My name is Steve and I am Fran's Dad. I never read Middlemarch, but I read Silas Marner as a high school freshman; that was 50 years ago. I love to read classics for fun. I recently bought an anthology if 200 classics from 200 authors for my Kindle that I am frankly afraid to download. I recently read an anthology of Thomas Hardy's works. Very bleak. I have still have nightmares after a specific chapter from Jude the Obscure.
Howdy, I’m Tessa. I read Middlemarch about 5 years ago (no other George Eliot though) so won’t be rereading but merely ~living vicariously~ through you all. What a treat! The last Big Book I read was probably The Golden Notebook. Favorite classic novel is The Age of Innocence, baybeeeeee!! For what it’s worth, I also think “Middlemarch May” sounds punchier than “MiddleMarch.”
I'm ready!! For!!! Middlemarch!!! May!! I've never read it before — in fact, never read any George Eliot so I'm stoked on that. I'm not usually a BIG TOME kinda reader because I like to have something new to dive into every week. But I've always wanted an excuse to go for Middlemarch so here it is. Thanks, Fran!!
Oh and my favorite classic book...hm...let me think on that.
Hiya all -- like Brendan I'm not planning on rereading the book again this month (I don't have the bandwidth!) but I've read it 3+ times and wrote a (very bad) master's thesis on it so... I remember the plot well enough haha. This is my favorite book and Eliot is probably my favorite writer; I've read almost all of her books. I'm excited to hear everybody else's thoughts and for those of you who are reading it for the first time to get to experience it. It's the most beautiful book I've ever read.
Trying to remember the last big classic I read -- I am dealing with long covid atm which makes big tomes tough. I did read Roderick Hudson last year, Henry James' first big novel -- hugely fun and entertaining. I'm keen to get into a big Dickens tome but again... attention span!
the only big Dickens I've ever done like, the real adult version of (I'm convinced I read an abridged David Copperfield as a kid) was Bleak House in college. similar to Middlemarch, perhaps, everyone in our class was like, "how will we read a book THIS big in THREE WEEKS," but it really zooms by, and the semi-recent (decade old?) BBC miniseries is really good too. I have not read any Henry James which makes me ill-equipped to argue in the current James v. Wharton debate.
I gotta just do it! I read Great Expectations a while back because it's the short one and it really was wonderful. I'm instinctively resistant to Dickens though because he is the be-all end-all of Victorian studies and he was such a sexist. But at least he is not Thomas Hardy...
I was not aware of this debate but thinking about it is very funny to me since they were such great pals. I love them both but I read Portrait of a Lady at such an impressionable age that it will always be more important to me. (I highly recommend, it's very influenced by Eliot actually -- the three of them are links in a chain.) Wharton on the other hand did not end her career writing literally unreadable nonsense though, so, it all evens out.
Dickens' sexism wound up being an interesting sticking point in one of my grad school classes... I haven't really read him since learning all of that stuff -- not on purpose, but I wonder how it would all read now, which only compels me further to dig back in, that makes sense.
Hi I'm Claire! I read "Silas Marner" in college but I seemed to have blocked it out - maybe because the central motif is spiders and I am arachnophobic??
I don't normally read super long books but I did read "David Copperfield" last year and I am a certified Ulysses freak!
I'm just here to make friends/read Middlemarch opinions, since I do not intend to read it again, but I read it approximately 9 years ago and consider it one of my most cherished reading experiences. I keep meaning to read more Eliot - I have several of her novels but the only other one I have read is Silas Marner (if you want something more "approachable", that novel is short and sublime). The last GIGANTIC book I read was Proust, which took most of my 2022; it has its peaks and valleys, unlike Middlemarch which is all proverbial killer and nothing else.
Silas Marner is on the list for "summer reading." I did Swann's Way last year (I think? or 2021... it all blurs) and really struggled to get into it. I will try again in my 40s when the concept of "memory" feels more potent, perhaps.
Au contraire (french for "oh! contraire"), I think 30 is perfect, or whenever you have close friends starting to have children of their own, which unlocks a big piece of the novel's emotional payoff ... I recognize that 3000 pages is a tough row to hoe no matter what one's preparation
Hi, I'm Leslie! I have read Middlemarch before, in college 20 years ago. I wrote some paper on Lydgate, bc somehow I found him the most fascinating character? I'm also an English teacher & in reviewing for the AP Lit exam with my students, we analyzed a Middlemarch passage that was on the exam a few years ago. George Eliot, she's everywhere.
I read the Mill on the Floss in high school bc I was a weirdo & I really liked the Masterpiece Theater adaptation that had been on PBS.
