(Joyfully) Plodding through Middlemarch
and musings for chapters 21-31
Good Morning Readers,
I hope you have awoken this morning to peace and quiet and coffee and books….but if you haven’t then I am with you. My morning started a bit more abruptly with kids arguing whether to watch Bluey or Wild Kratts and asking if it was time for breakfast yet (it was not). But I remain hopeful of snagging a few pockets of peace to read a bit this weekend. Cultivating a reading life as a mom is so important and beautiful, but definitely not as picture perfect as I’d like it to be!
I am still working my way through my Muriel Spark novella (105 pgs that are very small) from last weekend so I can’t say if I recommend it yet. But seriously if you haven’t succumbed to my peer pressure thus far, go read Aiding and Abetting and get ready for a great weekend! And be sure to come back and tell me your thoughts. I, for one, am still thinking about it 2 weeks later.
As to our “official” reason for being here, I am still plodding (joyfully) through Middlemarch. I think I do need to pick up the pace to finish for a meeting on Thursday. So this week might be a “3 chapter a day” week. I have heard a few people that aren’t enjoying it as much as they’d like and are finding it slow. I would encourage you to keep going and pay special attention to Eliot’s descriptions. This novel might turn more on each main character’s inner life than the outer plot. I would be interested to know if people agree with that analysis.
Chapter by Chapter
21
Will comes to call on the Cassubons and finds Dorothea after her solitary sob. The idea that Cassubon has gotten “this adorable young creature to marry him” and then left her to fend for herself on their honeymoon fills him “with a sort of comic disgust.” This whole paragraph makes me love Will. His misunderstanding of her comment (before the wedding) about his art is so relatable. Dorothea again admits her blindness, in relation to art this time. She then implies that Will is capable of better art than she has seen in Rome and he replies, “A man must have a very rare genius to make changes of that kind.” Then Will understands why she married Cassubon. Is he the first character to understand Dorothea so well? He then compares Cassubon to a dragon which makes me think it is going to be a fairy tale (but one that takes place in the real world.
“If Mr. Cassubon had been a dragon who had carried her off to his lair with his talons simply and without legal forms, it would have been an unavoidable feat of heroism to release her and fall at her feet. But he was something more unmanageable than a dragon: he was a benefactor with collective society at his back…”
Dorothea’s apology and Cassubon’s “forgiveness” are painful… “I am glad that you feel that, my dear"… ouch! But he is jealous of Will (and it seems like he should be).
22
Next we go along with Dorothea and Cassubon to see some art in Rome and end up in his and Naumann’s studio. They are both painted, but Cassubon only cares about his painting (in which he is posing as Thomas Aquinas…which almost makes me offended for St. Thomas’ sake being compared with Cassubon). Will and Dorothea’s conversation at the end of this chapter is so revealing. Will understands her so well.
“I suspect that you have some false belief in the virtues of misery, and want to make your life a matrydom.”
She also seems to understand him pretty well and even calls him to be better. By the end of the chapter he has announced that he is going to be independent of Mr. Cassubon and make his own way in the world. Maybe Fred will learn from him….
23
Speaking of Fred, we now find out that he has done something awful by asking Mary’s Father (Caleb) to co-sign a debt with him (and Mary’s parents are very poor). We learn a lot about Caleb Garth in this chapter and he is so likable…
“He was one of those men who are rigid to themselves and indulgent to others….I fear he was a bad disciplinarian.”
Caleb has conveniently not told his wife about signing this document for Fred and Eliot’s description made me laugh…
“Either because his interest in his work thrust the incident of the signature from his memory, or for some reason of which Caleb was more conscious, Mrs. Garth remained ignorant of the affair.”
Fred is so likable but also so foolish. I find myself rooting for him but prepared to be disappointed. He is obsessed with having more in the “possible future” than having anything in the “definite now.” When he trades his horse for a better one I am just waiting for something bad to happen. Also as I am writing this I am thinking or horses being objective correlatives for passion…I think whatever happens with this horse might be foreshadowing what might happen to Fred.
24
And right out of the gate, the horse is unruly and gets injured and is now worth nothing (see statement above and start being worried for Fred). Mary already seems to be improving him just by existing and expecting better from him, just thinking about her makes him ashamed of his behavior. We learn more about Mrs. Garth in this chapter and she also seems lovely. I love that her propensity to not complain makes people view her as eccentric. Human nature loves to excuse its own inability to achieve virtue by making the virtuous seem odd. Apparently she is also the model homeschool mom. I am inspired by her ability to get housework and educating done simultaneously. And for any of you Charlotte Mason lovers out there, the kids are also expected to narrate! I also love that she is described as more handsome than Mary because of her matronliness, like motherhood isn’t something to take away from a woman’s beauty, but to fulfill it in some way. Then Fred gives the news that they need to come up with money to pay the debt and they are obviously disappointed but not unkind. Fred had apparently not thought much about how his behavior could affect others before…
“We are most of us brought up in the notion that the highest motive for not doing a wrong is something irrespective of the being who would suffer the wrong. But at this moment he suddenly saw himself as a pitiful rascal who was robbing two women of their savings.”
