Group Read, September 2014: The Mill on the Floss

A classic for this month's read. Having enjoyed other Eliot novels my hopes are high for this one. Read on....

I was planning to participate this month, but I gota little ahead and already finished the book; I thought it would take quite some time, but it is an easy read.

My review (no spoilers):
The Mill on the Floss tells the story of Maggy Tuliver, smart and rebellious daughter of Mr Tuliver, owner of the mill. Where her brother Tom chooses exactly the path his parents had in mind for him, Maggie (the alter ego of George Eliot herself) often gets into trouble. She would like to live a noble and obedient life, but doesn't always succeed. For example, she wants to be faithful to her childhood friend Philip, but falls in love with Stephen.

I liked some parts of this book much better than others. Occasionally I thought it all a bit too sweet, with an overkill of bonnets, table linen and tenderness. Take cousin Lucy for example, people like her don't exist in real life, do they?!
In contrast, I really liked the discussions within the Dodson clan; the sisters of Maggie's mother who judge everything and everyone on the degree of kinship.

Last but not least: the end. The end is beautiful. The end shows the real lovestory. And I didn't see it coming.

I don't usually participate in group reads, but I happen to be listening to this on audiobook right now. So far I'm enjoying it very much, especially the scenes with Maggie. She has got to be one of my favourite literary characters. Other parts bog down with wordiness, but that's a common occurrence with 19th century lit.

I'm now about halfway through. There is a lot to read in this book, but I enjoy Eliot's writing so it's not a chore. My only concern is that instead of finding Maggie passionate and impulsive, I just find her very annoying! Hopefully she presents a more rounded and sympathetic character once I get to her adulthood.

I just find her very annoying!

Oh no! I love Maggie. She is a pleaser though. Is that what annoys you? I think it's because she's a victim of her culture. I see her as really born in the wrong time and place.

Who else is reading this or planning to read this? I don't usually do these group reads, so what does everyone do? When are we allowed to start discussing elements of the novel that will be spoilers for others?

I finished today, and I'm wavering between 4 and 4.5 stars. I think as time passes, it will be toward the 4.5. As with most Victorian literature, it's too wordy for my taste, and it's overwrought, but I still really enjoyed it.

Over at Shmoop ( http://www.shmoop.com/mill-on-the-floss/), they have some reader questions on the Mill on the Floss. I think these are pretty good. Anyone who wants to comment on them, go right ahead . . . .

1 Who exactly is the narrator? At the beginning the narrator speaks in the first person and seems to "remember" Maggie and the other Tullivers. Is the narrator an independent character, is it Eliot herself, or something else entirely?

2 The narrator tells us that Tom’s and Maggie’s destinies are hidden since they are a matter of always-evolving circumstances rather than character traits. In this novel, are characters’ futures a matter of circumstance, a matter of character, or a combination of the two?

3 The novel has a very vague ending and doesn’t provide any details about the other characters lives. Why do you think the novel ended this way, and what sort of effect does this conclusion have on the narrative as a whole?

4 Eliot gives us a lot of very complex characters in the novel, many of whom aren’t entirely good or bad. Who would you classify as a protagonist, or a hero, and an antagonist, or a villain? On the other hand, are there actually any real heroes or villains in this book at all? Is everyone sort of a mixture of the two?

5 We get a lot of hints about the flood before it actually happens. Do you think fate played a role in Tom’s and Maggie’s deaths?

6 The Mill on the Floss has a fairly odd narrative structure. Eliot focuses in very careful detail on a certain incidents and then she jumps forward years at a time in the narrative. What is significant about the scenes that Eliot choses to focus on in detail? Are there any similarities in content or themes in these scenes and chapters?

7 On a related note, what sort of effect do the gaps of time have on the narrative overall?

8 What do you think of Tom Tulliver? Is he a sympathetic character at all?

9 There are a number of chapters that have the same title, such as "A Love Scene" and "Boy and Girl." Is there anything significant about these repeating titles? Do the different sets of similarly titled chapters and volumes have anything in common?

10 Religion is an important issue in the book on which the narrator and different characters comment. What sort of role does religion or spirituality more generally play in the lives of the major characters, such as Maggie and Tom?

11 The book places a huge emphasis on the significance of the past and Maggie especially seems to give a greater weight to past events and past relationships over newer ones. Is this a good attitude to have? Can newer relationships ever fully supplant, or replace, older bonds here?

Interesting questions. I'll get to them when I finish. There are no real rules about how Group Reads work but if you think you are going to raise a spoiler I generally preface the comment with a SPOILER AHEAD statement. Glad you enjoyed the book!

Well I decided to start The Mill on The Floss instead of Dead Souls because I see that people are commenting on this already and Goodreads don't start until the 15th.

I'm about 90 pages in and really enjoying it - I had a sort of Thomas Hardy author in mind and it's a pleasant surprise at how readable this is. I'm not sure how others find it (I'm wary of reading too much of others comments in case I hit spoilers) but I'm laughing through large chunks of it. The obsession with hats is priceless!

