Middlemarch - George Eliot

Finally, something that actually makes me look like a literature student! Okay to be fair, I only read this because a friend challenged me to read it in less time than him, and my competitive streak can be pretty fierce when aggravated. Five days later (I win), I think it's got to be on my favourites list.

TV Tropes and goodreads both seem to agree with me.

The strength of the characters are what the entire book hinges on, and oh my, what characters. Each and every one is engaging, nuanced and extraordinarily real. It's never just as simple as good guy/bad guy; each individual character has their flaws and their redeeming qualities, and none can be written off as anything even approaching a stereotype.

Stories with lots of criss-crossing narratives can either be brilliant or irritating; brilliant for their cleverness, or irritating for the 'But I don't CARE what's happening to him, go back to her!' Again, George Eliot expertly handles a massive cast of characters and a story in which nothing uber-dramatic ever actually happens, to keep you intrigued almost all the time.

Endings are probably something I shouldn't comment on, since they are - by nature - hugely subjective, but I thought Eliot did such a smooth job of wrapping up all of the mini-stories, it had to be mentioned.

Buuuuut, there is definitely an attitude of 'why use five words when five hundred will work?' And whilst I understand that Eliot was trying to extensively explore character etc etc, she didn't half go off on tangents. You'd just be settling into the groove of the scene, then there'd be an EPIC explanation of how this character felt this way, which has historically been felt in situations such as XYZ, and this is similar in circumstance to how that would feel......and it goes on for about four pages, until when she gets back to the juicy stuff, you've kind of forgotten what was happening.

****