It’s almost a given in any discussion of Middlemarch that it begins by citing Virginia Woolf’s opinion that it’s one of the few books written for grown-up people. Here I am, fully grown-up, the same age as Virginia Woolf when she stuffed her pockets with rocks and stepped into the River Ouse, only now getting around to reading a book that routinely makes those lists of books you need to read before you die. See, for example, the Guardian’s “100 Best Novels Written in English” where it’s ranked #21 with only these words to describe it: “This cathedral of words stands today as perhaps the greatest of the great Victorian fictions.”
It’s surprising to me, then, that I have dodged it until now. I say “surprising” because I regard myself as a literate, snooty, bookish type. Probably the reason has to do with its length. On my iPad, the public domain version is 725 pages while readinglength.com tells me the print edition weighs in at 912 pages or 228,000 words. I’m as susceptible as the next person to the trends of the times, including our drift away from print media toward one minute Tik Tok porn videos, so the act of sitting down to read a long novel feels like the cultural equivalent of swimming upstream on the Niagara River just above the Falls. Even so, I have done it and my brain is probably better for the effort.
Given that Mary Ann Evans (aka George Eliot) wrote her novel 150 years ago, it’s fair to say that critics have had a good go at it, laying down summaries of the plot, offering up lists of themes, and situating it in wider literary conversations. So, for example, you can go to Wikipedia and discover that “Issues include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education.” Well, yes, but, yawn. What you don’t need from me is more of the same. It would be more interesting if I had something original to say about this great done-to-death novel, and it seems to me the only way I can find anything fresh to add is if I sic it, like a 60 kg pit bull, on the fresh concerns of our contemporary context.
Fortunately, that happens as a matter of course. The only way I can read anything is through the lens of whatever concerns me most at a particular moment. So, for example, if the news is full of stories about wild fires raging in heat waves, my imagination is keyed to notice passages about fires or conflagrations or even symbolic references to flames, the phoenix, hell, uncontrollable passion, even skin rashes. It’s almost a form of confirmation bias. I notice references that remind me of whatever happens to be uppermost in my mind, and I overlook everything else.
When I was reading Eliot’s novel, what I held uppermost in my mind was a concern I’d drawn from the book I’d been reading immediately beforehand, namely Geoff Dyer’s The Last Days of Roger Federer. (By coincidence, Dyer enlists the support of an incidental quotation from Middlemarch in a discussion of a Turner painting.) In a previous post on Dyer’s latest book, I offer more detail of a concern that has insinuated itself into my thoughts. But, for the purposes of my current post, let me summarize: our culture has a longstanding preoccupation with ultimate meaning; life appears to us as worthless unless we dedicate ourselves to the pursuit and fulfillment of those things that will invest it with such ultimate meaning. In religion, it might be the perfection of the soul that leads to eternal life. In a secular context, it might be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Or wealth. Or power. Or celebrity. Or athletic prowess. Or personal accomplishment. Or Instagram followers. However, experience demonstrates that the preoccupation with ultimate meaning tends to betray most people who entertain it. Instead, we would be better served by more modest aims. So often, people denigrate “settling” when, from the perspective of mental wellness, “settling” is so often the ideal outcome. Mediocrity has something to be said for it. Good enough is a sure path to happiness.
We see this play out again and again in Middlemarch. We see it maybe most acutely in the contrasting figures of Rev. Edward Casaubon and Mr. Arthur Brooke, both of whom we meet at the outset. Although a clergyman, Casaubon aspires to intellectual greatness by creating his “Key to All Mythologies”, a compendious undertaking which, when completed, will demonstrate “that all the mythical systems or erratic mythical fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally revealed.” It is an encyclopedic project that aims at completeness. It will be the last word on just about everything. As one expects, Casaubon devotes all his time to gathering and sorting information but never readying anything of his own for publication. He falls down one erudite rabbit hole and then, after he’s climbed out, falls down another. The reader, and many of the characters for that matter, recognize that Casaubon has so far overreached that he can’t help but fail while at the same time turning himself into a caricature of the learned scholar.
To the other extreme we have Mr. Brooke who initially strikes us as wishy-washy for his lack of accomplishment and unwillingness to hold to a firm line. He might once of have pursued scholarly inclinations but gave them up because he knew his own limitations. He observes: “The fact is, human reason may carry you a little too far—over the hedge, in fact. It carried me a good way at one time; but I saw it would not do. I pulled up; I pulled up in time.” He tries to seek political office to promote his Whiggish notions in a Tory world but falls prey to cruel treatment at the hands of his opponents. Despite all that, he remains committed to the care of his orphaned nieces and sidesteps the village’s gossip and machinations. He is only ineffectual when viewed from the perspective of those who would accomplish the sorts of things that get you memorialized with bronze statues. But viewed from any other perspective, he is decent and loyal and steady.
