Tag: 19th century

Readalong: Middlemarch by George Eliot

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I have had two previous attempts at reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch but both times abandoned the book after a few chapters. When I saw that Nymeth was planning a readalong this summer, I thought this might give me the motivation to persevere and actually finish the book. I think part of the problem with my past attempts was that I found the book so long and slow-moving it didn’t hold my attention and I ended up being tempted by other books on my shelf. This time round I decided to do things differently. I started reading the book at the end of June alongside other books (something I don’t usually do – I prefer to concentrate on one book at a time) and worked slowly through it, interspersing it with an occasional shorter book. As it turned out, this was the perfect way for me to read Middlemarch, as it meant I could take my time and give it the attention it deserved. And this is a book that really benefits from being read slowly.

The plot is so layered, every sentence filled with so much meaning, that I’m sure there are a lot of things that I’ve missed and will have to pick up on a subsequent reading. It certainly is a book that you need to concentrate on. There are so many characters, who all seem to be related by marriage in some way, that I had to make notes as I was reading and would never have kept all the characters straight otherwise.  I highly recommend you do the same as I found my amateurish family trees became invaluable as I progressed through the book!

So what is Middlemarch about? Well, even after finishing the book I don’t really know how to describe the plot.  Middlemarch is the story, not just of one or two people, but of an entire town and its inhabitants. It portrays the atmosphere of life in a small community where everybody knows everybody else’s business and most people’s biggest concern is what their neighbours will think of them. The relationships and interactions between the characters are wonderfully complex and Eliot cleverly weaves their storylines together, so that the actions of one person may have unforeseen consequences on the life of another.

The prologue certainly seems to refer to Dorothea Brooke and at first it appears that the book is going to be about Dorothea and her marriage to the dry and scholarly Edward Casaubon.  Dorothea is an intelligent, sincere, idealistic girl who despite the warnings of her friends and family becomes determined to marry Mr Casaubon, insisting that he has a “great soul” and that nothing will give her greater happiness in life than assisting him with his studies.

“In this latter end of autumn, with a sparse remnant of yellow leaves falling slowly athwart the dark evergreens in a stillness without sunshine, the house too had an air of autumnal decline, and Mr. Casaubon, when he presented himself, had no bloom that could be thrown into relief by that background.”

Just as we’re becoming absorbed in her story, however, Dorothea disappears for several chapters and we are introduced to some new characters.  The first is a newcomer to Middlemarch: Tertius Lydgate, a young doctor with some new and radical ideas.  Soon after his arrival, Lydgate enters into a relationship with Rosamond Vincy, which proves to be just as difficult and disappointing as Dorothea’s marriage to Mr Casaubon.

“Lydgate could only say, “Poor, poor darling!” – but he secretly wondered over the terrible tenacity of this mild creature. There was gathering within him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond. His superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he had imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set aside on every practical question.”

We also follow Rosamond’s brother Fred Vincy as he tries to find his true vocation in life and to earn the respect of Mary Garth, the woman he loves.  These three storylines (and several other subplots) all run alongside each other, meeting and intersecting from time to time.

There are many things that make this book so impressive and so notable but the most striking, in my opinion, is the incredibly detailed characterisation. Every character Eliot introduces us to is interesting, nuanced and believable. She even gives her characters distinctive voices (literally!) – we are repeatedly told that Celia speaks “with a quiet staccato” and that Mr Brooke has a habit of repeating himself (“I thought you had more of your own opinion than most girls. I thought you liked your own opinion – liked it, you know”).

We see almost every conceivable personality type; we experience almost every imaginable human emotion. And most importantly, the characters develop throughout the book – they mature, they learn from their mistakes, they become better people.  I could find something to admire in almost all of the characters. They all have their own flaws and faults but also have some good qualities – this makes even less likeable people such as Mr Bulstrode interesting to read about and allows us to empathise with them.  There are plenty of characters who are very likeable, though.  I particularly loved Mary Garth and her father Caleb.

“Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, 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 and annoyance at that fact. And she had already come to take life very much as a comedy in which she had a proud, nay, a generous resolution not to act the mean or treacherous part. Mary might have become cynical if she had not had parents whom she honored, and a well of affectionate gratitude within her, which was all the fuller because she had learned to make no unreasonable claims.”

I am not usually very good at spotting themes in books, but I could find several in Middlemarch. The most obvious is marriage and how it often fails to live up to our expectations (i.e. Dorothea Brooke and Mr Casaubon; Rosamond Vincy and Tertius Lydgate). In her portrayals of these marriages, George Eliot never places the blame entirely on either the husband or the wife.  Instead, she shows how an unhappy or problematic marriage can be caused by personality differences, unrealistic idealism and a failure to understand the person we are married to.