The last gigantic book I read was either Babel, by RF Kuang (my favorite book of 2023) or Demon Copperhead, but the last gigantic classic I read was David Copperfield right before the pandemic.
My favorite "classic" novel is probably Pride and Prejudice, with A Tale of Two Cities as a very close second.
I've wanted to read A Tale of Two Cities forever - I read and loved Bleak House in college and I have read a shortened version of Copperfield/seen many film/tv interpretations of it. I have a real love/hate with the Dev Patel adaptation from a few years back, but mostly love.
Babel has been on my list to read soon. How did you like it?
I read A Tale of Two Cities in high school, and I taught for many years. It's possibly the most egregious example of a very convenient Dickens plot device, but it's employed so well & so movingly you just don't care. Plus the descriptions of the French Revolution are top notch. Mme Defarge is a legit scary character. I love Dickens- my other favorite is Our Mutual Friend, which I also read in college & is closest to a mystery, I suppose. I'm saving Oliver Twist for when I need a treat a few years from now.
As for Babel, I loved it. There is such great language nerdery at play, in terms of the translations and word meanings, etc., and I love a world where language is literally magic. Some aspects of the magic are a little hand-wavy, but I absolutely don't care when there are footnotes that are both informative and ironic on every other page. Also an alternative universe where someone actually tries to come to terms with/stop British Imperialism? What's not to love!
Hi! I'm Emma! I have read Middlemarch twice before, once as an audiobook (by Juliet Stevenson, Mrs. Elton from Emma (1996). it is a great audiobook!) when I had a three hour commute in Atlanta (I was 24) and once during law school (I was somewhere between 27-30). Ages feel important because I noticed a big gap in my reactions to the characters between the times I read it that I am attributing to maturity. But it is one of the books that I pick up certain chapters pretty frequently.
I have not read any other George Eliot, though I always feel like I ought.
I finished Bleak House by Dickens for the first time in early 2023 (loved it as soon as I finished it, and love it even more as I get more distance from it). I'm a big gigantic book reader, though I think read pretty slowly, so big sections of years tend to be defined by the book that I am reading at the time.
Middlemarch is usually my answer for favorite classic novel, but A Room with a View is probably the accurate answer. For some reason, I feel like having a favorite book from the 20th century is cheating?
I first read this when I was 20 and when I read it again later I had a completely different understanding of it. But I also completely loved it when I was 20! It is magical in that way.
The biggest gap in how I felt was about Fred Vincy, who I adore. But in my early 20s, I thought "how could anyone not love Fred?" and in my late 20s, I immediately saw how someone would find him very annoying.
I am strongly reminded of reading Jane Eyre when I was 13 (the only book like that I read at that age or even close to it) and being like "why doesn't she just stay with Mr Rochester???" and then reading it in college and being like "ah... yes.........."
Hi I'm Sky, I've never read Middlemarch but I've always wanted to! I've had a copy of the Penguin Classics edition on my shelf for about...five years? My favorite novel also happens to be the last big brick of a book I've had the chance to read--Anna Karenina! One of my favorite reading experiences of adulthood for sure. I'm a high school librarian so I'm usually reading "one for them" (YA/manga/etc) and "one for me", so this will be my "one for me" for a while!
I tried to independent study Anna Karenina in grad school and was eventually turned down by the professor who said I needed to read "at least 200 more books" before delving in, which feels... not true lol
that's crazy! i read anna karenina when i was in high school and i'm sure i didn't get the
*most* out of it, but i still enjoyed it a lot and it gave me a ton to think about! even if you read it just for the poetics of the writing i think it's worth it.
I mean I'm no professor but one of my favorite things about AK was the feeling of being submerged in an unfamiliar world--you can just kind of swim around and google things that interest you. I even read the "bad" translation and I loved it anyway, it's just that good.
Hi, I'm Ben, longtime fan, first time caller. I've never read Middlemarch (or any George Eliot) before despite owning a copy for 15 years. I've already read the first couple chapters and I've been laughing!
My last long book was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which I reread last year, and my favorite classic book is To the Lighthouse, if that counts. Much shorter...
Happy Middlemarch May to one and all! I own 3 copies of Middlemarch, two of which were purchased in New Jersey, all of which I've never read in full. I read ~145 pp of the smallest sized copy last September (shoutout to my bookmark, a "The Talented Mr. Ripley" ticket!) but put it down to read The Door and never returned.
Last summer, I was Thomas Hardy-pilled by a friend who said that Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge would, "make [me] crazy." I loved those books and am thinking of doing "Tess Tuesday/Thursday" or something equally silly to get through Hardy's most famous work this summer. Looking forward to reading with you all! Thank you, Fran! Love the mag.
