It has been over two years since I read Middlemarch, a novel that propelled George Eliot to near the top of my list of favourite authors. With a keen wit and a deft pen, Eliot manages to lie bare the substance of rural English life in a way that allows her to comment on issues that matter to all of us. She captures those intimate but often uncomfortable truths about family ties; about love and courtship and marriage; and, as always in nineteenth-century England, about class and status and money.Money plays a hugely important role in a lot of Victorian fiction, and The Mill on the Floss is no exception. That awful reversal of fortune that drives the plot comes in the form of a literal reversal of fortune: the family patriarch, old Mr. Tulliver, loses it all when he loses a lawsuit of his own devising. The Tullivers were, up until this point, a fairly respectable family: Mr. Tulliver was a miller, and his wife a member of the prosperous and highly proper Dodson clan. Now Mrs. Tulliver must suffer the shame of being “fallen” and bankrupt, her prize possessions sold and her husband struck down after a fall from his horse. The Tullivers enter dark days indeed, as we see from how these times affect their children, Tom and Maggie. Although money forms the backdrop for the conflict of this novel, The Mill on the Floss is really about childhood and the bonds between siblings.Tom could be described as a typical thirteen-year-old: brash and impressionable and somewhat sceptical of his father’s intentions regarding his education. Eliot also paints Tom as a very serious boy, one who has a deeply-ingrained and perhaps unyielding sense of justice—or at least, a desire to see others punished for unrighteous deeds. Of course, as Eliot wryly remarks, Tom seldom if ever finds himself in a position where he must be punished! After the Tullivers lose their mill, Tom casts off the shackles of the premium education his father paid for and turns to learning business and bookkeeping, actually making some wise investment decisions that gets the family back on its feet. He really steps up, and watching him grow from a callow lad to a young man already displaying wisdom and restraint is a fascinating experience.And it’s nothing compared to what we get in Maggie Tulliver. Where Tom is practical and, perhaps even more so than his father, traditional, Maggie is imaginative and unpredictable. She is almost a feral child, down to her impulsive acts that render her wardrobe and herself unfit for polite company. In one episode Maggie decides to rid herself of her bothersome hair. She is untroubled by what sort of ramifications her action has until Tom pans her new look:Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly of her own deliverance from her teasing hair and her teasing remarks about it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very decided course of action: she didn’t want her hair to look pretty—that was out of the question—she only wanted people to think her a clever little girl and not to find fault with her. But now when Tom began to laugh at her and say she was like the idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, and Maggie’s flushed cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little.Damn, but does George Eliot know how to describe the progression of a thought and a feeling so eloquently. Haven’t we all had such moments? Some of us might even have taken the scissors to our hair in an impulsive urge that resembles Maggie’s. Even if we haven’t, I’m sure we’ve all done something similarly ill-conceived, something that seems so appropriate one moment and then a horrible mistake immediately thereafter. Eliot captures not only those two moments but the transition between them.This intense psychological portrayal of her characters is the hallmark, at least for me, of Eliot’s style. In Middlemarch she shows us how people’s misperceptions of marriage and other family matters lead them to folly. In The Mill on the Floss, she provides an impeccable perspective on the mind of a child:These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and starve herself,–hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night,–and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there. If she went down again to Tom now–would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there, and he would take her part. But then she wanted Tom to forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No, she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the tub; but then the need of being loved–the strongest need in poor Maggie's nature–began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long attic, but just then she heard a quick foot-step on the stairs.I love how Eliot presents Maggie’s emotional state. So