The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XLI
CHAPTER XLII

It's interesting that a section called "Three Love Problems" should start with a funeral.

And Mr. Rigg is certainly a surprise. I don't know what the heck he's doing in the story yet. I don't know if it's because I'm listening but I feel like there's too many characters and lots of them seem pretty superficial.

Also, the quotes at the beginning of each section annoy me. I was thinking about how much they added to setting the mood in Dune. And I've seen them used in other books to great affect. But, here, they just seem like a pretension. But, again, that nY be because I'm listening.

Yes, I get the feeling Rigg is there as a plot mechanism rather than a fully rounded person. The same with Raffles, who seems a character type of a drunken swaggerer. But it's obvious that the paper he takes away from Rigg's place is going to play a part in the plot.

Elsewhere, I was struck by how coolly Rosamond speaks of Mary Garth: "Mary might do some work for me now. Her sewing is exquisite: it is the nicest thing I know about Mary. I should so like to have all my cambric double-hemmed, and it takes a long time." !! She's supposed to be Mary's friend! yet this is all that she can see in her that is worth valuing. In contrast, it's a nice surprise to discover that Mr Farebrother holds Mary in great esteem.

So I'd be interested to know who George Eliot intended the "Three Love Problems" of this part to refer to. There are obviously 3 couples - Dorothea/Casaubon, Mary/Fred and Rosamond/Lydgate - but Rosamond and Lydgate don't have any particular problems in this section, while Will Ladislaw, and now Mr Farebrother, certainly do. And Dorothea and Casaubon could be said to have one of the problems each because they are now so estranged in spirit, while still fully bound up in their disastrous relationship with each other.

I do admire the last chapter of this part, with its close analysis of Casaubon, that intelligent, proper, but narrow-minded man, who catches half-glimpses of truth through his self-delusions. It's as if the author took a scalpel to him, yet still manages to make us feel compassion. And the end, where Dorothea meets him in the dark, is very touching.