Ethan’s Reviews > Middlemarch > Status Update

Well that escalated quickly

Oh fuck yes now these are some *spicy* character flaws, unfortunately I would never fit into this community because I'm perfect in every way

So fucking funny how pathetic Fred Vincy is bro has no emotional control

I've accidentally hit the "I'm already halfway through, I should just speed up my pace and finish the book quicker" phase, but if it means glancing past the weeds of the political differences between the Whigs and Reformists in 1831, it's almost certainly for the better

Gotta get me a man who knows as much as Eliot about religious doctrine and drama in provincial England in the early 1830s

I appreciate that Eliot is legitimately using all 900 pages of this to add depth to all of the characters, Dorothea is already perhaps one of the most complex characters I've ever read about and there's still over half of this book left

It's deeply funny how there is so much really beautiful prose in this book dedicated to the physiognomy of the different characters, with every chapter I grow more and more scared that Eliot is gonna list somebody's skull measurements during their introduction

I've always been curious how Eliot wrote a 900 page novel about Dorothea Brooke and turns out the answer is she didn't, there's a solid 100 pages and counting that focuses on the other characters. Though honestly, I vibe with it, there's only so much you can develop a character before it gets repetitive and contradictory

I like how we're 100 pages in and we're only just now introducing the second main male character