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| First Written | 1860 |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Origin | UK |
| My Copy | paperback copy I bought in Munich, with an introduction in Chinese |
| First Read | February 10, 2025 |
The Mill on the Floss
Like most of the Victorian books I read, this is fundamentally a social novel, about the life of Maggie and her moral development. A village book, small town life etc. A closed cast of characters where everybody knows everybody else's business. It's so sedate and the big crisis has some outward effect - but the important part is internal.
But! It builds toward an emotional climax that was then strangely suspended - I honestly did not know how it would resolve. But then (spoilers) there is a real and sudden catastrophe. I was on the edge of my seat, really shocked. Amazing! Reminded me of a very modern novel, where the metaphoric becomes real all of a sudden. The last few pages felt like a De Lillo! I should talk this over with someone who knows more.
Noted on February 11, 2025
Also: George Eliot does not have a rosy view of the life of smart women. Maggie here, Dorothea in Middlemarch. Must be autobiographical, right?
Noted on February 11, 2025
[file under: Nobody wants to work anymore, Mr. Deane is the worst]
"You want me to help you to a situation,” Mr Deane went on; “well, I’ve no fault to find with that. I’m willing to do something for you. But you youngsters nowadays think you’re to begin with living well and working easy; you’ve no notion of running afoot before you get horseback. Now, you must remember what you are,—you’re a lad of sixteen, trained to nothing particular. There’s heaps of your sort, like so many pebbles, made to fit in nowhere.
Quoted on February 11, 2025
If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.
Quoted on February 11, 2025
Those bitter sorrows of childhood!-- when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.
Quoted on February 11, 2025
It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most liable to shift their position and contradict themselves in this sudden manner: everything is easier to them than to face the simple fact that they have been thoroughly defeated.
Quoted on February 11, 2025