many authors write child characters who act and present themselves like miniature or merely unfinished adults. Sometimes this is excusable. Eliot is very deliberate in the way she portrays her children as child-like and undeveloped. She is conscious of how children differ from adults:We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved.I promise that’s my last extensive quotation. I just want to give enough context and sufficient examples to accompany my praise of Eliot’s style, because that is truly what makes The Mill on the Floss so enjoyable. To be honest, even with her voice, this novel is still longer than I would have liked. There are moments when I was tempted to ask her to get on with it. But those moments were minor compared to my reaction to the book overall, not to mention the mounting sense of empathy I felt for Maggie as the book progressed.I hesitate to juxtapose “George Eliot” with “feminism” because I’m sure that there has been plenty of feminist criticism of Eliot and her works, and I don’t want to juggle with loaded terminology. Suffice it to say that Eliot is sensitive to the status of women in Victorian England, and that sensitivity comes through clearly in The Mill on the Floss—along with what I like to think of as Eliot’s dry sense of humour. Tom is genuinely a good person, and loves his sister, but that doesn’t stop him from being a product of his time: he calls Maggie a “silly girl” (or “just a girl”) on several occasions. Eliot’s male characters often undervalue their female companions even as they praise them for their appearance and accomplishments. I can’t properly envision the reaction that her contemporary readers had, but as a twenty-first century reader I was constantly bemused by Eliot’s descriptions. She’s smiling behind her mouth as she writes about the weaknesses of her sex.Nowhere does the gender inequity of the nineteenth century become more apparent than when Maggie returns from her outing with Stephen Guest. The Mill on the Floss has a love triangle too. Maggie and Philip Wakem have feelings for each other; unfortunately, Philip is the son of the lawyer who ruined the Tullivers, and he also has a humpback. (If I really wanted to go literary critic, I could talk about Eliot’s portrayal of disabled persons and reactions to disabled persons in the nineteenth century!) Meanwhile, Stephen Guest is the son of Tom’s employer, but for all his advantageous upbringing he is a shallow youth. He abandons his attraction to Maggie’s cousin Lucy and begins courting Maggie, who resists his advances. But Stephen persists, culminating with an unplanned boating expedition that results in their absence from St Ogg’s for several days. When Maggie returns to St Ogg’s, having left Stephen behind, she is censured. Everyone assumes she and Stephen had sex, but because they did not marry, she is now a fallen woman.It’s a dilemma somewhat endemic to the Victorian romance. The mores of the time meant that it was inappropriate for an unmarried woman to be alone with a man for any length of time. Worse still, even after Maggie is “cleared of all charges” by the ignominious Stephen himself, she isn’t off the hook. Her reputation remains sullied by even a whiff of scandal. Though Stephen didn’t quite go as far as to assault her, Maggie is still a victim of his unwanted amorous advances, and the attitude of St Ogg’s people—women included—is nothing short of victim-blaming. It’s eerie how similar it is to the way some women get treated today, as rumours of their promiscuity turn into judgements of their conduct. It’s unfortunate how little has really changed in 150 years….Anyway, Maggie emerges as the heroine of The Mill on the Floss—delightful herself even as she backs her way into what turns out to be a tragedy. The ending of the novel is as bittersweet as Eliot could possibly make it: I actually didn’t see it coming, but having read it now, I can’t see it ending any other way and still having the same impact. Eliot can change the tone of the narrative at the drop of a hat, and she never pulls her punches. The result is a novel that embraces the epitome of life itself, the highs and the lows and all the flat spots in between.If Eliot were alive today, we’d be calling this literary fiction and showering her with all sorts of pretentious accolades. With the hindsight of 150 years we can instead be more sensible and merely call her one of the Greatest Writers of All Time. The Mill on the Floss is pretty much the literary fiction of the Victorian era. It’s a story of childhood, and of the bond between a brother and a sister. It’s a love story but not, perhaps, really a romance. It has tragic parts but is not, perhaps, a tragedy. Like all great fiction—all true fiction—it defies simplistic labels.