“All these are crushing questions; but whatever else remained the same, the light had changed, and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday. The fact is unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether the same.”

Another theme is change: we should remember that although Middlemarch was published in the 1870s, it was set around forty years earlier at a time of great change: there were changes in politics (the Reform Bill of 1832); changes in transport (the arrival of the railway) and changes in medicine (as portrayed through Tertius Lydgate’s new ideas and theories).

There are so many other aspects of this book that I wanted to discuss here, but I have to stop somewhere!  I haven’t even mentioned Will Ladislaw, who is made to feel unwelcome in Middlemarch by his relative, Mr Casaubon; or Mr Farebrother, who is in love with Mary Garth; or Raffles, who is as close to a villain as we get in Middlemarch.

After reaching the final page I can now see why so many people love this book so much. I would recommend Middlemarch to all lovers of Victorian fiction who are prepared to invest the time it takes to read such a long and complex novel. I don’t think this book would be for everyone though. If you prefer faster-paced stories you may have trouble getting into it, as I did on my earlier attempts. My advice to you would be to stick with it, take your time and savour every word, and the story does become more compelling as it goes on.

If I’m going to be completely honest, there are a lot of classics that I’ve enjoyed a lot more than this one, but I can’t think of any that are greater in scope, more insightful or offer a more penetrating study of humanity. After spending the summer with Dorothea and Will, Tertius and Rosamond, Fred and Mary, and the others, I’m really going to miss them all.

I’ll leave you with some more quotes from the book:

“But indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary.”

“And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.”

Please see this post at Things Mean a Lot for other bloggers’ thoughts on Middlemarch

Review: Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins

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You are here invited to read the story of an Event which occurred in an out-of-the-way corner of England, some years since.
The persons principally concerned in the Event are: – a blind girl; two (twin) brothers; a skilled surgeon; and a curious foreign woman. I am the curious foreign woman. And I take it on myself – for reasons which will presently appear – to tell the story.

Having read all four of Wilkie Collins’ best known books in my pre-blogging days (The Woman in White, Armadale, No Name and The Moonstone), I am now exploring his less popular novels. I recently reviewed Basil and A Rogue’s Life, two of his earlier books from the 1850s. This one, Poor Miss Finch, was published in 1872 and unlike most of the books that preceded it, is not really a ‘sensation novel’, although it does have certain sensational elements (mysterious strangers, theft, assault, letters being intercepted, mistaken identities etc). What it is is an interesting study into what it’s like to be blind since infancy and the emotions a person experiences on learning that there may be a chance of regaining their sight.

The story is told by a Frenchwoman called Madame Pratolungo, the widow of a South American political activist, who has just arrived in the village of Dimchurch in England to take up a position as companion to Lucilla Finch. Lucilla has been blind since she was a child and her blindness has led to a strange phenomenon – she has developed an irrational fear of darkness and dark colours. Even knowing that someone is wearing a dark purple dress, for example, sends her into a panic.

Oscar Dubourg and his twin brother Nugent are newcomers to Dimchurch. Soon after their arrival, Oscar suffers a fit and learns that he has epilepsy. In the 19th century a common cure for epilepsy was to take nitrate of silver. Unfortunately, a side effect of nitrate of silver consumption is that the skin turns blue. When Oscar and Lucilla fall in love, Oscar feels secure in the knowledge that Lucilla will never be able to see him and need never be told that his face is dark blue. However, when Nugent introduces them to the German oculist Herr Grosse, it appears that there could still be hope for Lucilla after all.

This book handles the topic of blindness in a sensitive and intriguing way. It’s obvious that Collins had done a lot of research into the subject and the results are fascinating. He discusses the theory that when a person is blind their other senses improve to compensate for their lack of sight and he weighs up the advantages and disadvantages there would be if this person then regained their sight. I had never even thought about some of the aspects of blindness that are mentioned in the book. For example, there’s an interesting moment when Madame Pratolungo realises why Lucilla shows little regard for normal Victorian conventions and proprieties.

What did it mean?
It meant that here was one strange side shown to me of the terrible affliction that darkened her life. It meant that modesty is essentially the growth of our own consciousness of the eyes of others judging us – and that blindness is never bashful, for the one simple reason that blindness cannot see.

The characters, as usual, are wonderful – most of them anyway. I didn’t find Lucilla very likeable (she has a tendency to throw foot-stamping tantrums when she doesn’t get her own way) but I loved Madame Pratolungo – she was such an amusing and engaging narrator!