Howdy! New to Eliot, new to knowing Eliot is really Evans, but excited to be joining along. Last giant book was Charlie Kaufman's Antkind. I'm pretty Kaufman-pilled and it was a marathon even for me, but I did enjoy the ambition of it all by the end. Favorite ~classic~ is Cat's Cradle, but a favorite more in this vein is East of Eden, which feels related in its age-transcendent insight into the human condition. Happy to collect some more wisdom here!
It took me three tries to get thru East of Eden. I love that novel but I REALLY love its first act and it always felt downhill to me after that. I love Steinbeck in general though and adore Grapes of Wrath.
It's been a minute, but from my memory, the first part really plays up the primordial, this is THE only book power that it maybe loses once it's a few generations down the line. Grapes of Wrath is a big to-read for me!
I'm Cullen 👋 this is my first time reading Middlemarch(in any month) and also my first book club! I've never read any Eliot, but the last doorstop I got through was Bonfire of the Vanities and my fav classic is John Williams' Stoner.
Kia ora, I'm Shanti! I've read part of Middlemarch for an AP lit class many years ago, and I've also read The Mill on the Floss for a climate change literature class more recently. The last huge book I read was probably The Hands of The Emperor while I had covid in December which is technocratic utopian fanfiction basically yet very absorbing. I think my favourite classic book is A Room with a View. Very excited for Middlemarch May and also for more alliteration based large book months... Moby Dick December?
My name is Steve and I am Fran's Dad. I never read Middlemarch, but I read Silas Marner as a high school freshman; that was 50 years ago. I love to read classics for fun. I recently bought an anthology if 200 classics from 200 authors for my Kindle that I am frankly afraid to download. I recently read an anthology of Thomas Hardy's works. Very bleak. I have still have nightmares after a specific chapter from Jude the Obscure.
HELLO DAD!
Good luck Dad!
Hi, Steve! I'm so looking forward to experiencing Middlemarch with you.
Howdy, I’m Tessa. I read Middlemarch about 5 years ago (no other George Eliot though) so won’t be rereading but merely ~living vicariously~ through you all. What a treat! The last Big Book I read was probably The Golden Notebook. Favorite classic novel is The Age of Innocence, baybeeeeee!! For what it’s worth, I also think “Middlemarch May” sounds punchier than “MiddleMarch.”
This is the year I do Age of Innocence...
Fran it is SO good and also SHORT
Dude...yes
I'm ready!! For!!! Middlemarch!!! May!! I've never read it before — in fact, never read any George Eliot so I'm stoked on that. I'm not usually a BIG TOME kinda reader because I like to have something new to dive into every week. But I've always wanted an excuse to go for Middlemarch so here it is. Thanks, Fran!!
Oh and my favorite classic book...hm...let me think on that.
would be crazy if you became "tome-pilled"...
Hiya all -- like Brendan I'm not planning on rereading the book again this month (I don't have the bandwidth!) but I've read it 3+ times and wrote a (very bad) master's thesis on it so... I remember the plot well enough haha. This is my favorite book and Eliot is probably my favorite writer; I've read almost all of her books. I'm excited to hear everybody else's thoughts and for those of you who are reading it for the first time to get to experience it. It's the most beautiful book I've ever read.
Trying to remember the last big classic I read -- I am dealing with long covid atm which makes big tomes tough. I did read Roderick Hudson last year, Henry James' first big novel -- hugely fun and entertaining. I'm keen to get into a big Dickens tome but again... attention span!
Nice to meet you all :)
the only big Dickens I've ever done like, the real adult version of (I'm convinced I read an abridged David Copperfield as a kid) was Bleak House in college. similar to Middlemarch, perhaps, everyone in our class was like, "how will we read a book THIS big in THREE WEEKS," but it really zooms by, and the semi-recent (decade old?) BBC miniseries is really good too. I have not read any Henry James which makes me ill-equipped to argue in the current James v. Wharton debate.
I gotta just do it! I read Great Expectations a while back because it's the short one and it really was wonderful. I'm instinctively resistant to Dickens though because he is the be-all end-all of Victorian studies and he was such a sexist. But at least he is not Thomas Hardy...
I was not aware of this debate but thinking about it is very funny to me since they were such great pals. I love them both but I read Portrait of a Lady at such an impressionable age that it will always be more important to me. (I highly recommend, it's very influenced by Eliot actually -- the three of them are links in a chain.) Wharton on the other hand did not end her career writing literally unreadable nonsense though, so, it all evens out.
