Episode 101: Middlemarch, Part 2

Better Read than Dead: Literature from a Left Perspective

We finish our conversation on George Eliot’s 1871-1872 behemoth Middlemarch with an in-depth discussion of the book as an historical novel and the historical contexts of its setting in the early 1830s. We all have different answers to how much we liked-liked reading this massive thing (Tristan is a big fan, Megan and Katie… less so), but we all loved Dorothea, and we did all legitimately love talking about this novel. AND we all agree that the scene where Mr Brooke gets rotten eggs thrown at him because he had one-too-many glasses of sherry before a campaign speech and went Chuck-Grassley-on-Twitter incoherent is among the finest scenes in 19th-century British literature. All landlords are bastards, folks. To finish, we play a delightful game where we debate which Middlemarch character you want running your mutual fund.

We read the Oxford edition, edited by David Carroll with an introduction by Felicia Bonaparte. For an excellent reading of Middlemarch as critical toward mid-19th century liberal ideological assumptions, we highly recommend Elaine Hadley’s Living Liberalism: Practical Citizenship in Mid-Victorian Britain, which we discuss on the show.

*Note to listeners – we’re taking a short mid-season break, but we’ll be back with new episodes in a couple weeks.

Find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @betterreadpod, and email us nice things at [e-mail]. Find Tristan on Twitter @tjschweiger, Katie @katiekrywo, and Megan @tuslersaurus.