Updates on Reading

Following the suggestion of my B-Side readers, three weeks ago I started reading Middlemarch. As my exams are approaching, I have been reading less for leisure. However, I also need to take my mind off of the texts for uni from time to time, so here I am almost one month into the novel and almost in the middle of it.

I like this book a lot even though it is hard to explain why. If I were to summarise the story so far, I would call it a series of ordinary events in the lives of ordinary people with ordinary feelings. It sounds so boring, right? The interesting fact is that it’s not boring. On the contrary, Ms George Eliot tells this ordinary story in the most intriguing way. It is the first time I actually understand the lives and struggles of people from the 1800s.

I’m trying to figure out exactly what makes this novel so enjoyable. Is it the idea of ‘ordinary’? Is it the way it is written? I’m an English Literature student, I shall figure it out!