As George Eliot began to write fiction, she reread Jane Austen’s novels in the evening. But influence works in odd ways. Middlemarch can feel like an Austen novel turned on its side or balanced on a corner.
Another thought: I noticed that Eliot doesn’t linger much over setting scenes, but she gave us such a luminous picture of the afternoon of Dorothea’s walk, when she was “not consciously seeing, but absorbing into the intensity of her mood, the solemn glory of the afternoon with its long swathes of light between the far-off rows of limes, whose shadows touched each other.” We suddenly feel the breadth of the landscape as an expression of her sense of possibility, such a contrast with the pinched, indoorsy Casaubon. We see her as a romantic heroine in a vista, like a Caspar David Friedrich painting.
“Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr Casaubon’s mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought ...” Love how Dorothea is constructing a fantasy about Mr. C. projecting her own qualities and longings onto him.
"Celia, who did not like the company of Mr. Casaubon's moles and sallowness, had escaped to the vicarage to play with the curate's ill-shod but merry children."
This quote took me back to the time I taught little children and learned how conversation and play with them could refresh the mind. During some free time at the end of the day when I felt a bit stressed, I would sit and one of their tiny tables. A few would gather round me and I would look UP at their cheery, chatting faces as opposed to my usual stance which was looking down. My energy would come roaring back!
“Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr Casaubon’s mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought."
It's a reverse Narcissus. She sees in his shallows the depths of her desires. The word wanting shimmers with this sense of something wanting.
What struck me in this chapter is Dorothea imagining that “there would be nothing trivial in our lives. Everyday-things with us would mean the greatest things. She wants as Eliot describes “in every variety In experience is an epoch.” She surely seems in for major disappointment
"The movement of Dorothea’s romance... holds—for the reader—no real anticipation of pleasure." It's true. What a way to begin a book. I'm a first time reader, and it's hard to imagine where it goes from here — hard not to imagine the dread will just get worse and worse.
I’m super-glad Mona quoted that sentence about the puppy’s expressive eyes and nose. That’s marvelous in itself and for the way it differentiates author from heroine.
Eliot is separated from Austen by the idea of the developing self, whether she gets it from German lit. I know not since it’s in englit too, “experience, that arch wherethrough...” (Tennyson “Ulysses”) If personal development is what matters, Jane Austen -type happy marriages come to seem a bit static, whilst even an unhappy marriage can give new life and energy, though this is admittedly kind of a dangerous idea
When Dorothea tells Sir James, "I am rather short-sighted," she is not kidding!
As well as being a religious fanatic with a penchant for self-sacrifice and a soft spot for emeralds?
As Austen was preoccupied with character Eliot is too. In Austen the lens of romance reveals character. The question that holds the tension is will the interested parties find their right match? It seems almost perverse of Eliot to right off the bat send her main character into a wrong match .. hard not to get ahead of ourselves assuming it is the wrong match with Casaubon, but there is no lack of clues embedded in Eliot's descriptions and observations to see that Dorothea is headed for a fall, or at least a trip on the edge of the Casaubon carpet ... it is unthinkable in Austen that a main character would marry the wrong man first ... in Austen's older married couples we see the pain and humor of long, probably ill-matched marriages ... the next generation is supposed to avoid their mistakes. But how? Character is the determining factor. Major mistakes in Austen are for minor characters, and there to demonstrate the serious risks to the main characters in committing them.
I find this statement near the end of Ch. 3 so interesting:
"It is difficult to say whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her [Dorothea] continuing blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in relation to her."
It is difficult to say .. is it up to the reader to decide, in other words? To me it seems that there is some awareness on Dorothea's part about where Sir James is coming from. Otherwise she is more of a dodo than ever, or more self-delusional. In the grip of her ideals, she is unable to see Casaubon, not only as others see him, but as he really is. I don't think there is any obfuscation on Eliot's part about who Casaubon really is. In Austen the reader is sometimes in the dark about where people are coming from, as if the events were playing out in real time. Eliot has adjusted the focal point and the time frame, as if she were saying, you'll see, a little fore-knowledge is not going to alter your interest in what happens to these people, or even significantly change what you might feel about them. As if knowledge is only useful at the right moment. So even as Mona says there is no real anticipation of pleasure, which there isn't or not yet, there is something else that is drawing us along and keeping us interested. Pleasure delayed?
Was never sure and still remain unsure how to feel about Casaubon's Key to All Mythologies. It's easy to write off the project as hacky, grandiose, foolhardy, imperialistic. And certainly there's something self-aggrandizing and untrustworthy in C's almost defensive posture as he claims his version will be more just and thorough than all previous attempts. But am I mistaken in also perceiving something poignant in his tragic dedication, and something sensible in his thesis? You can't really write off Casaubon without writing off, say, Joseph Campbell. (How would Eliot feel about the latter, I wonder?) In Casaubon, she's is personifying the foundational aspirations of Western intellectual culture. It's a radically unflattering portrait, falling somewhere between melancholy and ominous, but a human one.
