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Bezig met laden... My Life in Middlemarch (origineel 2014; editie 2014)door Rebecca Mead
Informatie over het werkMy Life in Middlemarch door Rebecca Mead (2014)
Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. It’s been over 25 years since I read Middlemarch for Victorian Lit in college, and I vaguely remember enjoying it (way more than Heart of Darkness which we also read, and I loathed) but not really any details; I much more remember where I read most of it which was in Charlotte while visiting my grandparents. Mead’s love for the novel has me wanting to return to it, and I think I’ll be checking out the audiobook soon and prepping myself for thirty plus hours of listening. I loved learning more about George Eliot and her fairly untraditional but happy life; the mix of sources here was fascinating, and the author did a wonderful job with the tidbits she shared. My vivid memory of Victorian Lit was learning and truly understanding the word “earnest”, and it sounds as though Eliot was the epitome of earnestness. As usual I love these reads which mingle memoir and biography, and having this also be a book about books (as she referred to other Eliot writings as well) truly made it perfect for me. I can see this is a marvellous, learned journey into a writer's love for the book, Middlemarch. I hope I have the patience to finish the audiobook. Unlike the first commentator below, it's a long time since I read Middlemarch - and I remember that I was awed by it. Then many years later, but still a long time ago, I read a biography of Mary Ann Evans, and that was like stepping into a parallel Middlemarch universe. It was intensely interesting, perhaps in the sense of being a voyeur on a private person's life. One part I recall was how affected she was by knowing herself to be plain - hell! Could such a woman be plain?! I read 97 pages, then the last few. I think I'm done. It's a well-written and researched book, with lots of biographical information on George Eliot (or, more accurately, Mary Ann Evans)and how her circumstances influenced her writing and how that writing influenced Rebecca Mead. Having only read Middlemarch for the first time last month though, I think I've had enough of it for now, and possibly forever.
"My Life in Middlemarch" [is in the genre of] the bibliomemoir — a subspecies of literature combining criticism and biography with the intimate, confessional tone of autobiography. ... Rebecca Mead’s “My Life in Middlemarch” is a beguilingly straightforward, resolutely orthodox and unshowy account of the writer’s lifelong admiration for George Eliot and for “Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life” “My Life in Middlemarch” is an exemplary introduction to the work of George Eliot and a helpful and informed companion guide to “Middlemarch.” Is een studie vanMiddlemarch door George Eliot PrijzenOnderscheidingenErelijsten
Biography & Autobiography.
Literary Criticism.
Nonfiction.
HTML: A New Yorker writer revisits the seminal book of her youth--Middlemarch-- and fashions a singular, involving story of how a passionate attachment to a great work of literature can shape our lives and help us to read our own histories. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)823.8Literature English English fiction Victorian period 1837-1900LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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What a delight, then, to pick up My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead. Mead weaves Eliot's biography, and her correspondence along with major themes in Middlemarch and other works. Mead travels to the locations important to Eliot and then draws in a number of the same themes we discussed. This book was made all the richer having done the slow read. How for instance Eliot turned the standard novel on its head by starting the novel with a marriage instead of ending it ala Austen. She addresses Woolf's famous assessment that it is "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people."
I especially enjoyed the glimpses into Eliot's domestic relationship with George Lewes and his children and how the people around her may have served as inspiration for various characters. Mead also touches on Eliot's writing process and obstacles (migraines, toothaches, and family illnesses). But also how Lewes and Eliot had what looks like a modern happy working relationship. Like Eliot, I found a true partner late in life and I certainly could relate to Mead's line, "To find a partner as accepting and generous as Lewes is a great and unexpected gift."
On the whole, I found this book enriched my Middlemarch experience, and as I am now working my way back through all of Eliot's works. ( )