‘Middlemarch’ is one of two very long, critically acclaimed, almost monolithic books that I have read so far this year, the other is ‘Ulysses’. Joyce’s book is famous for stretching the novel into unusual shapes and experimenting with voice and style till it becomes something grand and difficult. I would argue that ‘Middlemarch’ is actually the more experimental of the two. As much as ‘Ulysses’ plays with words and delved into incomprehensibility, it has at its core the thoughts, lives and feelings of three main characters, ‘Middlemarch’ does not.
George Elliot’s novel is primarily about how lives are shaped by the dual forces of inner-personality but more importantly by society. She talks about the ‘web’, the network of forces and influences that mould those individual personalities, knocking off their rough edges in some cases or their idealism and lust for life in others. While some characters are more prominent than others in the book, it is not long before Elliot reminds us that although they may feel the protagonist in their own lives, they are just another character, maybe even part of the setting, for another.
I think I can see why Virginia Woolf called ‘Middlemarch’ "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people,” as it hits upon a truth rarely touched on in novels, that although we are correct and vital to ourselves, we are just part of community. In real life, there are no main characters. The book follows this thesis in its manner of telling. Elliot, as an interjecting omniscient narrator (not fashionable but I love them) never lets us fully in to any of the characters or puts them centre stage for very long. Even those who live in the spotlight a little more than others are routinely shown from other character’s perspectives to reveal that their view of themselves is not in anyway the only or correct one.
This is also why I found the book tremendously enjoyable to read but also very easy to put down and not overly inviting to pick up again. As wise, well-observed, moving and often funny as the narration is, the book doesn’t allow the reader to get dragged into the events to the extent of a ‘normal’ novel. That is why ‘Ulysses’ in all its weirdness is more conventional, as it is the characters that anchor us to it, no such anchor exists (exactly) in ‘Middlemarch’.
Which is not to say there aren’t some excellent characters, there are many. Dorothea and Lydgate (the closest to protagonists) are big, idealistic souls trapped in a middling town in a middling era. We watch their good intentions and large ambitions get bruised and battered by their terrible marriages with both emerging the other end of the novel having to adapt to a smaller world. We had characters who were undeniably good like Caleb Garth and Farebrother, who both manage to do the small bits of good they can but also accept the limitations of the world they live in. Then there are characters like Rosamund Vincy and Mr Bulstrode, who keep on deluding themselves to their own importance and get brutally crushed in the process. (I also grew very weary of descriptions of her neck.)
I was particularly moved by Bulstrode’s story, entering the book as a self-righteous, puritanical figure with intimate knowledge of everyone’s finances and enough of his own to muscle his way as he liked. As the book continues, we realise that he’s been living a lie, that his initial money was obtained by fencing stolen goods. We like him even less. This dislike is particularly strong when he argues his previous criminal life away by claiming to himself he’s done it all to obtain power that he can use to further God’s kingdom, seeing his actions as Divine providence. Our opinion on him is brought to its lowest when he obfuscates with the life of the man who knows his secrets and lets him (causes him?) to die. However, when the town turns against him and he has to face his own lies, our sympathies are quickly engaged. The moment he silently confesses to his wife and she silently accepts him is one of the most moving in the book.
Probably the most likeable character in the book was Mary Garth. Described as someone you wouldn’t notice in the street, she has a self-possession and enjoyment of her own thoughts that had me rooting for her in her wisdom. “Having early had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment or annoyance at that fate.”
It’s not the characters or the plot that particularly hold this book though, it’s the narrative voice. There is wisdom, there are sharp barbs and ironic asides, there are all sorts of arresting and thought provoking ideas and notions. While I wasn’t swept away by the book, I did find it a rare, bold and provoking novel.
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