Warning: Here be spoilers!Oh, George Eliot, why are you doing this to me? I so want to like you. I want to admire you, marvel at you, and rave about your brilliancy. I want to be your friend, and have interesting dinner conversations with you because I think you are a remarkable woman. So why are you making it so hard for me to admire your works?It started with "Middlemarch" and now this. "The Mill on the Floss" started off so well. I was into the story and interested in the characters, especially young Maggie Tulliver with her passions, her big heart and her desire to be admired - not for her looks, but her understanding. This young girl who would cut off her hair in a fit and run away to live with gypsies went straight to my heart. A wonderful heroine in the making. And then what happens? She disappears (or is put in the background) for most of the first three quarters of the book. Instead I am forced to spend time with characters who, though interesting in their relation to Maggie, is not interesting enough in themselves to make me want to spend paaaages with them when Maggie is not around. And why do I have to read about Tom's experiences at school and not Maggie's? (By the way, that part of the book was way too long. Tom, though not a stupid child, is not good at Latin and Euclid. We get it!) I tried to like the book, but the first 250 pages were not easy-going, apart from the scenes where Maggie was present. I was bored with all the scenes that concerned Tom, Mr Tulliver, Mr and Mrs Glegg, Mr Deane, etc. Well, not bored, exactly - but I kept wondering what Maggie was doing and I wanted to go back to her. I know that everything George Eliot told me in the first 250 pages were important for the story, but if only she would have cut down on the number of pages! There was a lot of "setting the scenes" and "explaining relations" but very little of the actual action I was waiting for. And when Maggie finally reappeared, she was changed. Not the wild, impetuous, passionate child she was, but a pious young woman repressing her personality. Grr.....!What saved the novel for me were the last 150 pages. Finally some action I could actually care about, instead of the petty "it's not my fault I've lost all the money we ever had, and more too. It's them raskills" and "boohoo, my favourite linnen is sold". Finally human emotions and relations I could relate to. That part of the book was great, IMO - only marred by Maggie's perpetual "I must give up happiness and repress myself for the sake of people who have never done hoot for me" (OK, so Lucy had been good to her, and Philip deserved happiness, but really, Maggie - would you think of yourself just once? Why must you always repress and deny your wonderful self for the sake of others? Please be happy soon!)I'll add here that I DID understand her struggle. I DID understand why she was so troubled by the fact that she had run off with her dear cousin's almost-fiancé and left dear Philip behind, but at the same time I wanted to repeat monsieur Blandois' words to Mrs Clennam: "Enough of your piety!" (in a French accent of course). Eliot herself chose to live with a man who was married to someone else, a scandalous fact in Victorian England, so I had hoped that Maggie too would cut off her ties and choose happiness. (Although Eliot did beat me over the head with forebodings of someone drowning in a river, so I was not surprised at the ending)Something that I found hard to understand was Maggie's constant affection for her brother. She admitted herself that he was often cruel to her and didn't love her the way she loved him (I'm not sure he even liked her at all). He was always criticising her, tramping on her, looking down at her. So why the constant yearning for him? He's a bastard! (This coming from someone who loves her brother dearly - my brother is my best friend). I found it very hard to care about the hard, cruel, narrow-minded Tom. On the other hand, I really liked Bob Jakin - what a sweet fellow! And Mrs Moss - such a sweet, dear woman. And Lucy could easily have been a one-dimensional cardboard figure a la Dickens at his worst (I love Charles Dickens, but good, admirable female characters were not his force), but Eliot endows her with a personality, which was lovely. Also, I like Eliot's writing and dialogues (except from the rambling she endulges in now and then, but I can live with that). I like how her characters are not all good or all bad, but actual, real people - it's just a shame that I can't care about most of those people when Eliot is clearly fond of them and wants me to spend time with them. All in all, the last 150 pages saved the book for me, but the 250 or so pages it took to get there were mostly boring and could easily have been cut down by a third. I only persevered because this is George Eliot and I so want to like her. I really do, but I think I have come to the conclusion that she is not for me. Or her books are not (I still admire her as a person). If only she would stick with one main character and tell the story from his/her POV with only small glimpses now and then of what goes on in the minds of the other characters, then I would like her stories so much more (and "the Mill..." would have earned itself another star). But this constant shifting of POVs and the desire to break up a good story that has just got going to show what is going on in the lives of Mrs A, Mr B, Mrs C and family D are exasperating to me. Instead of caring about all the characters, I'm annoyed and it detracts from my enjoyment of her books. Such a shame!I tried, George Eliot, I tried...And failed miserably.
What do You think about The Mill On The Floss (2003)?
Such an excellent classic. I had read George Eliot's Daniel Deronda last year and loved her writing style. She writes with intelligence and emotion. The Mill on the Floss tells the story of Maggie Tulliver and her family, father and mother and brother Tom. Her father owns the mill of the title. It has been in his family for generations. Due to various dealings, a lost court case and debts, he loses the mill and ends up working for the lawyer, Wakem, who he had the court case against. Maggie is a beautiful, head strong girl, a difficult way to be in the time of this story. She loves Wakem's son, Phillip, a disabled young man, but due to her father's strong feelings against that family, they must meet in secret. There are many tragedies in this story, the family's bankruptcy, the father's illness as a result of losing the court case, his death, Maggie's tragic loves, etc. The story is told in seven sub-stories, as Maggie and Tom grow up. Tom is her brother, she loves him dearly and craves his returned love. It is his intrasigeance, that keeps her and Phillip apart and leads to other tragedies. I liked many of the characters, especially Maggie's cousin, Lucy, who loves and cares for Maggie dearly. The story moves easily through Maggie's life and as you get used to the language of the day, and this isn't a hard prospect as Eliot writes so well, you will get into the flow of the story. The ending left me feeling very sad and bereft, especially that it took this final event to bring brother and sister back together. Excellent story...
