Middlemarch

By: George Eliot

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 31 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Middlemarch is a recognized masterpiece that explores the complex social world of 19th century England. It is concerned with the lives of several ordinary people, albeit ones with high social standing. The novel explores the very fabric of Victorian society in the 1800s, showing how various human passions, heroism, egotism, love, and lust, interrelate within this society.

The novel is set in the small town of Middlemarch and follows the inter-related lives of several characters. At the heart of the book is Dorothea, a kind-hearted and honest woman, who longs to find some way to improve the world. She marries an older academic, Casaubon, against the advice of her friends and family. Casaubon tries to assert his influence over Dorothea, but she refuses to succumb to Casaubon's will. Casaubon soon dies of a heart attack, and Dorothea marries his cousin, Will. But, in a last attempt to control Dorothea's life, Casaubon's will states that if Dorothea marries Will, she will lose her claim to Casaubon's estate.

Other unforgettable characters in Middlemarch include the young doctor, Lydgate, who come to the town to start his own practice. He soon falls in love with Rosamund, a woman who has spent her life in Middlemarch, and they eventually marry. Fred Vincey, used to a lavish lifestyle but also a gambler, falls into debt as he waits to inherit money from a rich neighbor. He drifts toward the clergy, and longs to marry Mary Garth. But until he proves himself worthy, Mary will have nothing to do with him.

(P)2006 Tantor Media, Inc.

No better

No better writer than George Eliot. No better book than Middlemarch.

Enter Middlemarch, get to know everyone

I've come to a realization: Charles Dickens is not my favorite Victorian. I'm 50/50 on Anthony Trollope so far, and this was only my first George Eliot, but the two of them are just so much better than Dickens when it comes to describing fully-realized human beings of both sexes. Not that Dickens isn't good at what he does, which is comic, poignant melodrama with a social edge, but his characters are just not real. Not like the inhabitants of Middlemarch.

On the other hand, there was none of Dickens' epic scope in Middlemarch. This is an English country drama, all centered around the town of Middlemarch. There are no high stakes or ultimate questions of human morality, just a bunch of characters struggling to get by and navigate the consequences of their ideals, their pasts, their prejudices, and their bad choices.

Our cast includes Dorothea Brooke, an idealistic, pious young lady who was born to be a sainted martyr. Full of charity and self-sacrifice, she manages to find a way to martyr herself — by marrying a dour, much older clergyman named Edward Casaubon. She dreams of devoting herself to his studies, being the selfless angel at his side.


"Could I not be preparing myself now to be more useful?" said Dorothea to him, one morning, early in the time of courtship; "could I not learn to read Latin and Greek aloud to you, as Milton's daughters did to their father, without understanding what they read?"


She practically throws herself at the bemused Casaubon, not because she feels anything like romantic passion, but because living a life of the mind devoted to waiting on her husband's every need seems like the closest thing to Godliness to her. You might think this makes Dorothea an aggravating character, yet Eliot portrays her as honest, willful, altruistic, and intelligent, her only flaw being that she lives in a world that's missing a few of the shades and colors that everyone else can see.

Meanwhile, a bright young surgeon named Tertius Lydgate comes to Middlemarch, full of the latest medical knowledge. Unfortunately, Middlemarchers are a hidebound lot with their own way of doing things and they don't need no "foreign" (i.e., anyone from any place more than ten miles away) physicians coming here with their newfangled ways. Lydgate makes a few friends, but he also steps on a few toes and soon is enmeshed in the politics of an English country town whether he likes it or not. Is it this or his marriage to Rosamund Vincy which is his real downfall? Eliot lays the groundwork for this good man to screw himself over in a multitude of ways while never really doing anything wrong other than being a bit lacking in foresight.

But once again, she creates complex characters who could just be caricatures (and if written by Dickens, would be) yet manage to come to life as people you can sympathize with. Rosamund, for example, is shallow, self-centered, and materialistic. She pretty much manipulates Lydgate into proposing to her, and from then on the poor man is trapped. When his career doesn't take off, their finances go south, and Rosamund experiences buyer's remorse, I really, really felt sorry for Lydgate. But amazingly enough, even though Rosamund made me gnash my teeth, I didn't hate her. Because Eliot takes pains to make her understandable.


"But Rosamond was not one of those helpless girls who betray themselves unawares, and whose behavior is awkwardly driven by their impulses, instead of being steered by wary grace and propriety. Do you imagine that her rapid forecast and rumination concerning house-furniture and society were ever discernible in her conversation, even with her mamma? On the contrary, she would have expressed the prettiest surprise and disapprobation if she had heard that another young lady had been detected in that immodest prematureness—indeed, would probably have disbelieved in its possibility. For Rosamond never showed any unbecoming knowledge, and was always that combination of correct sentiments, music, dancing, drawing, elegant note-writing, private album for extracted verse, and perfect blond loveliness, which made the irresistible woman for the doomed man of that date. Think no unfair evil of her, pray: she had no wicked plots, nothing sordid or mercenary; in fact, she never thought of money except as something necessary which other people would always provide. She was not in the habit of devising falsehoods, and if her statements were no direct clew to fact, why, they were not intended in that light—they were among her elegant accomplishments, intended to please. Nature had inspired many arts in finishing Mrs. Lemon's favorite pupil, who by general consent (Fred's excepted) was a rare compound of beauty, cleverness, and amiability."


She's not mercenary, she's not mean, she's not evil. She's just making the best bargain she can, with a realistic assessment of her own worth, given the options available to a Victorian woman of her class. Love, like money, is something that's just supposed to happen when you follow the rules.

This thirty-two-hour audiobook got me involved in the lives of the Brookes and the Vincys and the Garths and the Bulstrodes and the Casaubons and all the other families of Middlemarch. It's a great big multi-family melodrama, with marriages and deaths and money scandals, and each character impacts all the others in some way. There is no villain here and nobody is really evil, though some characters are selfish or foolish or obnoxious, so all the conflict results from mundane things - bad marriages, jealousy, misunderstandings, fecklessness, and other human foibles.

It's something of a Victorian soap opera, but an elegant and intricate one. If you like Victorian writing and character dramas, Middlemarch is a masterpiece. Maybe it doesn't have quite the profundity of Dostoevsky or the poignancy of Dickens, but will I read George Eliot again? Heck yeah! 4.5 stars, rounded up.

Why did I wait so long? And Kate Reading rules.

At the age of 67 I finally got to Middlemarch, grumbled to myself through the first 45 minutes, and then was gradually, completely hooked. I guess there's a reason everyone says it is a great novel. And the narrator! I have been listening to audio books for more than 20 years, and Kate Reading has supplanted Barbara Rosenblatt in my pantheon. Her ability to differentiate among a few dozen characters is astonishing, and the personality of each of those characters is captured beautifully.

great

Kate Reading gives an outstanding performance (I especially loved Mr. Brooke!) of one of the world's greatest novels.

Extraordinary in all respects

One of the most profound novels ever written which has the peculiar quality of bringing a smile to your face at all times through the light hearted irony of the author. Remarkably almost every line has a touch of humor in it and very few of the characters are spared a dig or two. And yet it's all tinged with sympathy and genuine feeling. The language is gloriously beautiful throughout, a true joy. The reading is about as wonderful as it could be. The narrator carries the irony with supreme skill as well as the affectionate regard the author has for the likes of Dorothea and Lydgate. Her voice is infinitely malleable and adapted to the various social and emotional stations of each individual in the book. All in all a remarkable achievement that will bring many many hours of enjoyment.

Affectionate and undeceived

Kate Reading is a perfect narrator of George Eliot's classic leisurely novel. Eliot draws her characters in full, protagonists' and antagonists' strengths and flaws noted in affectionate and undeceived clarity, her brilliant wit dry but not cruel. This is not a novel to skim for the action; the joy is in the language, the turns of phrase, the subtle discoveries. Listening to Kate Reading narrate the story is like visiting a brilliant worldly woman who shares her observations, delightful details occurring to her as she speaks.

I had no idea

I had no idea this was such a wonderful book. It's long been on my list of "should read but have no intention of reading."

It's a tremendously wise and funny soap opera, as well as a fascinating look into an interesting time of transition in England, and I listened to it all over again the moment I finished it. The reader did an excellent job at suggesting the personality of the main characters without over-acting (always my preference), yet having some fun with some of the odder side characters.
I can see why this has been such an important book.

Delightful listening

I enjoyed this wonderful book. I never tired of listening to the fate of its heroine Dorothea and the inhabitants of Middlemarch. The reader's voice was excellent.

engrossing & fabulously read

I had already seen the BBC miniseries before listening to this book, and still, I was completely engrossed in it. The reader, Kate Reading, is fabulous. She understands George Eliot's wit as much as her deft characterization, which gives her reading a lot of life. I would not hesitate because of the book's length; you will be sad when the book ends!

Matchless

I loved both the book and the reader, Kate Reading. This may be my favorite book so far on Audible. The writing tends toward the intelligent, concise and wise, but then there are those inscrutable parts I could never discern. It's moving too, now that's different for me, to care so much about characters. Dorothea is a gem for all time. What a wonderful, wonderful book this is. I want to get more George Eliot and more books by Kate Reading.