a rush of unintended consequences under the apple-tree

Week 10 | analyzing week nine and getting into our next chapters

Welcome to the Closely Reading book club, where we closely read classic literature together and discuss assigned chapters each week. Right now, we’re reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch. You’re welcome to join us any time!

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let’s talk chapters 56-62

All week, I kept thinking: where is Dorothea? I want more Dorothea.

And then we got some heartbreaking developments throughout the Middlemarch community, instead.

• Rosamond suffers a miscarriage while riding horseback with the visiting Captain

• Lydgate’s debts become clear; neither he nor Rosamond can figure out how to fix it. Rosamond’s letter to her uncle makes things even worse.

• Fred and Mary’s connection becomes increasingly complicated as her family (and especially her mother) get involved and make an interesting case for Farebrother and the love triangle his care for Mary creates

• Rosamond tells Will about Casaubon’s will

• Bulstrode’s past becomes more clear and he tries to make things right with Will out of guilt

• Will refuses the inheritance and considers leaving Middlemarch because he cannot be with Dorothea

• The town increasingly gossips about Dorothea as she attempts to start re-integrating herself into society after Casuabon’s death.

I was so eager for more of Dorothea’s story that it really took me some sittin’ and thinkin’ to start to unravel some of the thematic moves in these chapters. And once I started thinking about all the implications that continue to unfold, the more I realized how deep the threads of this story really run.

(At this point in the novel, I’m getting the sensation I used to get in a mid-season of a beloved TV show: like season 3 of Gilmore Girls or season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy — shows with interesting communities or social dynamics. We know our cast so well now that we can see how their individual plots start to weave and wander!)

Lydgate’s debts were shocking to me. I wasn’t really tracking how much Rosamond’s expectations were leading him to “Keep up with the Joneses.” It’s really tragic to see how his medical ambitions are getting compromised, increasingly, by his social connections and financial realities. Plus, Rosamond isn’t helping. I can’t help but see some underlying critiques here about the way money sours relationships, as well as individual dreams and pursuits.

“He had meant everything to be different with him.
He had meant to keep himself independent of all that was sordidly personal.”

In fact, we’re seeing that all over the place:

• In Fred’s frantic pursuit of the right vocation that will win him Mary’s affections

• In Bulstrode’s increasing anxieties that his past will be revealed and he’ll lose everything he has

• In Will’s horror to realize that his love could cost Dorothea her financial security

In all these ways, money is getting in the way of people’s desires and even, in some instances, their ability to live truthfully and fairly.

“He had done wrong, but he was not an evil man — he was simply a man who had never had the courage to face the consequences of his acts.”

We’re also seeing the ways that these tensions lead to loneliness and isolation. Poor Dorothea: “She was lonely, and had been thinking of lonely things.”

Dorothea’s grief and her feelings for Will are so beautifully rendered in the story. As the town begins to gossip about Dorothea and Will’s connection, I just felt sad. I especially hated the moment Rosamond enjoyed putting things plainly to Will:

“I daresay she likes you better than the property,”
said Rosamond, looking at him from a distance.

This was so heartbreaking! I am so nervous that all these tensions will continue to pull good people apart, while giving less-good people (like Raffles) increasing power to control others.

And speaking of good people being pulled apart by social tensions and Middlemarch gossip and the prying power of “dead hands,” did anyone else just feel their heart pounding during Dorothea and Will’s final goodbye? Will’s bitterness; Dorothea’s rising sobs. It was all just so heartbreaking.

(And yet I can’t help but feel that Eliot is leading us to a beautiful ending.)

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favorite quote

Each week, I share my favorite quote from our assigned pages. If you had one this week, please share it in the comments!

Here is mine:

“This is the big folks’s world, this is.”

I absolutely loved Caleb’s discussion with the working men about the incoming railroad to Middlemarch.

So far in the novel, we’ve had a lots of attention on these proper Middlemarch families: the ones who draw the cottages, make the plans, have the money. As these chapters evolve, we’re seeing debts — including Fred’s past history and attempts to make a future for himself, as well as Lydgate’s money troubles — begin to haunt the central narrative.

But out there on the fringes are people we haven’t seen or heard much from. (And I’m personally curious about the dialect used in the passages with the farm workers — something for me to do a bit of research on!)

What I loved about this quote was that it made me ask myself: who are the “big folks” in Middlemarch, really? Where are the seats of power? Have they shifted? Toward whom? Away from which kinds of people?

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what we are reading this week

Here we go into week 10! Can you believe?! We’re so close to the end!

Here’s your assignment for this week

Week 10: Monday, July 28
Read chapters 63-70 this week

You can view the full reading schedule here.

You can pose your questions here.

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let’s keep reading!

Head into the comments to share your thoughts on the reading.

Where do you think we’re headed, as we near the end?

Can you believe we’re over 600 pages into this Victorian tome?! I’m so proud of us!

Keep reading. We’re in the home stretch now!

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thank you!

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