—Bill
Five thousand stars.I don't really know what to say. To me, old novels sometimes feel too emotionally remote, usually the fault of the conservative style imposed on them, but this was one of the most emotionally vibrant things I've ever read. Maggie was such a vivid character that every page she's on feels true. And yet, it's such a novel, with themes so richly built. Because of Shannon's numerous discussions of it for many years, I knew most of the ending before starting, but that only made it even richer. The symbolism is effortless and perfect and needed. (And is it really possible people don't like the ending?)It was a really visceral read: lots of face-clasping and jaw-dropping. Maggie says some of the truest things I've ever seen in fiction, and it's wonderful. Eliot's omniscience says the rest of them. I was stunned how sharp the commentary was, painful and real. She seems to have known everything. So I felt kind of silly for a while; why didn't I listen to Shannon and read it when this happened to her? But really, it doesn't matter, because reading this felt like it was written especially for me to read in my life right now. Which is how your favorite books always make you feel, right? (It's official. I changed my GoodReads relationship status to "Favorite books: The Mill on the Floss.")Not every page thrilled me to pieces. The aunts remained annoying throughout; I guess I didn't find them as great a foil as they're supposed to be. My interest slackened a little during some of Tom's sections. But I think it is really obvious to point out: Basically my criticism is, "Maggie Tulliver is so outstanding that I longed for her in every chapter that wasn't all about her." Which, really, is not a criticism at all. It's not like it's shortsighted to write a protagonist so good a reader can't stand to be away from her. (I especially think we should have gotten to see as much of Maggie in school as we did Tom. But still: not seriously concerned.)Though I purchased a copy as I neared the end so I could always have it, I read it all via DailyLit in 242 parts over two months. One of the things I like most about reading through DailyLit emails is that though most pages can be deleted after they're read, emails with passages I really like I save instead. Just in case. (I think this is the same kind of thing that makes people underline or dog-ear pages in real books, but I've never been able to do that.) So in my email right now I have 5 saved pages of Night and Day, 1 page of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and 110 pages of The Mill on the Floss. For a little perspective.It is needed.
—Lizzie
I had mixed reactions to this book. Mid-way through, I wrote this summary: I have reached tape 6 out of 16 in Eliot's Mill on the Floss, and I must say I don't know why it isn't a famous classic. She does a wonderful job characterizing human nature, and has a subtle sense of humor running throughout, much like Dickens. The Dodson sisters are great. The protaganist is a very bright young girl, (who will probably grow up by the end of the book) living in an age where education was not thought important to women. Meanwhile her brother is sent to school and while he has some talents, book learning is not his strong suit. I've yet to learn how it all turns out. She is great at getting inside the head of the child, portraying the logic of why the girl should want to run away to the gypsies and how that turns out. She may spend more time on background description than today's readers have much patience for, but certainly it's less time than Victor Hugo spent on backgound. I'd say I recommend it.That is all true, but I hated the ending of the book. Here are a few of the reasons. Maggie is willing to write off the friendship with her true soulmate, Philip, out of loyalty to the brother who has not done a kind thing for her since childhood. Later she is swept off her feet by the dashing, Stephen, who ruins her reputation by essentially kindnapping her in a boating excursion. He shows all the red flags of being abusive in a relationship, and she wisely ditches him. However, because she briefly let her heart go pitter-pat over Stephen, she convinces herself that the deep friendship she had with Philip must not have been true love and she won't go back to him, even when her brother writes her off despite everything she's done to stay on his good side. At the end of the book, she astonishes her brother, Tom, by showing amazing forgiveness towards him, which causes him at last to soften his heart. But I think the actual ending was cheaply done and a pointless sacrifice. Her life would have been far more meaningful if she had returned to Philip rather than Tom.
—Tara
