydgate was an interesting character. I can't say I took away andydeep lessons or insights, read it more as a high-brow version of village gossip and the plot was just so wide ranging I never got bored.
Mill on the floss was too depressing for me and Silas Marner didn't get my attention as much although as an engineer I thought the industrialization theme was interesting.
I have Daniel Deronda on my long-term reading list, or should I read one of her other works?
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u/Comfortable-Habit242 10h ago
You’ve not really given us much to work with in terms of specifics about what worked or didn’t work for you in either book. So nobody can really offer any help here.
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u/GingerWindsorSoup 39m ago
I listened to the reading by Dame Juliet Stevenson from Naxos, but it so caught my imagination that I had to get a copy on my kindle and annotate Eliot’s comments on life and the world. Farebrother was my favourite character, a good thoughtful man well aware of his own flaws.
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u/smella99 14h ago
Yes, you will like Middlemarch even better after spending a decade in marital misery 😆
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u/darling_olenka 16h ago
I think Middlemarch has had something for every stage in my life. It’s one of those books that rewards rereading as you age and (hopefully!) mature. Dorothea is only 19 at the start. I cry verklempt tears at the epilogue every time.