Kanlaon

It is certainly trying to a man’s dignity to reappear when he is not expected to do so; a first farewell has pathos in it, but to come back for a second lends an opening to comedy . . .

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

Dorothea married Causabon, a man much older than herself. A tiresome man, who she thought she loved. And then — dear blog readers, you should know that such things never end well. Because, after two years, she met someone.

She was never anything but the proper wife. This is not Madame Bovary. George Eliot is a sort of anti-Flaubert.

Eliot was English. That is the most basic and most fundamental difference. Don’t ever expect an English author to in any way resemble a French author! In self’s humble opinion, most of the tension in an English novel comes from a character not giving in to the demands of the heart.

This is what Dorothea tells that young someone on p. 517 of Middlemarch:

Sorrow comes in many ways. Two years ago I had no notion of that — I mean, of the unexpected way in which trouble comes, and ties our hands, and makes us silent when we long to speak. I used to despise women a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing better things. I was very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given it up.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.