Re the children I can see how people find Maggie annoying. I think she's a bright girl, frustrated by being surrounded by those who can't understand her intellectually and with no outlet for her energy and imagination. She's self centred in a loving sort of a way like a lot of children no doubt. I actually find Tom far the more unpleasant of the two at the moment but I'm not a reader that cares over much about having the main characters being likeable anyway - I'm usually happy to take them as they are. The only two books with protagonists that really grated on me were The Catcher in the Rye and War and Peace.

I'm really looking forward to continuing my read of this one. If it was a nicer day in London I'd think about taking a lunch break to read for a bit but the weathers too grey and dreary for that so I'll have to wait for the train home.

I have the book standing by and am planning to begin as soon as I finish last month's book! Should be today or tomorrow. It's a dense dusty old library book - glad to hear it reads well.

Somehow missed the voting this month... *wanders off to locate Mill on the Floss and try and shoehorn it in*

Ohhh, that was a nice read :-) The hilarity of the start of the book faded somewhat and I feel like I was reading Hardy at the end.

POSSIBLE SPOILER AS TO THE TONE OF THE BOOK

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Women really get a shit time don't they!? And instead of thinking 'you know what, it's mostly the guys fault and all he thinks about is himself the big pratt!' they hold themselves up to this shining ideal and if they fall fractionally short then it's ashes and sackcloth all the way! No sense of proportion or being too hard on themselves at all.

Thank goodness it's much better now. I only care about my dogs opinion and I could tell him I'd murdered someone and she'd be jake so long as I gave him an extra helping of pudding.

I finished the book this morning, and enjoyed it. After all the Victorian wordiness, I found the ending both unexpected and disappointingly brief. But maybe Eliot is saying that when the end comes life doesn't always tie up the loose ends. I agree with M1nks that the book increasingly has the air of the tragic females of Hardy.

>8 M1nks: I'm on the same page as far as being less fond of Tom at this point - I can see how Maggie might come off as annoying but it seems to me like she actually just overthinks things a bit. She tends to dwell on negatives.

I'm still not too far in so I can't say much else but I am enjoying the read!

I found the ending a shock as well; I won't say I was disappointed but it felt a bit like I'd walked face first into a stone wall because I was looking over my shoulder at something and just turned back around at the last moment. I probably wasn't disappointed for precisely that reason, I like an author which can surprise me and looking back on it there were hints as to what was a about to happen. Most of the way through the book actually if you take the long view.

I read and read and see no progress. I do enjoy it, also that it takes its time, but it feels longer than it is. Can't belive I am only at 16%. It's been months since I read a classic, maybe I've unlearned reading them?
On the other hand I'd love to stop and freeze it where it is now, because tragic future events are already foreshadowed and I want to keep both Maggie and Tom safely in their childhood.

Hah! Funny :-) Maybe it is a skill that you pick up when you read a lot of them?

I found it a really easy fast read anyway; The Woman in White got munched up pretty fast as well. And I'm re-reading Sons and Lovers and although I remember D H Lawrence as being a rather tedious read this time it's flowing past pretty quickly.

The Home and the The World though.... Argh!

Looks like I'm in the Classic Zone :-)

Finally finished this today - it was kind of slow-going since I just started a new job and haven't had as much free time (boohoo!) but I really enjoyed the book! The ending actually threw me, I didn't see it coming until it was nearly smacking me in the face. I don't want to give any spoilers here so I might write a review of my own later.

I am really, really struggling with this book... I've been reading it for two weeks and I'm still only halfway through. Usually these Victorian novels are my favorite genre (and I loved Middlemarch) but this one is just dragging... I'm not interested in any of it. Not even sure I'm going to finish it at this point. Ugh.

I finally got started on it about a week ago, so probably won't finish before month-end. I'm glad I did Middlemarch on audio first, as that gave me a feeling for the way Eliot inserts little asides about the character and feelings and history of different people, sometimes in the middle of a scene. That was part of what I ended up enjoying most about MM, so it's easier for me to relax and enjoy the same wandering narrative in this book than it would have been. I think I'm only up to about chapter 9, so I still have a long way to go, but I'm hoping to settle into a pace of 2 or 3 chapters a day.

I finally finished this one. Not an easy read for me, I know those Maggie/Tom dynamics too well from RL, and found their scenes painful to read, but so well written. I loved the psychological observations/ insights a lot. On the other hand I didn't enjoy the surface plot. I give it that name, because the main story thread was the Maggie-Tom relationship, so all the love triangle, Lucy's incredible sweetness, Bob's goodness all felt like ornaments for me. The ending wasn't surprising, I thought it was inevitable in a Victorian novel after all that had happened. I wish GE had found another way to make Tom soften towards Maggie than her heroic act which tasted too much like "see, I have been bad, but now I came to save you, so pleasepleaseplease am I now worth to be forgiven and to be loved again?". Sure Tom did love her, but I wish his self-righteousness had given way earlier, from deeper insight. . But that's probably personal.