25
Fred goes to tell Mary before she hears about it from someone else. Mary is so quotable in her snark. I love Mary because she seems to be the only character who doesn’t indulge Fred’s failings or cut him out of her life, but suffers disappointment and expects more from him (“Fred- you might be worth a great deal!”). I want to think more about Fred’s failing of always looking to theoretical good happening to him instead of doing the virtuous thing right where he is. Caleb then comes to tell Mary what Fred has already told her (and to ask for her savings to help cover it…so we are actually seeing her take on Fred’s sins and helping to pay for them). He says this line that I think could be a major theme of the book…
“a woman, let her be as god as she may, has got to put up with the life her husband makes for her.”
26
Fred then goes home and gets sick (so in some ways he is following in the footsteps of his passion…I mean horse) which seems like it might be an objective correlative for his bottoming out in the other areas of his life. This leads to Lydgate coming into the Vincy house and in more contact with Rosamond (who has already “fallen in love or at least planned to marry him”). At the end of this chapter we get another comment by Mrs. Farebrother about Bulstrode that seems important. Apparently there are rumors going around town that Lydgate is actually Bulstrode’s natural son (which Mr. Farebrother says cannot be true because they know what family Lydgate comes from).
“I should not be surprised at anything in Bulstrode….That is satisfactory so far as Mr. Lydgate is concerned….but as to Bulstrode- the report may be true of some other son.”
27
Mrs. Vincy is pleading for Mr. Lydgate to save Fred and says, “‘he has always been good to me…he never had a hard word for his mother’- as if poor Fred’s suffering were an accusation against him.” While Fred is sick we get to see Rosamond fall in love, or plan to decorate her new home, they’re basically the same thing.
Eliot’s descriptions are constantly making me laugh!
“Plymdale’s jaw fell like a barometer towards the the cheerless side of change.”
I can picture this happening in almost a cartoon style. This is what makes the book legitimately entertaining for me I think. It can be understated, but if you look out for these moments you will start finding a lot of them! The chapter ends with a servant coming and asking Lydgate to hurry to Lowick. Who is sick at Lowick? Surely we will find out in a moment…
28
But no, we must go back in time first before we know what the emergency at Lowick is. Dorothea’s world is shrinking. All her ideals about what marriage and life at Lowick would be are shrinking. Will they eventually disappear altogether? I love the idea that a gentlewoman’s liberty is actually oppressive. She has all her desires so easily met but no way of fulfilling what she feels to be her duty. I feel the weighty melancholy of Dorothea’s life in this chapter. Eliot sets the scene well. She then sees the picture of Will’s grandmother (who made the bad marriage) and feels camaraderie.
When Mr. Brooke and Celia come and visit them we get the hilarity that is Mr. Brooke’s ignorance (“Does anybody read Aquinas?”). We also find out that Celia is to be married to Sir James. I think Mrs. Cadwallader’s comment about wedding journeys making people “tired to death of each other” should be noted.
29
I love the way Eliot starts this chapter…
“One morning, some weeks after her arrival at Lowick, Dorothea— but why always Dorothea?”
We get to hear about Cassubon’s inner thoughts and I think we are supposed to feel slightly for him, but I’m not sure that I do. He is determined to do his full duty in his marital responsibilities but not with any emotion or real passion. This makes me think of the theme of duty versus desire theme that we see in so many books (and our own lives). It also has been thinking about the definition of holiness being to not only do the virtuous action but actually enjoy it (and desire it)! Cassubon shows how simply white knuckling our way to virtue can actually be damaging to those around us. Which now has me thinking about Fred and Cassubon being foils for each other. Fred is all desire and Cassubon is all duty. Dorothea seems to be showing some more desire amidst her duty driven soul. We find out that Will wants to visit and then Cassubon has some sort of “fit". Sir James could have predicted it “if his prophetic soul had been urged to particularise.” His thoughts about Dorothea at the end of the chapter seem important…
“his disregarded love had not turned to bitterness; its death had made sweet odours—floating memories that clung with a consecrating effect to Dorothea.”
30
Now Lydgate is coming to Lowick and we find out that Cassubon has literally made himself sick with overworking. He actually has a weak heart, which seems very apt to this man with such weak desire. I also found myself thinking of Mr. Brooke as a foil to Cassubon in this chapter. While Mr. Cassubon is so deep and particular in his study, Mr. Brooke is so wide and shallow. I love the description of Mr. Brooke writing the letter to Will (at Dorothea’s request). He is supposed to tell him not to come because of Cassubon’s sickness. But by the end of the letter Mr. Brooke has invited him to his own house and thinks it is a lovely plan. So Will is coming to town! I am excited, but I am not sure that is going to be good for Cassubon’s weak heart.
