Rating: If you are a writer, Must read.
If you are not- Still, a must read.
I have just
finished reading Middlemarch. It is
quite a heavy and voluminous book. The story slowly rises, very slowly, spread
across so many deeply developed and intricately engaging characters- the people
of a fictional rustic town of Middlemarch
in the 18th Century England. The narrative and the story is strong,
well-built with huge shoulders to carry various causes which it alludes to.
The beauty and
charm of reading a classic of those times is that while these stories were
written when Europe convalesced under the forces which were to set it on a path
to glory; it is to the credit to wonderful writers like George Eliot (Real name, Mary
Ann Evans (1819-1880)), that they never allow the narrative to surrender to
their causes. While the story deals with love, marriage as prime theme, it is
not a romance novel, as is evident by the male pen-name taken by the writer in
those times. There will of course, be allusion to social themes like widow
remarriage, love outside of marital boundaries, social divisions and woman
emancipation, but there will always be the story which stands supreme. This is
the skill of the writer that the story is the message. Author does not, for a
moment, sit at the high pedestal to preach. From that perspective, this is
another of Writer’s book (like Orlando,
or Lord Jim or The Insulted and The Humiliated, for that matter).
There are no judgement which the writer makes on behalf of the reader. In that sense, the writer doesn’t misuse his exalted position as the creator and narrator of the
story. The characters are exactly as they are supposed to be. They thrive and
bloom in the thin land of reality which exists between the good and the evil.
Therein lies the success of the Novel, it doesn’t preach or screech ever. Just as the oft said- Show, don't tell, this is another lesson, illustrate, don't preach.
The
message is subtle, the build impeccable. Virginia
Woolf called MiddleMarch as one the few English books written for
grown-up people. One needs a degree of maturity and patience to let
this book grow on you. By the time one ends the book, (which will be a long
time, this being a longish book), you almost feel you have been to this small
town, know all those inhabitants and are almost saddened when you close the
finished story and miss them sorely, sadly and surely.
The story looms
about the small town politics, with Nicholas Bulstrode, as a wealthy and
overtly righteous banker, Sir James Chattam, Mr. Brooke and his nieces,
Dorothea and Celia Brook, Clergyman Edward Casaubon, Vincy family and the young
Doctor Lydgate, before it delves deeper and looks into lives of people, their
relationships and evaluates, addresses their parallel stories which run side-by-side. Much like life, no story is subservient to
any other story and it takes special vastness of vision on the part of the
writer to ensure that each story is dealt with as delicately as any other.
The Plot is very
complex, mostly on account of multiple story-lines and makes one ponder about
relationships, customs and conventions, without being judgmental about them. As
a reader, it opens layers of your understanding about the world and at no point
in the story, the writer tries to impose his vision, his idea on to you. The
characters emerge as real people of flesh and blood with their very human
weaknesses and strengths arising out of the story.
The story begins
with Sir James Chettam wanting to get married to Dorothea, a lovely, young and
intellectually awakened woman, searching for her moorings. Dorothea, is much
impressed, instead with the wise, and self-effacing Rev. Edward Casaubon, who
is much older than her. She however, feels that life would find purpose in the
intellectual pursuit, rather supporting the intellectual pursuit of Casaubon.
In the process, she spurns James Chettam, refuses to listen to her sister
Celia, who is practical and intellectually superficial, and gets married to a much
older man. Soon, on their wedding journey to Rome, she realizes her folly and
finds herself into a lonely existence on the other side of the wall, beyond
which Casaubon is busy in the pursuit of his own elusive intellectual glory.
She, a sharp and wise soul, soon realizes the futility of her husband’s pursuit,
as she finds the limitations of his mind. Nothing can put this disillusionment
more eloquently as the author herself when she writes,
“the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in
her husband’s mind were replaced by anterooms and winding passages which seemed
to lead nowhither.
And as time passes, it comes to a point, when Casaubon
asks her regarding whether they should leave or stay,
It seemed to her as if going or staying were alike dreary.
As I
wrote in the beginning, this is a writer’s book, it is an education for a
writer. It takes you to such great pinnacles of glory of language, one bows the
head in awe.
She writes the
loneliness of young Dorothea, searching for way to enter into her husband’s
intimate life,
“The distant flat shrank
in uniform whiteness and low-hanging uniformity of cloud. The very furniture in
the room seemed to have shrunk since she saw it before: The stag in the
tapestry looked more like a ghost in his ghostly blue-green world….her
religious faith was a solitary cry, the struggle out of a nightmare in which
every object was withering and shrinking away from her.
She meets in her days of loneliness in Rome,
Will Ladislaw, Casaubon’s young cousin with little fortune to his name. She
feels Will has been wronged and is sympathetic towards him. Right at the time,
when one feels it is getting into Madam Bovary mold, the story soars as one
understands Casaubon, even in his failures, as a human being. As one discovers
the deeply distrustful husband in Casaubon, one also feels for him as his
impending death is announced.
She writes,
when
the commonplace, “We must all die” transforms itself suddenly into acute
consciousness, “I must die and soon” then death grapples us and his fingers are
cruel:
Edward dies amid the disputed request by Dorothea to support
Ladislaw. One doesn’t hate him, one does not love Edward. One does feel a
little sad as if someone real had died. Dorothea shrinks into the shadows of
young widowhood, under the admonishment of her dead husband’s will that she was
never to re-marry and not to Will Ladislaw at least.
Another story which
runs in parallel is of the young doctor, Lydgate who arrives in the small town
of MiddleMarch and while gains affection of Rosamond, the daughter in Vincy
family, while helping her brother Fred Vincy recuperate from his sickness, and
marries her. A romantic marriage is soon withered in the warm winds of poverty
which brings out the vulnerabilities of their happy lives. Fred Vincy on the
other hand, is in love with Mary Garth, a conscientious, wise girl and a
daughter of Caleb Garth. Mary wants Fred, who is her childhood sweetheart to
get out of his aimlessness, and find stability in life, before she could
consent to marry him.
This is a wonderful
story of man-woman relationships, of marriage, where love helps the three
people survive their on fractured moralities, whether it is Fred Vinci’s view
of life devoid of any seriousness, Lydgate whose marriage braves both poverty
and selfish attitude of Rosamond to finally settle down and apathy of his
in-laws, or Dorothea, who helps Lydgate come out of the unreasonable blame of
death of Raffles . Raffles arrives late in the scene and carries secret
regarding Bulstrode and Ladislaw. At the end, Dorothea marries Ladislaw, contrary
to the will of her deceased husband and advise of her presumptuous and haughty
brother-in-law, and erstwhile spurned suiter, Chettam. As a consequence, the
relationships with Celia is broken. However, as they would say in Eighteenth
century English, by-and-by things would come around all would fall in place.
The best thing about this story is that it takes no side, and tells you that
left to their own design, in the long run, truth prevails, love prevails. As VS
Pritchett would write in 1946, No other writer has represented the
ambiguities of moral choices so fully. Emily Dickinson, when asked about what she
thought of MiddleMarch responded by saying, “What do I think of glory?”
While in most
Novels, no character except the main protagonists, Ms. Eliot attends with
affection to each character in the story. While this lengthens the novel, it
ensures that one gets into the skin of MiddleMarch. This explains why the novel
still captures the fancy of modern readers, more than a century after it was
published (it is an 1872 novel), ranked 21st among the 100 best
novels ranked by The Guardian in
2014.
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