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Catherine

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Catherine is Currently Reading

Catherine is currently reading

The Retirement Plan

by Sue Hincenbergs (Goodreads Author)

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Jul 14, 2026 08:41PM

Catherine is currently reading

Victorian West: Class and Culture in Kansas Cattle Towns

by C. Robert Haywood

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Jul 09, 2026 01:02PM

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Middlemarch

by George Eliot

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in April 2021

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Catherine said: " I am writing reviews on Goodreads tonight because I'm in a funk over not being in Middlemarch for the first time in a month.

This book has been calling to me for awhile, and it did not disappoint. I've never read any of Eliot's work before, but everyt I am writing reviews on Goodreads tonight because I'm in a funk over not being in Middlemarch for the first time in a month.

This book has been calling to me for awhile, and it did not disappoint. I've never read any of Eliot's work before, but everything about this appealed to me. It is, in many ways, a hard book to describe, and certainly to do justice to - in the end, it is only about several couples, their neighbors, and the goings-on of a small town in 1830s England. I read the back cover of the BBC miniseries DVD (I'm in withdrawal, I told you) and had to laugh at the ways in which some poor writer had to make this sound like a rip-roaring tale of non-stop action. It is not that.

What Eliot does manage to do, and do exceptionally well, is lay bare the hidden motivations and assumptions that shape so much of her characters' (and our own) relationships and fates. She is able to show how one unsaid thing can become much bigger, and she does it all without saying "AND THIS UNSAID THING CREATED AN UNBRIDGEABLE GULF BETWEEN THEM AREN'T I CLEVER?" It is a book that explores relationships in heartbreaking, but brilliant detail.

While character studies can grow tedious, Eliot is also no slouch when it comes to humor. She has a sly wit like the best of English writers, and I giggled aloud so much more than I expected reading this. If you enjoy observational humor, and wit which relies on the foibles of human nature (a la Austen), Eliot might be your gal.

This book is much more work than anything I've read in awhile, in spite of being thoroughly enjoyable. It is dense, both in language and in observation, and it took me some time to get back into the swing of reading something with this much focus. I've read a lot of brain candy over 2020 and early 2021, and while I don't necessarily regret that given the state of... everything... I found this a surprisingly refreshing challenge for my brain. And speaking of current events, I am not sure whether to be comforted or despondent that so many of humanity's worst tendencies appear unchanged from when this was written in the 1870s. I suppose it is what makes a work like this timeless.

A few other random notes:
--I'm down to form a Rosamund Vincy Hate Club, if anyone would like to join
--#TeamGarth forever and ever. Mary is just the best
--Also justice for Camden Farebrother! Le sigh.
--Eliot's description of Mrs. Garth when we meet her is one of my favorite character introductions, ever. It's just perfectly done - you know EXACTLY who this woman is, without a single extraneous or superficial detail. I love it so much.
--Dorothea's character introduction was less successful for me - it took awhile before I warmed to her.
--The annotated version was useful to me - Eliot uses a lot of contemporary and Classical references, and I was ignorant of most of them. Explanations of the political landscape of England at the time also helped.
--When I read "religious hypocrite"as a description of Mr. Bullstrode, I expected a far more hateable character. He's not likeable, exactly, but I ended up sympathizing with him far more than I expected to for someone who does some not great things. I also found the characterization of his marriage ultimately surprising.
--There is a minor character called "Borthrop Trumbull." What a name. JK Rowling will be haunted the rest of her days by not coming up with that one.
--It is a rare person who can both understand how human minds work AND who can effectively convey that. George Eliot could. I know this was considered her finest work, but I'd definitely like to check out more from her in the future. ...more "

Apr 12, 2021 08:23PM · see review

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Catherine’s Quotes

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

tags: travel

4001 likes

“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

2186 likes

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like.”
― Lemony Snicket

tags: fate, humor, simile

13156 likes

“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.”
― Paul Theroux

tags: travel

189 likes

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

9116 likes

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