The Mill on the Floss

     I finished the book last week, and I'm still mulling it over, letting the many themes of the story sift down through my mind. In some ways, I didn't like the ending -- too sudden, too inconclusive, too shocking. I wanted Maggie to go on living, growing, changing the world -- because she could have been an agent for wonderful change in her stifling community. I loved her character, but disliked most of the others, except for lovable Bob Jakin and the minister (but even he seemed too weak to stand up to the hypocrisy of his parishoners). 

      I read a few scholarly articles about the book, but I sort of wish I didn't. They were very opinionated articles, and they cast a shadow over my feelings about the book. However, it's good, I guess, to get other's views on the book -- sort of like meeting in a George Eliot book club. 

     What I should do is go back over the book, rereading passages and chapters. I'm sure new lights would be shed on the meaning of this wonderful novel.

The Mill on the Floss

I'm now in Book 6, Chapter 8, and I'm beginning to think I'm not going to like the way this book ends. (There are still a good 200 pages left.) Maggie, such a good person, seems to be falling in love with the foolish Stephen Guest, who is already engaged to Maggie's best friend, Lucy. I know these things happen in real life, and I know a novelist's job is to portray life as it really is -- but still, I don't want this to happen. I don't want Lucy to be hurt, just as I wouldn't want someone like her in real life to be hurt. I guess I'm too much of an idealist for a book like this. Oh well ... let's wait and see what happens.

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

I'm enjoying my second consecutive novel by George Eliot (following Adam Bede this summer). This, so far, is a humorous, down-home type of story, filled with the gossipy kind of talk that small towns everywhere engage in. In fact, it's kind of surprising that it's holding my interest, since nothing that you would call exciting has happened -- just the ups and downs of everyday life among the young and not so young. I do continue to love Eliot's use of language. She is an absolute master at constructing sentences that sound like both lyric poems and professorial lectures.