Middlemarch - April CC Book Club Selection

[jerseysouthmomchess]

Rosamond scene @garland recalls

After a night of great moral struggle, however, she decides that it is her duty to go back and offer Rosamond her sympathy about Lydgate’s disgrace. Touched by Dorothea’s generosity, and in a rare moment of unselfishness, Rosamond tells Dorothea how innocent her relationship with Ladislaw really is. When Ladislaw comes to see Dorothea again, the two decide that they love each other so much that they will get married in spite of his parentage, his poverty, and what Middlemarch thinks.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/middlemarch-study-provincial-life

[mathmom]

My edition of the book has a forward by Margaret Drabble. One of the points she makes is that Dorothea and Rosamond have grown up in very different classes. Rosamund and Ned have been given the education to aspire to a higher class, but they don’t really have the background to quite carry it off. D & R only get connected because D is supporting Lydgate’s hospital. Will is sort of an inbetween character who can cross class lines. R is spoiled and self-centered, but I think (as we see) she does have the capacity to do the right thing.

Dorothea and Will have a few interesting conversations, but they really barely know each other. There’s at least one big hint early on that Will is beginning to succumb to her charms, but I don’t think Dorothea has any idea until she thinks he’s courting Rosamond.

[jerseysouthmomchess]

^I understood what drew D to C, but wasn’t sure what traits she admired in Will?

Of course, as Mary13 mentioned in the TV version, he was extremely handsome,and those eyes, But, what Else drew D to Will?

[Caraid]

I think Dorothea was drawn to Will because she saw him has honest and maybe a little pure. He was a free spirit, not always tied to convention. He was intriquing. Will was just a good guy who, while carrying the burdens of his past, did not brood about thinking anyone owed him anything. (This is my unfocused, undetailed opinion of what I read. )

In my book the male Vincy is named Fred, not Ned. Is it different in other editions?

[ignatius]

Fred is Fred Vincy; Ned is Ned Plymdale, who courts Rosamund but loses out to Lydgate.

Certain names caused a problem till I got a much firmer grip on the characters: Ladislaw/Lydgate; Borthrop Trumbell/Bulstrode; and then the name Bambridge appeared. Occasionally Mr. Brooke himself took a minute to place, if he hadn’t appeared in the story for a while.

And the tangle of Will Ladislaw’s family connections still makes me pause and sort out just how he’s related to both Casaubon and Bulstrode.

[Caraid]

Thank you @ignatius . Middlemarch was not my most thorough read.

[Mary13]

@@mathmom

There’s at least one big hint early on that Will is beginning to succumb to her charms, but I don’t think Dorothea has any idea until she thinks he’s courting Rosamond.

They dance around the topic of their mutual attraction when Will comes to say good-bye to Dorothea, and she has an interior monologue where she debates whether or not the discreet language Will uses is referring to her. She decides (rightly) that it is, and that he loves her, but then second guesses herself when she sees him with Rosamond.

In any case, even if Dorothea and Will don’t see it or name it, Mr. Casaubon does. He may be a cold fish, but he ain’t dumb.

@garland

…we see it over and over–characters who are faced with a decision and must either choose what’s personally safe, or what’s humanly right.

I agree. Mr. Bulstrode is a prime example of this. He takes a small step toward doing the right thing when he tells Will about his moral failing and offers to compensate him; but when push comes to shove, Bulstrode chooses what’s personally safe. And it backfires terribly.

[ignatius]

@Mary13

In any case, even if Dorothea and Will don’t see it or name it, Mr. Casaubon does. He may be a cold fish, but he ain’t dumb.

LOL and I agree.

[Mary13]

@ignatius

Certain names caused a problem till I got a much firmer grip on the characters

Definitely, but that part was fun for me – I loved all the names and the huge cast of characters. It was Dickensian in that respect. (Raffles, by the way, seemed like he stepped out of a Dickens novel.)

“Will Ladislaw” is a romance hero name – he’s informal (“Will”) and youthful (“lad”), but solid (“law”).

“Rosamond”, of course, made me think of the renowned beauty of English folklore.

“Camden Farebrother” was a comrade to all, a fair man, a “brother” when interacting with Fred or Lydgate.

And so on!

