Middlemarch
Eliot’s epic of 19th century provincial social life, set in a fictitious Midlands town in the years 1830-32, has several interlocking storylines blended effortlessly together to form a fully coherent narrative. Its main themes are the status of women, social expectations and hypocrisy, religion, political reform and education. It has often been called the greatest novel in the English language.
Stats for nerds
23recommend
61mentions
47people
2010–2026years
51% recommend49% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Middlemarch is so amazing. And for me at least, really like George Eliot's writing, maybe even more than Austen. I heard it said that George Eliot is the one author that writes for adults, think this is true. As much as I enjoy Austen, Eliot's world and characters are more real and true to life. The characters are more balanced, almost all with strengths and weaknesses, and in many cases, these weaknesses either leading to their downfall, or something they mightly struggle to overcome.
Also, Eliot's language is incredible. On one hand, it's a lot more difficult to read than Austen, but on the other, it's so descriptive while still often being laced with a sense of beauty. Really wonderful prose.
- Now I really want to read Middlemarch.
- > The more I think about it, the happier I am that AI is transforming the world of writing. In a way, I think it’ll make it even easier to stand out—because the more people take shortcuts, the less quality will remain for readers to flock to, even if the overall quantity of options is much larger.
It's easier than ever to be a p99.999% oil painter, but compared with p99.999% film directors basically no one cares at all. Because painting is not in high demand, and film still is, for now.
If the demand for your certain kind of writing vastly diminishes, it is your detriment. AI's supply effect is changing the demand.
George Eliot already wrote a p99.99999% novel, Middlemarch. It is only thanks to massive population growth that the number of readers of her novel has increased or remained steady. As a proportion of the population, Middlemarch has no readership, and is a side show of a side show. It has almost completely lost its once hallowed place in society and culture.
- I read close to 40 books this year which I assume is up from the previous year, and way more than I used to read prior to starting to do the Rochester Library reading challenge (which I've done for the past two years). I won't get into a lot of it, but after reading Middlemarch three years ago, Napoleon: A Life two years ago, and The Power Broker last year I decided to read two "big" books.
In the first half of the year War and Peace, which obviously was excellent, although I liked Middlemarch more.
In the second half of the year David Copperfield which was very excellent. Just beautifully written. I still think I probably like Middlemarch more... but it might now require a re-read to know for sure.
This year is going to be Tom's Crossing to start as I just got that for Christmas.
- Middlemarch by George Eliot. Well worth a read, possibly the greatest English novel ever written.
- > But my admiration for Middlemarch and Bleak House goes beyond their portrayal of the psychological interiority of their characters. [...] Both novels succeed at something else: they invite us to think across multiple scales of experience—and to make causal and associative connections between those different layers.
To toss another into the ring, I can't think of any novel I've read that could rival The Brothers Karamazov in this regard. Possibly East of Eden, but as great as it is it plumbs nowhere near the moral and psychological depths of Dostoevsky.
