Middlemarch Is Really A Great English Novel

Middlemarch, by George Eliot, is a long novel of great scope. Unlike some novels that just seem to go on and on however, there is always a point to Eliot's writing, so the novel never feels slow. Every sentence and paragraph is necessary to the story. The reader is very aware that Eliot is a great writer, and has spent considerable effort to create a full portrait of an English village.

The full title of the English novel is Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. One can get a full view of this particular village through the interwoven stories of many characters. There are so many characters in the novel it can be easy to lose track. Eliot includes examples from all strata of society; the clergy, landed gentry, laborers, tradesmen. As if this were not enough, Eliot also uses her characters to introduce and discuss issues relevant to Victorian England. Religion, the Reform Laws and other political debates of the Victorian Age, marriage, and feminism all play a role in the novel.

Eliot is fabulous with creating portraits of particular types of people, especially upper class people, clergy, and women. The dialogue between her characters can sometimes be a bit clunky- Dorothea is so earnest and long-winded! Despite this I cannot help loving Dorothea- her story arc includes her struggles with her own idealism and expectations, her desire to do good, and her disappointments that she takes with grace.

The novel also has that sort of nostalgic vibe when later Victorians look upon early Victorian England; before the smothering industrialization, rapid connections brought about by railroads, and visible poverty. Victorians like to envision a time when the land was green, everyone enjoyed a bumpy carriage ride for a week to get from one part of England to another, and when all the poor people were tied to the land in a harsh tenant/landlord system and most upper class people did not need to see them.

There Are A Few Famous Chinese Historical Novels

Historical Tapestry has invited me to guest post with a discussion of historical novels set in China. This in response to my comment on Mary Tod's blog A Writer of History that I find historical fiction about China to be indifferently represented in forums devoted to the historical genre.

I assume the principle reason for this scarcity may be that we American readers are not so familiar with Asian history; in our schools Western history generally receives more emphasis – Athens rather the Warring States, Rome instead of the Han Dynasty, the Hanover monarchs and not the Manchu empire. So, the Far East is a longer reach.

Still, the reasons for reading Chinese historical novels are not unlike those for reading historicals set in the West or near East. The people invoked have similar troubles and triumphs, and the events evoked have similar storm and stress – but in different contexts often fascinating in their contrast. We gain some insight into people of another time, and perhaps into how our time came to be, by sharing in their drama. Adventure, war, hard times, love, understanding – they live in the pages of historical fiction about China just as they do in that about other places.

And what am I calling historical fiction? In addition to novels about events regarded as historical, events older than 50 years according to some forums, there are included here titles that, while not historical when published, are set in places that time has since changed enough to make them quite different now and, as such, have become chronicles of the vanished past.

There are original English-language novels about China, and Chinese-language novels widely available in translation. There are older books rarely heard of now, and more recent novels. And there are novels about Chinese-American experience (besides Amy Tan) I've left off the list because they are not quite historicals yet. Some of these are about earlier history and others are about more recent events.