-
Heh. At school, my English Literature class was given Mill on the Floss as part of one year's reading schedule and rose up unanimously in revolt. We knew the teacher had a range of books to choose from and that book was so roundly hated by the entire class that she had to choose a different book just to progress.
It can be an effort to get teenagers to read literature from that era; the styles mostly seem very twee compared to 20th/21st century prose. I've read other Eliot books since, including Middlemarch, and from this perspective I'd say I find Mill on the Floss uniquely vomit inducing and the class might well have done better with a different choice from her works.
Middlemarch I can and do read today, despite the fact that some chapters start with six pages of flowery exposition before anything happens.
-
I read Middlemarch a couple of years ago and loved it much more than I was expecting to, and probably more than anything I've read. For a book about some people in a provincial English town getting married, it is amazingly involving, I think because she explores the inner lives of the characters in so much detail and with such empathy.
You are reading a single comment by @tbc and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
itsbruce
bootbonnet
@tbc
I'm reading Middlemarch after hearing a few conversations about it at work (I love working somewhere where I can chat about the Euros and cycling but also about Middlemarch).
It's a huge achievement - George Eliot was superbly well read and the characters are so well observed. It's a giant book but it doesn't feel like a chore at all, I was quite disappointed to reach my tube stop this morning in the middle of a tempestuous political rally.