Book Report

Middlemarch
George Eliot

George Eliot and I have the same birthday, which explains why we are both so long-winded.

*Spoiler alert*

Yeah, I actually finished this tome about 2 months ago but honestly felt like I really needed to think about a way to write a report to do it justice. Or maybe not the book justice because it was unevenly sharp and poignant, coupled with incredibly dull and mundane. More like my reaction to this book justice. Really, just how many times in a book is one allowed to go "pallid"? Jesus Christ.

Dorothea was annoying. Rosamund was a bitch. Will was kind of sissy. The real treat for me were the minor characters, who seemed more real.

And yeah, I was totally thrilled when Dorothea's husband kicked it.

If you want a storyline, go straight to the Epilogue, which manages to happily cover about twenty years in the space of five pages.

If you want a lot of rumination on unrequited love and forbidden feelings for a few years that goes on for hundreds of pages, have at it. There are some gems or wisdom and wry humor in it that did make me fold a corner of the page with some vague intention of quoting it at some point. But in my opinion, the best summary I have of this book was that, when asked by a stranger at a bar what I was reading, I honestly could not remember without looking at the cover. Yes, it took this speedreader that long to slough through it. Do I regret it? No ... but that may only be because I can finally check that off my book bucket list.

Phew.