31
Gossip about Lydgate and Rosamond is spreading and Mrs. Bulstrode is going to get to the bottom of it. The conversation about gossip is hilarious! We again are drawn to dwell on the mystery of Bulstrode’s past. I found myself connecting Fred and Rosamond’s failings in this chapter. Rosamond’s insistence that Lydgate isn’t poor because he has high connections feels a lot like Fred’s surety of his expectations. I laughed a lot at Mrs. Bulstrode in these chapters, she is quite the meddlesome lady.
Don’t worry, it is all going to work out. Lydgate hears about the rumors and stays away from Rosamond for ten days and “any one who imagines ten days too short a time …for a whole spiritual circuit of alarmed conjecture and disappointment, is ignorant of what can go on in the elegant leisure of a young lady’s mind.” He tries to come and give her news about Featherstone and quickly leave, but she ends up with tears in her eyes and “it shook flirtation into love.”
“This was a strange way of arriving at an understanding, but it was a short way.”
And just like that Rosamond and Lydgate are engaged. I am looking forward to seeing more marriages progress. Eliot did say that she wanted to write books that didn’t end at engagements, but followed couples through marriage as well. I can’t wait to see what she is going to show us.
I hope these thoughts help you to love Middlemarch and Eliot more and spark more thoughts that will lead to great conversation at our meetings. I have no expertise, these are just things “I couldn’t help but noticing” (a la
from A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, from September 2023).Throwback to an Old Book
I am listening to Edmund Morris’ biography trilogy of Theodore Roosevelt to go along with the children’s biography of him we are reading for homeschool (Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt!). It is a wonderful biography (though very long so I am glad I am listening). He is such an interesting and delightful person. But what had me laughing this week was that while out West he had to chase down some bandits to bring them to justice. After capturing them they got stuck on a frozen river for 8 days. While taking turns keeping watch over the prisoners he also read Anna Karenina (our February 2022 book). Here is his review:
“I took Anna Karenina along for the trip and have read it through with very great interest. I hardly know whether to call it a very bad book or not. There are two entirely distinct stories in it; the connection between Levine’s story and Anna’s is of the slightest and need have existed at all. Levine’s and Kitty’s history is not only very powerfully and naturally told, but it is also perfectly healthy. Anna’s most certainly is not, though of great and sad interest; she is portrayed as being a prey to the most violent passions, and subject to melancholia, and her reasoning power is so unbalanced that she could not possibly be described otherwise than as in a certain sense insane. Her character is curiously contradictory; bad as she was however she was not to me nearly as repulsive as her brother Stiva; Vronsky had some excellent points. I like poor Dolly, but she should have been less of a patient Griselda with her husband. You know how I abominate the Griselda type. Tolstoy is a great writer. Do you notice how he never comments on the actions of his personages? He relates what they thought or did without any remark whatever as to whether it was good or bad, as Thucydides wrote history--a fault which tends to give his work an unmoral rather than an immoral tone; together with the sadness so characteristic of Russian writers. I was much pleased with the insight into Russian life."
Other Things I’m Enjoying
Our current family weekend watch is Primal Survivor: Extreme African Safari (recommended by my husband’s boss). It is educational, entertaining, and honestly hilarious. This guy does the most insane and dangerous things always with a huge smile on his face. It is very family friendly too!
This guest post on the Reactionary Feminist from
about The Pill was super enlightening. I have seen/heard a lot of the facts before but having them all in one place is super helpful!Some shameless spouse promotion: This new Bible Reader’s Podcast Interview (my husband’s podcast….it’s back!) with Sarah Christmyer (friend and co-worker of Jeff Cavins and Scott Hahn) on the Matriarchs in the Patriarch Biblical Period. I found it a very fun listen, especially as a woman hearing about the significance of women in the Bible.
This old
podcast on going gray: I love hearing someone else give good reasons for what I already think…call it confirmation bias or encouragement, either way I will take it.- has a great essay on the story of Icarus and what we might learn from him about parenting with technology (and an encouragement to read more books with our kids)
I started The Nordic Theory of Everything by this week and it is a fun non-fiction/memoir about a woman from Finland moving to the US and what each country has to offer.
Now I am off to go read a little more Middlemarch and maybe do a little bit of fun reading too! Or maybe just take a nap before we head to Mass tonight. I hope you all get to have some good family time, but as always sneak in a little bit of literary goodness somewhere in your weekend. I am looking forward to chatting about Middlemarch and all the other good books at our in person meetings in the next few weeks!
Enjoy your reading till we meet again!
“There is so much to read and the days are so short! I get more hungry for knowledge every day, and less able to satisfy my hunger.”
-George Eliot
A Few Reminders
Next up for Literature Book Club is The Innocence of Father Brown for April and then Crossing to Safety for May.
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