Middlemarch by George Eliot

No doubt a time may come when the progress of knowledge will make metaphors drawn from physical science really natural as appropriate illustrations, but to such a stage of knowledge the mass of so-called educated readers have certainly as yet not attained. The metaphors are far-fetched, somewhat strained, and drawn by force from the most recondite arcana of chemistry and zoology, are apt, if indulged in, to degenerate into mannerism. We do not remember such in "Romola"; but "Middlemarch" is full of them. They choke the mechanism of the English, and they interrupt the thought. Its present manner of appearance spoils much of our enjoyment. Even those who do not like champagne in tumblers, are not bound to prefer their nectar by the drop.

This book has certainly as much power in it as either of the others, and more wit. There is much less of the high scientific style, which, though it is not pedantry in George Eliot, — who is incapable of pedantry, — has all the effect of it to those who do not know her writings well. But it is, if not her completest, yet in many respects her freest and greatest work. We all grumble at "Middlemarch;" we all say that the action is slow, that there is too much parade of scientific and especially physiological knowledge in it, that there are turns of phrase which are even pedantic, and that occasionally the bitterness of the commentary on life is almost cynical; but we all read it, and all feel that there is nothing to compare with it appearing at the present moment in the way of English literature.

The book is like a portrait gallery. We must say that if our young ladies, repelled by the faint and "neutral" virtues of Celia on the one hand, and the powerfully drawn worldly Rosamond on the other, take to be Dorotheas, with a vow to dress differently from other women, and to regulate their own conduct on the system of a general disapproval of the state of things into which they are born, the world will be a less comfortable world without being a better one. Will Ladislaw is altogether uninteresting. He is petulant, small, and made up of spurts of character, without any wholeness and largeness. Nature has done much for him, but duty — by which all the other characters of the story are tested — altogether fails in him.

In short, "Middlemarch", if not the best or the pleasantest of George Eliot's works, is yet beyond all measure the most powerful. The construction of the story displays a masterly handling of the most complex materials; the characters are drawn with a depth of analysis and a truth of conception which have rarely been equalled; and the moral purpose which pervades the whole is at once elevated and practical. It is clear that it has not been written, although published, serially. There is no sign of a half completed or altered design anywhere. The handiwork is, throughout, that of a great artist.

This book is a masterpiece of character writing. Every single person in Middlemarch feels real — their hopes their flaws their stupid mistakes. Dorothea is a wonderful tragic figure. Casaubon is heartbreakingly pathetic. But the true genius is how Eliot weaves all these stories together into a portrait of a whole community. Its long and slow but if you stick with it its incredibly rewarding.