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Silas Marner
A level 4 Oxford Bookworms Library graded reader. Retold for Learners of English by Clare West
In a hole under the floorboards Silas Marner the linen-weaver keeps his gold. Every day he works hard at his weaving, and every night he takes the gold out and holds the bright coins lovingly, feeling them and counting them again and again. The villagers are afraid of him and he has no family, no friends. Only the gold is his friend, his delight, his reason for living.
But what if a thief should come in the night and take his gold away? What will Silas do then? What could possibly comfort him for the loss of his only friend?
In a hole under the floorboards Silas Marner the linen-weaver keeps his gold. Every day he works hard at his weaving, and every night he takes the gold out and holds the bright coins lovingly, feeling them and counting them again and again. The villagers are afraid of him and he has no family, no friends. Only the gold is his friend, his delight, his reason for living.
But what if a thief should come in the night and take his gold away? What will Silas do then? What could possibly comfort him for the loss of his only friend?
271 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 17, 2000
32 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
About the author
Clare West
153 books55 followersClare West has over twenty years of TEFL classroom experience in the UK and abroad, and has led teacher workshops in Europe and South America. Associated with Cambridge examination courses, she became a freelance author, contributing to Oxford Bookworms and Dominoes and serving as Series Editor for Oxford Bookworms Playscripts.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 25, 2015
AND finally I finished :)
Good story for listening and enjoying and learning english.
Good story for listening and enjoying and learning english.
March 10, 2017
The themes of this story are worthy.
God will reward your faithfulness, and the truth will be revealed sooner or later.
when you're at your lowest point in life, just remember to keep your faith in God..
God will reward your faithfulness, and the truth will be revealed sooner or later.
when you're at your lowest point in life, just remember to keep your faith in God..
October 2, 2019
کتاب داستان کلاس زبان / سطح ۴
با توجه به اینکه کوتاهشده بود، داستان معمولیای بود.
بعضی قسمتهاش اصلاً غافلگیری نداشت و کاملاً قابل پیشبینی بود.
برخی بخشهاش هم زیبا بود. مثل وقتی که سیلاس از گذشتهش سخن میگفت، یا مثل وقتی که گادفری بهخاطر رازش توی مخمصه افتاده بود، و زیباترین بخشش هم تشبیه دختر کوچولو به طلاهای دزدیدهشدهی سیلاس بود...
با توجه به اینکه کوتاهشده بود، داستان معمولیای بود.
بعضی قسمتهاش اصلاً غافلگیری نداشت و کاملاً قابل پیشبینی بود.
برخی بخشهاش هم زیبا بود. مثل وقتی که سیلاس از گذشتهش سخن میگفت، یا مثل وقتی که گادفری بهخاطر رازش توی مخمصه افتاده بود، و زیباترین بخشش هم تشبیه دختر کوچولو به طلاهای دزدیدهشدهی سیلاس بود...
August 21, 2022
This is a funnier and happier book than one might suppose, given that it's about a religious man who's wronged by religious people and lives his next 15 years as an outcast in another community, where's he's viewed with disdain and suspicion. I read it in high school and remember liking it, but not remembering why. It seemed to me that few people in my class liked it, and I'm guessing that it's not assigned in American schools any more.
The book has two parts, and they're connected, but it does create some strange juxtapositions. One part is the story of Silas Marner, a Methodist (word isn't used in the book, but anyone in George Eliot's time would know that "going to chapel" instead of church meant Methodist), who is ostracized from his community when his best friend claims he stole from a dying man. Marner moves to an isolated town in the British countryside and gradually becomes a fixture in the community because he's a very good weaver. But he has no friends, and the only thing that sustains him is his love of the gold that he accumulates as pay for his work. In short, he's a classic miser.
Eliot's genius tells us why and how he becomes a miser, rather than leaving him as a stock miser figure familiar in literature. Usually, the miser's past history is unimportant, as the point is that he (and it's almost always a man) is a miser, and the action takes place when he's forced out of his shell or someone tries to take his money or he dies and leaves it to someone else. In this book, the miserliness is part of the point, and it's done with sensitivity, even though it's a little hard to believe.