Dickens' sexism wound up being an interesting sticking point in one of my grad school classes... I haven't really read him since learning all of that stuff -- not on purpose, but I wonder how it would all read now, which only compels me further to dig back in, that makes sense.
Hi I'm Claire! I read "Silas Marner" in college but I seemed to have blocked it out - maybe because the central motif is spiders and I am arachnophobic??
I don't normally read super long books but I did read "David Copperfield" last year and I am a certified Ulysses freak!
Also Middlemarch March sounds stupid
the central motif of Silas Marner is SPIDERS???
He's like... a literal weaver but also a weaver of something else... (stories?)
I'm just here to make friends/read Middlemarch opinions, since I do not intend to read it again, but I read it approximately 9 years ago and consider it one of my most cherished reading experiences. I keep meaning to read more Eliot - I have several of her novels but the only other one I have read is Silas Marner (if you want something more "approachable", that novel is short and sublime). The last GIGANTIC book I read was Proust, which took most of my 2022; it has its peaks and valleys, unlike Middlemarch which is all proverbial killer and nothing else.
Silas Marner is on the list for "summer reading." I did Swann's Way last year (I think? or 2021... it all blurs) and really struggled to get into it. I will try again in my 40s when the concept of "memory" feels more potent, perhaps.
Au contraire (french for "oh! contraire"), I think 30 is perfect, or whenever you have close friends starting to have children of their own, which unlocks a big piece of the novel's emotional payoff ... I recognize that 3000 pages is a tough row to hoe no matter what one's preparation
HMM! (Happy Middlemarch May!)
I'm Kate :)
I have NOT read Middlemarch even though I've had a copy sitting on my bookshelf for at least five years.
The last gigantic book I read was Malcolm Harris' Palo Alto. I'm also working my way through Olivia Manning's Fortunes of War books.
My favorite "classic" books are Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, and Madame Bovary.
i need to read Bovary i know Tessa enjoyed
Oh yup, recent Bovary-head over here!
Hi, I'm Leslie! I have read Middlemarch before, in college 20 years ago. I wrote some paper on Lydgate, bc somehow I found him the most fascinating character? I'm also an English teacher & in reviewing for the AP Lit exam with my students, we analyzed a Middlemarch passage that was on the exam a few years ago. George Eliot, she's everywhere.
I read the Mill on the Floss in high school bc I was a weirdo & I really liked the Masterpiece Theater adaptation that had been on PBS.
The last gigantic book I read was either Babel, by RF Kuang (my favorite book of 2023) or Demon Copperhead, but the last gigantic classic I read was David Copperfield right before the pandemic.
My favorite "classic" novel is probably Pride and Prejudice, with A Tale of Two Cities as a very close second.
I've wanted to read A Tale of Two Cities forever - I read and loved Bleak House in college and I have read a shortened version of Copperfield/seen many film/tv interpretations of it. I have a real love/hate with the Dev Patel adaptation from a few years back, but mostly love.
Babel has been on my list to read soon. How did you like it?
I read A Tale of Two Cities in high school, and I taught for many years. It's possibly the most egregious example of a very convenient Dickens plot device, but it's employed so well & so movingly you just don't care. Plus the descriptions of the French Revolution are top notch. Mme Defarge is a legit scary character. I love Dickens- my other favorite is Our Mutual Friend, which I also read in college & is closest to a mystery, I suppose. I'm saving Oliver Twist for when I need a treat a few years from now.
As for Babel, I loved it. There is such great language nerdery at play, in terms of the translations and word meanings, etc., and I love a world where language is literally magic. Some aspects of the magic are a little hand-wavy, but I absolutely don't care when there are footnotes that are both informative and ironic on every other page. Also an alternative universe where someone actually tries to come to terms with/stop British Imperialism? What's not to love!
Hi! I'm Emma! I have read Middlemarch twice before, once as an audiobook (by Juliet Stevenson, Mrs. Elton from Emma (1996). it is a great audiobook!) when I had a three hour commute in Atlanta (I was 24) and once during law school (I was somewhere between 27-30). Ages feel important because I noticed a big gap in my reactions to the characters between the times I read it that I am attributing to maturity. But it is one of the books that I pick up certain chapters pretty frequently.
I have not read any other George Eliot, though I always feel like I ought.
I finished Bleak House by Dickens for the first time in early 2023 (loved it as soon as I finished it, and love it even more as I get more distance from it). I'm a big gigantic book reader, though I think read pretty slowly, so big sections of years tend to be defined by the book that I am reading at the time.
Middlemarch is usually my answer for favorite classic novel, but A Room with a View is probably the accurate answer. For some reason, I feel like having a favorite book from the 20th century is cheating?
