Stumbling on and fumbling through Middlemarch

By door_rusty92

I’m only around 40% into *Middlemarch* right now, and I keep thinking I’m going to have to slow down and really dig into it more. The ideas are so deep and the writing is so packed that it feels like one of those books where people could spend forever on it—kind of like *Dream of the Red Chamber*, where the serious readers and researchers go way beyond “just reading.” Before I started *Middlemarch*, I actually knew almost nothing about it. The last thing I read was *Wives and Daughters* by Gaskell, which was a lot easier to get through, so I honestly wasn’t prepared for the jolt I got from Eliot. But it’s a good kind of shock. I’m ending up learning about stuff I normally would skip. I usually avoid history, politics, sports, religions—anything like that—but since I started reading more 19th-century lit, I’ve found myself looking into the political and historical background. With *Middlemarch* I even did some quick research on the different religious views and denominations, because it leans so hard on those differences. Without knowing the religious setup in 19th-century England, I feel like I’m missing a lot of the tension in the plot. Like, I don’t fully get why something as specific as running a hospital turns into such a religious contest. It definitely isn’t an easy read, but it’s been pretty rewarding so far.