This contrast between pursuit of great things and more modest aims plays out again and again in Middlemarch. Brooke’s eldest niece, Dorothea, finds herself at nineteen utterly smitten by the great Casaubon although he is old enough to be her father. In fact, her feelings for Casaubon are lukewarm at best; it is his purpose that excites her: “To reconstruct a past world, doubtless with a view to the highest purposes of truth—what a work to be in any way present at, to assist in, though only as a lamp-holder!” And later: “the union which attracted her was one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection to her own ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guide who would take her along the grandest path.”
Meanwhile, we can line up Sir James Chettam behind Mr. Brooke. Sir James hopes for a match with Dorothea. Unfortunately for him, the object of his affection isn’t interested in a man who doesn’t take life seriously the way Casaubon takes life seriously. Like Brooke, Sir James knows his limitations: he “had the rare merit of knowing that his talents, even if let loose, would not set the smallest stream in the county on fire.” When Sir James learns that Dorothea has accepted a proposal of marriage from Casaubon, he shrugs his shoulders and turns to Dorothea’s younger sister, Celia, who is pleased for the attention. You might say that Sir James “settles” when he shifts his affections from one sister to the other, but despite all that, they marry, they have a child, they make a life together and, most importantly, they seem happy together. That never changes throughout the novel.
Other couples illustrate this clash of contrasting values in various combinations. So we have Mr. Lydgate a young physician who has high-minded plans for introducing medical reforms to Middlemarch and drawing its provincial practitioners into the modern world of the 19th century whether they like it or not. But he finds himself thwarted at every turn. His colleagues are resistant. He has purchased a practice for more than it’s worth. Debts mount beyond his ability to service them. And, perhaps most challenging, he marries Rosamond without understanding beforehand that she has lifestyle expectations he can’t possibly meet. If left on his own, Lydgate would happily “settle” for less; but he loves Rosamond and, because he doesn’t want to disappoint her, digs himself deeper and deeper into his hole.
By contrast, Rosamond’s brother, Fred, begins life in a hole: gambling debts. If we were to adapt Middlemarch to life 150 years later, we might cast Fred as a millennial slacker who has no idea what he wants to do with himself, but maxes out his credit cards ordering stuff on his Amazon Prime account and playing poker on his iPhone. Fred’s father, a local businessman, refuses to bail him out and, instead, tells him to get his degree and become a clergyman. Fred could care less. All he knows is that he loves Mary Garth and, while Mary Garth loves him back, she refuses to marry him until he sorts himself out. Like Lydgate, Fred “settles.” He lands a job managing a farm where he can purchase all the stock over time. That’s good enough for Mary Garth. And, as it turns out, it’s good enough for Fred, too.
All these relationships revolve around the central character, Dorothea, who, more than anyone else, has her circumstances determined for her. At the outset of the novel, Casaubon’s grandiose project overwhelms her better instincts. But Dorothea is an intelligent woman who recognizes in short order that her marriage was a mistake and that Casaubon’s project is ludicrous. Thankfully, Casaubon has the good sense to die, freeing Dorothea to nurture passionate feelings for Casaubon’s second cousin, Ladislaw. However, Casaubon has anticipated this and has prepared a codicil to his will in which he stipulates that Dorothea will forfeit her entitlements should she marry Ladislaw. As with many of the other characters, we wonder how much Dorothea is willing to sacrifice for the sake of personal happiness.
Casaubon’s codicil reveals something important about people who see life as a quest for meaning: they have difficulty imagining that other people might not share their assumptions. Given the cultural hegemony of rural England in the 19th century, with a state religion committed to ideals of Christian perfection, Casaubon’s narrow assumption might seem justified. But Middlemarch documents a society in flux. A doctor arrives with new ideas about health care. Locals kvetch about the introduction of rail lines through their lands. Parliament debates a reform bill that would diminish the rights of landowners in favour of their tenants. In the face of social upheaval, it’s natural for people to respond by clinging more tightly to longstanding values, even if those values are illusory. As Mr. Farebrother observes: “When I was young … there never was any question about right and wrong. We knew our catechism, and that was enough; we learned our creed and our duty. Every respectable Church person had the same opinions.” His recollections may be distorted, but his need to assert them is understandable.
We witness the same dynamic at play in our own world. In the face of a global public health crisis, doctors try to introduce new ideas about health care. We face our own disruptions through the development of new technologies: privatized space travel, digital money, video conferencing, work from home. And in our own time, reform efforts are likewise defeated by conservative appeals to enduring values bolstered by the rhetoric of ultimacy. Appeals to ultimate meaning may be illusory, but in the short term they serve the political expedient of foreclosing awkward dialog. Like Fred and Rosamond’s father, we wonder if, instead of political upheaval, this turmoil might not signal the end of the world. It’s only by revisiting a novel that has stood its ground for 150 years that we gain a long view of our current political life. Like a cartographer, George Eliot has drawn a map and it shows us that while our values may not endure, our behaviours and frailties do.