I first read this when I was 20 and when I read it again later I had a completely different understanding of it. But I also completely loved it when I was 20! It is magical in that way.
I also love A Room with a View!
The biggest gap in how I felt was about Fred Vincy, who I adore. But in my early 20s, I thought "how could anyone not love Fred?" and in my late 20s, I immediately saw how someone would find him very annoying.
I love Fred Vincy 😩 self-sabotaging king
I am strongly reminded of reading Jane Eyre when I was 13 (the only book like that I read at that age or even close to it) and being like "why doesn't she just stay with Mr Rochester???" and then reading it in college and being like "ah... yes.........."
Mr. Rochester original "comedy guy boyfriend"
Vibes
Hi I'm Sky, I've never read Middlemarch but I've always wanted to! I've had a copy of the Penguin Classics edition on my shelf for about...five years? My favorite novel also happens to be the last big brick of a book I've had the chance to read--Anna Karenina! One of my favorite reading experiences of adulthood for sure. I'm a high school librarian so I'm usually reading "one for them" (YA/manga/etc) and "one for me", so this will be my "one for me" for a while!
You have my dream job 😭
I tried to independent study Anna Karenina in grad school and was eventually turned down by the professor who said I needed to read "at least 200 more books" before delving in, which feels... not true lol
that's crazy! i read anna karenina when i was in high school and i'm sure i didn't get the
*most* out of it, but i still enjoyed it a lot and it gave me a ton to think about! even if you read it just for the poetics of the writing i think it's worth it.
classic russian lit professor
I mean I'm no professor but one of my favorite things about AK was the feeling of being submerged in an unfamiliar world--you can just kind of swim around and google things that interest you. I even read the "bad" translation and I loved it anyway, it's just that good.
Hi, I'm Ben, longtime fan, first time caller. I've never read Middlemarch (or any George Eliot) before despite owning a copy for 15 years. I've already read the first couple chapters and I've been laughing!
My last long book was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which I reread last year, and my favorite classic book is To the Lighthouse, if that counts. Much shorter...
I love books and reading.
remember when Michael Chabon wrote about his hypebeast son for GQ
Happy Middlemarch May to one and all! I own 3 copies of Middlemarch, two of which were purchased in New Jersey, all of which I've never read in full. I read ~145 pp of the smallest sized copy last September (shoutout to my bookmark, a "The Talented Mr. Ripley" ticket!) but put it down to read The Door and never returned.
Last summer, I was Thomas Hardy-pilled by a friend who said that Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge would, "make [me] crazy." I loved those books and am thinking of doing "Tess Tuesday/Thursday" or something equally silly to get through Hardy's most famous work this summer. Looking forward to reading with you all! Thank you, Fran! Love the mag.
Howdy! New to Eliot, new to knowing Eliot is really Evans, but excited to be joining along. Last giant book was Charlie Kaufman's Antkind. I'm pretty Kaufman-pilled and it was a marathon even for me, but I did enjoy the ambition of it all by the end. Favorite ~classic~ is Cat's Cradle, but a favorite more in this vein is East of Eden, which feels related in its age-transcendent insight into the human condition. Happy to collect some more wisdom here!
It took me three tries to get thru East of Eden. I love that novel but I REALLY love its first act and it always felt downhill to me after that. I love Steinbeck in general though and adore Grapes of Wrath.
It's been a minute, but from my memory, the first part really plays up the primordial, this is THE only book power that it maybe loses once it's a few generations down the line. Grapes of Wrath is a big to-read for me!
East of Eden was one of my favorites last year! I am obsessed with Catherine.
She's such a great character! So interesting to have her be the sort of tragically evil core of the book
she is SO much fun to read, kinda nothing like it
oh ho ho, wait til you finish middlemarch!
Happy Middlemarch May Back
yay!
I'm Cullen 👋 this is my first time reading Middlemarch(in any month) and also my first book club! I've never read any Eliot, but the last doorstop I got through was Bonfire of the Vanities and my fav classic is John Williams' Stoner.
Stoner rocks, thank god [checks notes] Joe Wright is directing the adaptation...
Kia ora, I'm Shanti! I've read part of Middlemarch for an AP lit class many years ago, and I've also read The Mill on the Floss for a climate change literature class more recently. The last huge book I read was probably The Hands of The Emperor while I had covid in December which is technocratic utopian fanfiction basically yet very absorbing. I think my favourite classic book is A Room with a View. Very excited for Middlemarch May and also for more alliteration based large book months... Moby Dick December?
I am not sure I can be bothered to revisit Moby Dick again this decade but a winter long read is a great idea!
December is summer here! A lovely time for a sojourn on a ship 🤔