Anyway, there's a wealthy family in the town, and they have two adult sons. One of them is a particularly bad character, and he steals Marner's money. This forces Marner into society to alert people about the theft, and from that grows a certain level of compassion for him. One kindly woman even takes the effort to become his friend and confidant. The interactions with the citizens is the other part of the book, the more comic part. Over and over, Eliot makes humor out of their superstitions, their ignorance, their very limited outlooks. For example, several times people say that they don't know many words from the Bible or even the meaning of those that they do know, but the words must be "good" because they're from the Bible. Also, the battle among citizens to become the deputy in charge of investigating the theft, and the logic they use to incorrectly connect it with a traveling peddler, are done in a comic light.
Even though these sections also contain obvious criticism of people's ignorant ways, Eliot maintains the light touch by having none of those things create bad consequences. For example, no peddler is wrongly arrested and convicted (ironically, unlike Marner who was wrongly convicted by his smarter, more worldly religious peers). And Marner is treated with kindness, even when it's tinged by his neighbors' stupidity.
Marner eventually is redeemed, in the person of an orphaned infant, whose opium-addicted mother dies almost on his doorstep in a snowstorm. While this might seem melodramatic, the truth of life in the 19th century in urban England is that people died that way all the time, especially women who were seduced or married by wealthy men who then regretted their decisions. It should be noted that Marner came from a nominally urban area, or urbanizing area, as did the dead woman. One of the contrasts in this book is between the unspoiled and relatively wealthy and equitable village, and the cruelty and anonymity of the city.
The latter parts of the book show Marner regaining his humanity, as he raises the girl. She brings life, and especially, change to him, as Eliot says that a life without change is not worth living -- a static life is basically death. And with this girl in tow, Marner becomes part of a new church and of the community as well.
The last section of the book brings together a few threads, and I won't spoil it. Let's just say that Marner, his adopted daughter, and others in the town have a reckoning, and they have tough choices to make -- choices of conscience, of status, of love. It ends happily, with the poor people making the right choices and living well as a result, and the wealthy people respecting those decisions and doing as well as they can, too.
"Silas Marner" is a story of redemption, of love, of community, of life. It also has hard lessons about life being missed, about taking a disappointment too hard, and about the sins of ignorance, arrogance, and avarice. There's a lot going on, and it's well worth reading.
The book has two parts, and they're connected, but it does create some strange juxtapositions. One part is the story of Silas Marner, a Methodist (word isn't used in the book, but anyone in George Eliot's time would know that "going to chapel" instead of church meant Methodist), who is ostracized from his community when his best friend claims he stole from a dying man. Marner moves to an isolated town in the British countryside and gradually becomes a fixture in the community because he's a very good weaver. But he has no friends, and the only thing that sustains him is his love of the gold that he accumulates as pay for his work. In short, he's a classic miser.
Eliot's genius tells us why and how he becomes a miser, rather than leaving him as a stock miser figure familiar in literature. Usually, the miser's past history is unimportant, as the point is that he (and it's almost always a man) is a miser, and the action takes place when he's forced out of his shell or someone tries to take his money or he dies and leaves it to someone else. In this book, the miserliness is part of the point, and it's done with sensitivity, even though it's a little hard to believe.
Anyway, there's a wealthy family in the town, and they have two adult sons. One of them is a particularly bad character, and he steals Marner's money. This forces Marner into society to alert people about the theft, and from that grows a certain level of compassion for him. One kindly woman even takes the effort to become his friend and confidant. The interactions with the citizens is the other part of the book, the more comic part. Over and over, Eliot makes humor out of their superstitions, their ignorance, their very limited outlooks. For example, several times people say that they don't know many words from the Bible or even the meaning of those that they do know, but the words must be "good" because they're from the Bible. Also, the battle among citizens to become the deputy in charge of investigating the theft, and the logic they use to incorrectly connect it with a traveling peddler, are done in a comic light.