I cast all feminine restraints to the winds. I sat down with my legs anyhow, like a man. I rammed my hands into the pockets of my dressing-gown. Did I cry? A word in your ear – and let it go no farther. I swore.

We also meet Reverend Finch, Lucilla’s father, who chooses to recite Hamlet at the most inappropriate moments, and his wife, Mrs Finch, who is ‘never completely dressed; never completely dry; always with a baby in one hand and a novel in the other’. With Lucilla’s little half-sister Jicks’, Collins even makes a three year old girl into an unusual and memorable character:

This amazing apparition advanced into the middle of the room, holding hugged under one arm a ragged and disreputable-looking doll; stared hard, first at Oscar, then at me; advanced to my knees; laid the disreputable doll on my lap; and, pointing to a vacant chair at my side, claimed the rights of hospitality in these words:
“Jicks will sit down.”

Although I thought parts of the plot felt contrived, the story did become very gripping towards the end. This was an interesting and thought provoking read, and if you have enjoyed any other Wilkie Collins books, then I suspect you might enjoy this one too.

Recommended

Review: The Mysteries of Glass by Sue Gee

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It’s the winter of 1860. Following the death of his father, the young Richard Allen takes his first position as curate in an isolated Herefordshire parish. At first Richard is eager to do well in his new post – but then he falls in love and finds that his faith is put to the test.

The Mysteries of Glass was nominated for an Orange Prize back in 2005 and I can see why, because Sue Gee’s writing is beautiful. I have rarely read a book with such a strong sense of time and place. The book is set in an isolated village in 19th century England and the rural Victorian setting felt entirely believable.

The opening chapters perfectly evoked a winter atmosphere. Although I was reading this book in July, I could still picture the cold, wintry landscape, the snowy fields, the frozen paths leading to Richard Allen’s lonely house, the skating party on the lake. Later in the book, as time passed, I could feel the temperatures rise and the seasons change.

Unfortunately, I had one or two problems with this book. I found it very, very slow – I had to force myself to read at a slower pace than I normally would because I felt I was starting to skim over the words without really absorbing them. After the first few chapters, in which very little actually seemed to happen, I had to make a decision whether or not to continue reading. I was glad that I persevered with it, though. I don’t like abandoning books and this one was so well written and had such a haunting, dreamlike atmosphere that I really wanted to love it.

The characters were realistic and well-drawn, from Alice Birley, the crossing-keeper’s solemn little girl to Edith Clare, the mysterious woman who lives in the woods. However, I thought some of the characters who were potentially the most interesting were very underused, such as Richard’s strong, hot-tempered sister Verity.

Another problem I had was that the religious aspects of the book were a bit too much for me. Knowing that the story was about a curate, I was prepared for this to some extent but I wasn’t really expecting the church scenes to be quite so dominant. If you don’t like that type of thing, you should be aware that it forms a very large part of the book and that the central theme of the story is the portrayal of a man’s inner turmoil as he tries to reconcile his feelings and emotions with his faith and his belief in God.

If this book sounds as if it might interest you at all, then please do give it a try as I definitely seem to be in the minority! The Mysteries of Glass wasn’t a bad book by any means – it didn’t appeal to me but maybe it will appeal to you.

Review: A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy

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These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance – blue as the blue we see between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or surface, and was looked into rather than at.

I’m loving Thomas Hardy more and more with every book of his that I read. A Pair of Blue Eyes was one of his earliest books, originally serialised in Tinsley’s Magazine from September 1872 to July 1873. Although this is not generally noted as being one of his better novels and is certainly one of his least well known, there was something about it that appealed to me – and I would even say that of all the classics I’ve read so far this year, this might be my favourite.

A Pair of Blue Eyes is the story of Elfride Swancourt, a vicar’s daughter living in a remote corner of England, who is forced to choose between two very different men. One of these, Stephen Smith, is a young architect whom she meets when he is sent by his employer to survey the church buildings. At first, the vicar approves of Stephen and encourages his daughter to spend time with him. It soon emerges, however, that Stephen has been hiding an important secret from the Swancourts; something that could put his relationship with Elfride in jeopardy. Later in the book, another man arrives at Endelstow Vicarage – Henry Knight, an essayist and reviewer from London – and Elfride has to make a difficult decision.

As you might expect with this being a Hardy book, nothing goes smoothly for any of the characters. I would describe A Pair of Blue Eyes as being similar in some ways to the later Tess of the d’Urbervilles, though not as dark and bleak – and not quite as tragic either. Although I didn’t find Elfride particularly likeable, I thought she was an interesting character. Her lonely, secluded life gives her a childlike innocence and vulnerability and at one point Hardy draws a comparison with Miranda from Shakespeare’s The Tempest – both characters have little knowledge of men and a male visitor is a big event (and Elfride even plays chess with Stephen Smith and Henry Knight as Miranda did with Ferdinand in The Tempest). Of the two men, Stephen was the only one I had any real sympathy for. Knight, although another interesting character, annoyed me almost as much as Angel Clare in Tess annoyed me.

