Silas Marner

This is George Eliot with the edges sanded off. Is that.. good? I don't know. [Edit: I just read the Eliot's wikipedia page. This is about a decade before Middlemarch. So I suppose the spikes grew from here.] But really, a somewhat lighter-in-tone story, compared to the other ones of hers I've read. No really standout characters or moments, EXCEPT I had an incredible 'Matt doesn't know literature' moment.

The main outlines of the plot: we meet our hero Marner, a loner who lives as an 'outsider' in a small community - he had moved there after a great loss and being excommunicated from his church. He's a loner. He's built up a small treasure by hard work and thrift, which was his only consolation in his lonely life. Then one day his treasure is stolen, and the town is sad for him. And shortly thereafter, an orphaned toddler finds his way to his lone cottage, which he adopts. The loss of his gold and the gaining of a daughter is the pathway to wrapping him back into a community. And the orphan is actually secretly the child of the big landowner's son, who doesn't take responsibility for her. And the stolen treasure was actually stolen by the big landowner's other son!

My big dumb realization: this is the plot of The Storied Life of AJ Fikry, which is itself already a paean to great books. I had previously mapped onto A Gentleman in Moscow. But Silas Marner is obviously much more famous than either and it's the kind of thing every English major probably already knows.

I've always thought that if I had to write a novel, I'd just pick a 2nd- or 3rd-tier classic that I know has a good structure, and just reskin it with a new setting and characters. Gratifying to see people really do it!

Noted on September 4, 2025