Even though these sections also contain obvious criticism of people's ignorant ways, Eliot maintains the light touch by having none of those things create bad consequences. For example, no peddler is wrongly arrested and convicted (ironically, unlike Marner who was wrongly convicted by his smarter, more worldly religious peers). And Marner is treated with kindness, even when it's tinged by his neighbors' stupidity.
Marner eventually is redeemed, in the person of an orphaned infant, whose opium-addicted mother dies almost on his doorstep in a snowstorm. While this might seem melodramatic, the truth of life in the 19th century in urban England is that people died that way all the time, especially women who were seduced or married by wealthy men who then regretted their decisions. It should be noted that Marner came from a nominally urban area, or urbanizing area, as did the dead woman. One of the contrasts in this book is between the unspoiled and relatively wealthy and equitable village, and the cruelty and anonymity of the city.
The latter parts of the book show Marner regaining his humanity, as he raises the girl. She brings life, and especially, change to him, as Eliot says that a life without change is not worth living -- a static life is basically death. And with this girl in tow, Marner becomes part of a new church and of the community as well.
The last section of the book brings together a few threads, and I won't spoil it. Let's just say that Marner, his adopted daughter, and others in the town have a reckoning, and they have tough choices to make -- choices of conscience, of status, of love. It ends happily, with the poor people making the right choices and living well as a result, and the wealthy people respecting those decisions and doing as well as they can, too.
"Silas Marner" is a story of redemption, of love, of community, of life. It also has hard lessons about life being missed, about taking a disappointment too hard, and about the sins of ignorance, arrogance, and avarice. There's a lot going on, and it's well worth reading.
August 21, 2022
Not sure if I've clicked on the correct edition since I "read" this via Audible, so, to be clear, I'm a huge fan now of George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans). Her depth of insight into the human heart, motivations, weaknesses and strengths, her kind conveyance of it all and forgiving outlook, make her works deeply efficacious to take in. I am doing most of my reading of late via audiobooks because life is a little too full, so I have to go back and repeat sections that I miss since to hold still is to fall asleep and to be too busy is to miss the richness of her prose.
One highlight (just one, there are so so many): too much change from what we're raised with leaves us in something of a disconnected dream state in life. How true is THAT? It explains a lot of what's wrong in our world today and my own feelings of inner dissonance.
I love the way Elliot shows compassion for human weakness and offers redemption to any and all who are capable of it. She has become one of my favorite authors since reading Middlemarch! It's a great, soul expanding read!
One highlight (just one, there are so so many): too much change from what we're raised with leaves us in something of a disconnected dream state in life. How true is THAT? It explains a lot of what's wrong in our world today and my own feelings of inner dissonance.
I love the way Elliot shows compassion for human weakness and offers redemption to any and all who are capable of it. She has become one of my favorite authors since reading Middlemarch! It's a great, soul expanding read!
November 25, 2018
The full version of this book was required required reading in high school.
October 23, 2021
به عنوان یک داستان کوتاه شده برای یادگیری، خواندنش لذت بخش و روان بود.
May 31, 2023
16,065語
January 5, 2024
Me ha dado ganas de leer el libro original.
January 26, 2025
Un sin sentido
jóvenes
October 3, 20253 ejemplares
September 12, 2016
Heart touching. Many worthy themes for discussion.
Now that I've read this abridged version, shall I go for the full one?
Now that I've read this abridged version, shall I go for the full one?
Read
May 30, 2011I'm glad this had a happy ending. He was robbed his gold but he got the real gold, Eppie. But I wonder this is just a story (of course!) because bringing up a child who become so lovely, is really hard and tough.
The author, George Eliot, is a really woman called Mary Ann Evans. Again, one of the great women writers, who had to do this because "women novelists were often not taken seriously at the time."
The author, George Eliot, is a really woman called Mary Ann Evans. Again, one of the great women writers, who had to do this because "women novelists were often not taken seriously at the time."
May 14, 2012
lovely story !
October 15, 2025
High school requirement for English as second-language class. Not original version.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews