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    Middlemarch
    Middlemarch
    Middlemarch
    Audiobook (abridged)7 hours

    Middlemarch

    Written by George Eliot

    Narrated by Carole Boyd

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    One of the great novels of nineteenth-century England, Middlemarch is concerned with the blighted marriage of a young idealistic woman, but also presents a vivid portrait of England during the 1830s.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateJun 1, 2000
    ISBN9789629545277
    Author

    George Eliot

    George Eliot (1819-80) was born Mary Ann Evans into the family of a Warwickshire land agent and did not escape provincial life until she was 30. But she was brilliantly self-educated and able at once to shine in London literary circles. It was, however, her novels of English rural life that brought her fame, starting with Adam Bede, published under her new pen name in 1859, and reaching a zenith with Middlemarch in 1871. Eliot was a devoutly moral woman but lived for 25 years with a man who already had a wife. It is indicative of the respect and love that she inspired in her most devoted readers that Queen Victoria was one of them.

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    Reviews for Middlemarch

    4.5/5

    169 ratings92 reviews

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    • 5/5
      One of the greatest books ever.
    • 5/5
      The sentence structure alone makes this a book worth reading. Every sentence says something. It is not a book for skimming. Ms. Elliot dares to make judgements about her characters, guiding the reader along. A very relevant book for how darn old it is.
    • 4/5
      I cannot say I was overly impressed by this book. I thought the ending weak, compared to the gripping melodrama of The Mill on the Floss. But the develoment, in retrospect, was a delight to review. Only Dorothea Causabon was a character one could have very especial feeling for. Will Ladislaw certainly never became real for me. Both Vincy children--Fred and Rosamund--made me tired. Bulstrode didn't bother me particularly. Lydgate also made me tired. I have trouble being sympathetic to prodigals. I was struck by this instructive passage on Causabon: "hence he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly shallow rill it was. As in droughty regions baptism by immersion could only be performed symbolically, so Mr. Causabon found that sprinkling was the utmost approach to a plunge which his stream would afford him, and he concluded that the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine passion..." Really the drawing of Causabon was well-done, and I thought him one of the most intriguing characters in this long book! (Longest book I have read since I read Martin du Gard's books in February 1963--books, I might add, which really lived in and have grown in my memory
    • 5/5
      This story of ordinary lives lived in provincial England is a study of characters. It is a story of marriage but also of not belonging. The main characters are the passionate, idealistic Dorothea, the idealist doctor Lyndgate, the self absorbed, intellectual Mr. Causabon and the narcissistic, self-centered Rosamonde. The last two are characters you can love to hate while sometimes the idealism of the other two can irritate as well. It also is a story of “be sure your sins will find you out” and “oh what a tangled web we weave when once we practice to deceive. Ms Eliot really brings out the destruction of gossip and rumors that is part of living in a small town. For a 900 plus pages novel, this story goes by in a flash. I’ve also read Silas Marner by the author and while it was also good, I especially enjoyed Middlemarch. There is a historical social commentary that also flows through the story and it is about reform; improving life for the middle and lower classes.
    • 5/5
      This book took me two months to read. Granted, it was an office book (read during lunch at work), but two months is a long time, when you are reading consistently. It's epic. I don't know how I got through high school without reading this, but I finally picked it up because one of the women in my book club makes reference to it CONSTANTLY. And I understand why. It did drag for me in parts, and made me contemplate 4 stars, but the writing skill shines through every page, all seemingly nine hundred million of them, in the details and the character development and the sheer breadth of plot...and how can you not give a book like that 5 stars?
    • 5/5
      As I start my cataloging, I'm listing all-time favorites. I've read Middlemarch at least three times, and am overdue for a re-read. It's one the books I think of as lifetime books, to be read and re-read.
    • 4/5
      I have long wanted to read George Eliot's "Middlemarch" -- it is right up my alley.... a Victorian classic that follows the lives of several couples as they live their lives in the English countryside. This is a genre I really enjoy and this book is a classic for a reason.That said, I probably couldn't have picked a worse time to read it... as we've just added a baby to the house and my time for reading cut way down. As a result, I had real difficulty getting into this book-- I couldn't keep track of the various characters for the first 100 pages or so (because I would only read about five or so at a time.) It was very frustrating.After I finally figured out who was who, I started to fly through the book and really enjoyed it. The trials and tribulations of marriages arranged for the wrong reasons always interest me. This probably would have garnered an even higher rating from me, if I hadn't struggled so hard in the beginning.
    • 5/5
      Immensely rewarding - but difficult to get into. Do persevere though - you won't regret it.
    • 5/5
      A great book. Her empathy even toward people like Bulstrode is remarkable. And I appreciate that she didn't tidy things up with Victorian coincidences. Things ended right, although maybe not what you'd want.
    • 5/5
      One of the greatest novels ever written; comparable to Tolstoi or other Russian masters. Great character portrayal. Brings to life the life in rural Victorian England in the 19th century.
    • 5/5
      I love the Virginia Woolf quote about Middlemarch: "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."
    • 3/5
      I was reading an issue of a magazine where pastors were giving out their selections for favourite books, and one pastor chose Middlemarch, saying it was the best novel in the English language. In my opinion its a good book but not a great one. The writing is good at times but hard to read at others. It didn't have a great moral dilemma to make you really think about it in your life or characters that were believable and hard to conceptualize. But it is a book to recommend as the situation of Mr. Bulstrode is an interesting discussion point.
    • 4/5
      Middlemarch is, as much as anything, a domestic novel illustrating the importance of marriage. The decision to marry, to entrust one's future and well-being to another person, is not to be taken lightly. In a desire to be useful to a man of letters, beautiful young Dorothea Brooke ties herself to a melancholy and jealous man who is unworthy of her devotion. Dr. Lydgate rashly chooses a wife based on physical attractiveness rather than depth of character and lives to regret his decision. Both Dorothea and Lydgate find a measure of peace by submitting their own desires to those of their mates, without receiving much in return. Mary Garth proves to be as shrewd as she is pretty. Both Mary and her suitor are fully aware of his shortcomings, and their partnership enables him to succeed where he would otherwise have failed. George Eliot's keen insight into human nature makes this character-driven novel feel as fresh as a contemporary novel. Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      I have read this book several times over the years and it still appears fresh each time. It has enormous scope. Dorethea is a wonderful central character who has the grace to learn from her mistakes. My favourite quote is "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity"
    • 5/5
      Well worth the effort. Eliot is a brilliant, witty, nimble, insightful, and compassionate writer.
    • 4/5
      A nuanced and complex novel that deals realistically with life. Comparisons with her contemporary Charles Dickens are inevitable. Compared to Eliot, Dickens seems overly sentimental and even a little crude in his portrayal of characters and their motivations - and I love my Dickens. But Eliot (actually the female author Mary Ann Evans) has an insight into the psychological makeup of her characters that rings true.
    • 4/5
      I've often seen this listed as one of the greatest novels in the English language, and occasionally as THE greatest novel. A friend's opinion is that it's a set of essays bound by a romantic plot. The characters are rich and interesting and give a sense of the diversity of personalities in a 19th-century English village (although, as typical of most British writers of this era, aside from Dickens, the few impoverished lowest-class characters are static). If I knew more about the political history of the time, I think I would have a better appreciation of the novel's greatness.
    • 4/5
      I am happy to report that I have finally made it through Middlemarch! At 784 densely-packed pages, there were times it was a bit of a slog, but, ultimately, the novel rewards the reader with finely-tuned observations about love, marriage, and human nature. Recommended for those willing to give it the time and patience it deserves.
    • 5/5
      One fo teh msot significant books I ever read. Middlemarch masquerades as a 19th century classic "love and morality" novel but with the most subversive of messages - that the religion of human tolerance is the only one worth caring about. It juxtaposes several love stories - the idealistic Dorothea sacrificing herself to Casaubon; Will Ladislaw and Dorothea; Lydgate and Rosemary, a doomed marriage;Fred and Mary...the conventional lovers of the piece - but many reader's miss the great true love story of the work, that of Bulstrode and his wife. Losing all the small gods of her world - social status and respectability through her husband's hypocrisy Mrs Bulstrode in one small gesture encapsulates Elliots mission of pity and compassion and tolerance for one another and our all too fragile humanity.A wonderful book, and one which more than any tract or diatribe can open the eyes of the mind.
    • 5/5
      A classic literary epic masterpiece.
    • 5/5
      a lot of cultural discussion that I didn’t understand. I was able to picture the scenes that were described so well. I liked it.
    • 5/5
      This is the story of the lives of people living in the county of Middlemarch in the mid 19th century. The various characters with their interwoven lives are depicted beautifully by the author. The author along with a good story narrative take us a step further into the minds of her characters. A space of two centuries hasn't diminished the impact this beautiful book has on it's readers.
    • 5/5
      I wish there was a way to give something six stars. I read this novel for eight hours a day for three days because I simply couldn't put it down. Lifechanging.
    • 4/5
      This was a pleasant light reading, which has not really captivated me. It is a social study with about a provincial town filled with being in love, marriages, deaths, money worries and happiness. Most actions were predictable and relatively typical of that time. You will quickly become familiar with all protagonists and almost can already guess what happens before it undergoes in the book.
    • 4/5
      There is a reason why classic stand the test of time: they are quite simply great books. This is one of them, and what really struck me is how perceptive Eliot is in portraying the subtlest nuances in character. There are may "confrontations" between characters that are memorable to me, in which a wall of silence and incomprehension appears, exchange after exchange, between two lovers, between two friends, between people who would like to say so much more but cannot, and we can all see and comprehend why they cannot, and identify our own experiences with what happens in the novel.
      There is a sense in which the end does not matter - what matters is the development of the characters and the ripening of life and experience. A beautiful book.
    • 4/5
      In all honesty, I enjoyed it more and read it faster than I thought I would. My favorite line of Eliot's came at the end: "...for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."Of all the characters, I liked Rosamond the least (Mr. Casaubon coming in a close second to "Rosy"), and I liked Dorothea the best. In the end, I'm glad "Dodo" went for it.
    • 3/5
      Decent writing, but drawn out
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite 19th Century novels!
    • 2/5
      Is it blasphemous to say this book disappointed me?

      Listen. It's a fine story. There's nothing inherently wrong with it. It's a lovely look at provincial life, full of the drama and romantic tension one expects from 19th century literature. But that's-- all it was to me. It was nothing special, nothing life hanging.

      I liked it, sure, but maybe I wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.

      I'm glad I read it, but I doubt I'll be picking it up again any time soon.
    • 5/5
      So proud to have read this book at last! And it was wonderful. It's true, you do have to accustom yourself to the style, but the rewards are great. Insightful, sometimes sad, often witty. Thanks to my wonderful book club (are we forever the Middlemarchers?) for the impetus to read this magnificent novel!