[Mary13]

BOOK III: WAITING FOR DEATH

1. In this book we get to know the Garths much better — not just Mary, but also her mother and father. What are they like? What values does their family represent? What kind of contrast do they provide to other families we know, such as the Vincys?
2. Virginia Woolf famously called *Middlemarch* a novel for “grown-up people,” but a lot of its main characters are very young and prone to youthful mistakes. What lesson does (or at least could) Fred learn from his bad experience of horse trading, and from the harm his mistakes cause the Garths?
3. The opening paragraph of Chapter 27 is probably the most famous single passage in Middlemarch. What do you think the parable of the pier glass helps us understand about the novel’s structure? In what other ways does it illuminate the novel’s ideas?
4. The narrator’s interruption (“but why always Dorothea?”) in the first sentence of Chapter 29 not only interrupts our concentration on the plot but also raises an important question about priorities and sympathies — both hers and ours. It’s followed by an extended section on Mr. Casaubon. Why do you think she makes such a big deal of this shift in perspective? What are the stakes?
5. Why does Dorothea’s blue-green boudoir look so different to her when she returns there after her honeymoon? (We see her boudoir again at several points in the novel — it’s interesting to track her relationship to the room.)
6. Chapters 27-29 make up another unit that is interesting to analyze for its manipulation of chronology. Again, it’s worth considering why (both structurally and thematically) Eliot doesn’t just give us the events in linear order. What’s different, for instance, about the encounter between Lydgate and Sir James’s servant at the end of Chapter 27 when we return to it in Chapter 29 — how has our perspective on that event changed?

[Mary13]

@@jerseysouthmomchess

I understood what drew D to C, but wasn’t sure what traits she admired in Will?

@Caraid

Will was just a good guy who, while carrying the burdens of his past, did not brood about thinking anyone owed him anything.

I think the “just a good guy” aspect is part of what makes Will and Dorothea a good match. She, in her goodness, raises him up to be an even better person than he already is; and he grounds her – her life with Will is more happy service than saintly martyrdom (like St. Dorothea of Caesarea – names again!)

Still, she never repented that she had given up position and fortune to marry Will Ladislaw, and he would have held it the greatest shame as well as sorrow to him if she had repented. They were bound to each other by a love stronger than any impulses which could have marred it. No life would have been possible to Dorothea which was not filled with emotion, and she now had a life filled also with a beneficent activity which she had not the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for herself (p. 809).

They end up as essentially a pair of grassroots reformers, and Will makes it to Parliament. I wonder what they would be in the 21st century? Community activists? Founders of a small, respectable non-profit? Registered Democrats, for sure.

[ignatius]

I also think that after marriage to an unresponsive Casaubon, Will’s attention and love acts as a panacea to Dorothea. Casaubon pays begrudging attention to Dorothea; she figures out on her honeymoon that she’s not to be loved or even respected in terms of thoughts/ideas. Will gives her that from the beginning.

[ignatius]

Also I find Will’s kindness to and friendship with elderly Miss Noble charming. I bet Dorothea does also.

[Mary13]

Two other things I found endearing about Will (which the townspeople deemed his “oddities”):

He had a fondness, half artistic, half affectionate, for little children – the smaller they were on tolerably active legs, and the funnier their clothing, the better Will liked to surprise and please them. We know that in Rome he was given to ramble about among the poor people, and the taste did not quit him in Middlemarch.

and

…in houses where he got friendly, he was given to stretch himself at full length on the rug while he talked, and was apt to be discovered in this attitude by occasional callers for whom such an irregularity was likely to confirm the notions of his dangerously mixed blood and general laxity.

[Mary13]

Enjoyable article in The Guardian (from 2007) by our old friend A.S. Byatt: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/aug/04/fiction.asbyatt

[Mary13]

1. In this book we get to know the Garths much better — not just Mary, but also her mother and father. What are they like? What values does their family represent? What kind of contrast do they provide to other families we know, such as the Vincys?

The Garths are down-to-earth, honest, honorable, hard-working, and generous…and that matters very little to people like Mrs. Vincy, who see only class lines. At least Fred Vincy, for all his foibles, recognizes and appreciates the Garth family’s qualities. I thought his lifelong attachment to Mary was very sweet: “Mary was a little hoyden, and Fred at six years old thought her the nicest girl in the world, making her his wife with a brass ring which he had cut from an umbrella.” I was glad they ended up with a long and happy union.

5. Why does Dorothea’s blue-green boudoir look so different to her when she returns there after her honeymoon? (We see her boudoir again at several points in the novel — it’s interesting to track her relationship to the room.)

