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I no longer want to be the only well-read person on Earth who doesn't like Middlemarch. I want to love it.

My previous objections were that George Eliot is a bully who tells us what to think. I also remember whinging that reading her prose was like walking through a ploughed field.

To help me overcome my prejudice against this great novel, I am attempting to read it aloud so as to savour it.

Update:

17% of the way through. My previous objections stand.

Sometimes I found myself looking forward to picking up Middlemarch again but I didn't care for the company of Dorothea and Mary Garth, though I'm pretty sure we are meant to, or for the company of the author herself, continually at my elbow to interpret and guide.

I think that I would actually agree with George Eliot on most things and that she was an admirable person who had a positive influence on Victorian attitudes. The fault lies with me but, as I haven't got all that many reading years left, I'm leaving this novel unfinished for the third time.


In deference to the better judgement of critics and history I have cleared my rating.