The descriptions of scenery in this book are stunningly beautiful and bring the setting vividly to life. If you’re familiar with Hardy you’ll know that he sets most of his works in the fictional region of Wessex in the southwest of England. This story actually takes place in Off-Wessex or Lyonesse, which equates to Cornwall. I had no problem at all in picturing the lonely vicarage, the windswept hills, and the dark cliffs towering over the sea below. Speaking of cliffs, it is thought that the term ‘cliffhanger’ originates from a scene in this book, though I’m not going to say any more about it than that!

Another interesting aspect of this book is that it’s loosely based on Hardy’s relationship with his first wife, Emma Gifford. Unfortunately I don’t know enough about Hardy to have picked up on all the allusions and references to events in his own life. I would like to eventually read a biography as I think it would help my understanding of both this book and his work as a whole.

I found A Pair of Blue Eyes very easy to read. I thought the pacing and flow of the story were perfect and the pages flew by in a weekend. It’s so sad that this book has been ignored and underrated to the point where, until not long ago, I hadn’t even heard of it. Maybe it won’t appeal to everyone and it might not be the best introduction to his work, but I loved it and would highly recommend it to all Hardy fans.

Review: A Rogue’s Life by Wilkie Collins

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Frank Softly is a Rogue. Refusing to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, he has tried out a number of different careers since leaving school – and failed at them all. However, he remains optimistic and sees each failure as an opportunity to make a fresh start. Even when he is sent to a debtors’ prison he simply asks himself, “What of that? Who am I that I should object to being in prison, when so many of the royal personages and illustrious characters of history have been there before me?”

While working as a forger of old paintings, Frank meets Alicia Dulcifer in an art gallery and immediately falls in love. Unfortunately even this relationship seems likely to fail, because Alicia is the daughter of the sinister Dr. Dulcifer – a man who lives in a house with bars on the windows, never receives visitors and conducts mysterious experiments in his laboratory. Frank becomes determined to discover Dr. Dulcifer’s secret, at all costs.

As in many Victorian novels, there’s also an inheritance involved: Frank’s sister Annabella will only receive her three thousand pounds if Frank outlives their grandmother Lady Malkinshaw. This leads to some amusing situations as Annabella’s greedy husband desperately tries to prevent Frank from dying!

This was one of Wilkie Collins’ first books to be published (in 1856) and I could tell it was the work of a young, inexperienced writer – the plot was less developed than in his later books and the characters (apart from the Rogue himself) were less memorable. However, his enthusiasm shines through on every page, making this a fun, light-hearted read – but with plenty of suspense and excitement too. Although Frank Softly is dishonest, irresponsible, reckless – and definitely a rogue – he tells his story with so much humour and energy that you can’t help liking him.

Rather changeable this life of mine, was it not? Before I was twenty-five years of age, I had tried doctoring, caricaturing, portrait-painting, old picture-making, and Institution-managing…Surely, Shakespeare must have had me prophetically in his eye, when he wrote about ‘one man in his time playing many parts’. What a character I should have made for him, if he had only been alive now!

While I don’t think I would recommend this as a first introduction to his work, if you have enjoyed any of Collins’ other books there’s no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy this one too. And the short length of this book – only 150 pages – makes it a quick, fast-paced read, so anyone who has had trouble getting into one of his longer novels may find this one easier to read.

I’m going to leave you with Wilkie’s own thoughts on this novel, taken from the author’s preface:

The Rogue may surely claim two merits, at least, in the eyes of the new generation – he is never serious for two moments together; and ‘he doesn’t take long to read’.

Review: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

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This book was recommended to me after I read Wild Swans by Jung Chang earlier this year and as I had heard a lot of good things about it, I decided to give it a try.

Lily is a Chinese girl born in Hunan Province in 1823, the daughter of a poor farmer. When she is six years old, the local matchmaker has an exciting announcement to make: if Lily’s feet are bound properly they will be the perfect size and shape, allowing her to marry well and improve the fortunes of herself and her family.

As well as arranging marriages for young girls, another job of the professional matchmaker is to find them a laotong or ‘old same’ – a special friend whose personal circumstances match in a number of different ways (e.g. same birthday, same number of siblings). Snow Flower and the Secret Fan tells the story of the lifelong friendship between Lily and her ‘old same’ Snow Flower.