Here’s the description upon her return from Rome:

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; the volumes of polite literature in the bookcase looked more like immovable imitations of books.

I think the room has changed because Dorothea has changed – the honeymoon has opened her eyes, and the world no longer seems to hold endless promise. The stag turning into “a ghost in his ghostly blue-green world” could represent Mr. Casaubon and how he is not as substantial as he first appeared; and the “imitations of books” suggest his rather useless and outdated project.

[Caraid]

@Mary13

I think the room has changed because Dorothea has changed – the honeymoon has opened her eyes, and the world no longer seems to hold endless promise. The stag turning into “a ghost in his ghostly blue-green world” could represent Mr. Casaubon and how he is not as substantial as he first appeared; and the “imitations of books” suggest his rather useless and outdated project.

I agree, but also wonder if some of her change came from seeing more of the world. She wasn’t that interested in seeing the famous museums, but she did see them, and she experienced some of Rome. Meeting Will and his artist friend, Adolf Naumann, in Rome also made an impression and made her world larger. So, depite going to Rome with the desire to help her husband, she also had the experieince of finding the world was much bigger than Middlemarch and Lowick.

[mathmom]

About half way through the book Will and Dorothea talk about their values. I think this is where Dorothea begins to see him as more than just her husband’s wronged cousin.

Dorothea expresses her beliefs this way:

But I have a belief of my own, and it comforts me." “What is that?” said Will, rather jealous of the belief. “That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don’t quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil—widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.”

Meanwhile Will honestly says this:

“To love what is good and beautiful when I see it,” said Will. “But I am a rebel: I don’t feel bound, as you do, to submit to what I don’t like.” “But if you like what is good, that comes to the same thing,” said Dorothea, smiling. “Now you are subtle,” said Will.

[mathmom]

A.S. Byatt seems to think a lot less of Rosamond than Eliot. Byatt says,

Lydgate’s mistake is quite different. He marries Rosamond Vincy, the daughter of the mayor of Middlemarch, who flatters him, and flirts with him, and traps him into believing that he has inadvertently led her to expect a proposal - and he is too good-natured not to propose, and not astute enough to see he has been trapped. Rosamond turns out to be manipulative, complacent, spendthrift and stupid.

While Eliot says

2Think no unfair evil of her, pray: she had no wicked plots, nothing sordid or mercenary; in fact, she never thought of money she never thought of money except as something which other people would always provide. She was not in the habit of devising falsehoods, and if her statements were no direct clue to fact, why, they were not intended in that light – they were among her elegant accomplishments, intended to please.

Back to the Chapters 19-21 Timeline quiz.

Actual order of events is
i. Dorothea and Casaubon go to Rome for their honeymoon
vii. Dorothea quarrels with Casaubon
v. Dorothea goes to the Vatican
iv. Naumann sees Dorothea in the Vatican
iii. Naumann points Dorothea out to Will
ii. Dorothea cries in her apartment in Rome
vi. Will visits Dorothea in her apartment

Book Order is
i. Dorothea and Casaubon go to Rome for their honeymoon
iii. Naumann points Dorothea out to Will
iv. Naumann sees Dorothea in the Vatican
ii. Dorothea cries in her apartment in Rome
vii. Dorothea quarrels with Casaubon
v. Dorothea goes to the Vatican
vi. Will visits Dorothea in her apartment

I can only guess that Eliot wants us to see Dorothea first as normal lusty young men see her and then contrast that with the actual state of affairs, first her emotional state then the facts that explain how she got there. I think it emphasizes the tragedy of her marriage. She could have had Rome with a young man who would have appreciated her and the art around her. Instead she gets someone who takes her dutifully to see sights and clearly would rather be elsewhere.

[Mary13]

“It would have been easy to play Casaubon for villainy or laughs, but Eliot makes him tragically aware of his deficiencies.” From this article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/21/george-eliot-jennifer-egan-middlemarch-marriage

I agree with that, and I think the actor in the mini-series did an excellent job of making Casaubon both sympathetic and repellent – not an easy task.

@mathmom, re the “lusty” element, I wonder if Dorothea subconsciously chooses the aging Casaubon because she feels she shouldn’t allow herself to experience physical pleasure? Just read a New Yorker article in which the author mentions Dorothea’s rejection of horseback riding: "she felt that she enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to renouncing it.”

Here’s the New Yorker article. Long but I liked it: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/middlemarch-and-me