If you haven’t read this book yet, I should warn you that the chapter on footbinding goes into a lot of detail, describing exactly what it involves and how much suffering the girl is forced to endure – all because small feet were considered the ideal and a girl with large feet would be virtually unmarriageable. One of the worst things about the whole process in my opinion was that it was usually carried out by the child’s mother – I just can’t imagine a mother inflicting so much pain and suffering on her daughter and even risking the girl dying from infection. If you can manage to get through this chapter though, there are plenty of other Chinese customs and traditions to learn about.

For example, did you know that Chinese women had a secret language of their own known as nu shu? This came about because women were discouraged from learning standard Chinese writing, so invented their own writing system which they then tried to keep hidden from the men. Throughout the book, Lily and Snow Flower communicate by writing messages to each other on a silk fan, using nu shu.

I also found the custom of the laotong fascinating. Most young Chinese girls had a group of ‘sworn sisters’, who would be her closest friends only until the day she married. Lily, however, was chosen to have a laotong – a girl who would remain her best friend throughout her entire life.

I thought it was sad that women were considered to be worthless and their only value to society was as a potential mother of sons. If a woman only gave birth to girls she was no use to her family. Here Lily and Snow Flower are discussing the possibility that they will both give birth to daughters.

Snow Flower smoothed her hands over her belly and in a small voice reminded me that girls are but worthless branches unable to carry on their fathers’ lines.
“They will not be useless to us,” I said. “Could we not make a laotong match for them now – before they are born?”
“Lily, we are worthless,” Snow Flower sat up. I could see her face in the moonlight. “You know that, don’t you?”

While I wouldn’t say I loved this book, I did enjoy learning about a culture so completely different to my own and I would welcome any suggestions for more historical fiction novels set in China.

Review: A House to Let by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter

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A House to Let, at less than 100 pages, is a collaboration between four 19th century authors which originally appeared as the Christmas edition of Charles Dickens’ weekly magazine, Household Words, in 1858.

The book is divided into six sections; the first, Over the Way, and the sixth, Let at Last, are joint efforts by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and provide the framework for the story. The other four sections are individual contributions from Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Dickens, Adelaide Anne Procter and Wilkie Collins, in that order.

Over the Way introduces us to Sophonisba, an elderly woman who has never married but has two men vying for her attentions – one is her old admirer Jabez Jarber; the other is her servant, Trottle. When Sophonisba’s doctor advises a change of air and scene, she leaves her home in Tunbridge Wells and moves into new lodgings in London, where she immediately becomes obsessed with the house opposite – a house which has been vacant for many years and is permanently ‘to let’. Determined to discover why the house has remained empty for so long – and convinced she has seen an eye staring out from one of the windows – she asks Jarber and Trottle to investigate.

Over the Way and Let at Last are credited to both Dickens and Collins, but there’s no way to tell exactly which parts were contributed by which writer. The other four chapters, though, are each written in the distinctive style of their respective authors and each tell the story of a previous occupant of the house to let.

The chapter I liked the least was actually the one written solely by Dickens, Going Into Society. The story of a showman and a circus dwarf called Mr Chops, it was just too weird for me and was also quite difficult to read as it was written in dialect. It’s probably significant that I found the two Dickens/Collins collaborations much easier to read than this solo effort, as I’ve always thought Collins was a lot more readable than Dickens.

Three Evenings in the House, the contribution by Adelaide Anne Procter, whose work I was previously unfamiliar with, is in the form of a narrative poem. I’m not a big lover of poetry but luckily for me this was only thirteen pages long and quite easy to understand. Other than providing some variety though, I don’t think this chapter really added much to the story.

The Manchester Marriage by Elizabeth Gaskell stands out as an excellent piece of writing: a tragic story of Alice Wilson, who is widowed when her husband is lost at sea. After marrying again, she and her new husband move into the house to let where further tragedy awaits them. This is good enough to work as a stand-alone short story (and according to the Biographical Notes, it was actually published separately in its own right). This and the Wilkie Collins contribution, Trottle’s Report, were my favourite chapters. Trottle’s Report is a typical Collins story, with unusual, quirky characters, a mysterious secret, and a slightly dark and gothic feel.

After exploring the histories of the various tenants of the house, the mystery is finally solved in the final chapter, Let at Last, which neatly ties up all the loose ends of the story.

If you like any of these four authors or Victorian fiction in general, then A House to Let is definitely worth reading. It also provides a good introduction to Dickens, Collins, Procter and Gaskell without having to commit yourself to one of their longer works.

Classics/Pages: 97/Publisher: Hesperus Press/Year: 2004 (originally published 1858)/Source: Library book