Another thought: I noticed that Eliot doesn’t linger much over setting scenes, but she gave us such a luminous picture of the afternoon of Dorothea’s walk, when she was “not consciously seeing, but absorbing into the intensity of her mood, the solemn glory of the afternoon with its long swathes of light between the far-off rows of limes, whose shadows touched each other.” We suddenly feel the breadth of the landscape as an expression of her sense of possibility, such a contrast with the pinched, indoorsy Casaubon. We see her as a romantic heroine in a vista, like a Caspar David Friedrich painting.
“Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr Casaubon’s mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought ...” Love how Dorothea is constructing a fantasy about Mr. C. projecting her own qualities and longings onto him.
"Celia, who did not like the company of Mr. Casaubon's moles and sallowness, had escaped to the vicarage to play with the curate's ill-shod but merry children."
This quote took me back to the time I taught little children and learned how conversation and play with them could refresh the mind. During some free time at the end of the day when I felt a bit stressed, I would sit and one of their tiny tables. A few would gather round me and I would look UP at their cheery, chatting faces as opposed to my usual stance which was looking down. My energy would come roaring back!
“Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr Casaubon’s mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine extension every quality she herself brought."
It's a reverse Narcissus. She sees in his shallows the depths of her desires. The word wanting shimmers with this sense of something wanting.
What struck me in this chapter is Dorothea imagining that “there would be nothing trivial in our lives. Everyday-things with us would mean the greatest things. She wants as Eliot describes “in every variety In experience is an epoch.” She surely seems in for major disappointment
"The movement of Dorothea’s romance... holds—for the reader—no real anticipation of pleasure." It's true. What a way to begin a book. I'm a first time reader, and it's hard to imagine where it goes from here — hard not to imagine the dread will just get worse and worse.
“It is my desire I desire, and the loved being is no more than its tool.”
― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments
Barthes has many things to say about the self-absorbed nature of "love"--which apply to our proud, naive Dorothea.
I’m super-glad Mona quoted that sentence about the puppy’s expressive eyes and nose. That’s marvelous in itself and for the way it differentiates author from heroine.
Eliot is separated from Austen by the idea of the developing self, whether she gets it from German lit. I know not since it’s in englit too, “experience, that arch wherethrough...” (Tennyson “Ulysses”) If personal development is what matters, Jane Austen -type happy marriages come to seem a bit static, whilst even an unhappy marriage can give new life and energy, though this is admittedly kind of a dangerous idea
When Dorothea tells Sir James, "I am rather short-sighted," she is not kidding!
As well as being a religious fanatic with a penchant for self-sacrifice and a soft spot for emeralds?
As Austen was preoccupied with character Eliot is too. In Austen the lens of romance reveals character. The question that holds the tension is will the interested parties find their right match? It seems almost perverse of Eliot to right off the bat send her main character into a wrong match .. hard not to get ahead of ourselves assuming it is the wrong match with Casaubon, but there is no lack of clues embedded in Eliot's descriptions and observations to see that Dorothea is headed for a fall, or at least a trip on the edge of the Casaubon carpet ... it is unthinkable in Austen that a main character would marry the wrong man first ... in Austen's older married couples we see the pain and humor of long, probably ill-matched marriages ... the next generation is supposed to avoid their mistakes. But how? Character is the determining factor. Major mistakes in Austen are for minor characters, and there to demonstrate the serious risks to the main characters in committing them.
I find this statement near the end of Ch. 3 so interesting:
"It is difficult to say whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her [Dorothea] continuing blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in relation to her."
It is difficult to say .. is it up to the reader to decide, in other words? To me it seems that there is some awareness on Dorothea's part about where Sir James is coming from. Otherwise she is more of a dodo than ever, or more self-delusional. In the grip of her ideals, she is unable to see Casaubon, not only as others see him, but as he really is. I don't think there is any obfuscation on Eliot's part about who Casaubon really is. In Austen the reader is sometimes in the dark about where people are coming from, as if the events were playing out in real time. Eliot has adjusted the focal point and the time frame, as if she were saying, you'll see, a little fore-knowledge is not going to alter your interest in what happens to these people, or even significantly change what you might feel about them. As if knowledge is only useful at the right moment. So even as Mona says there is no real anticipation of pleasure, which there isn't or not yet, there is something else that is drawing us along and keeping us interested. Pleasure delayed?
The imagination of the self fuses so easily with that of another...Dorothea’s recognizable at any age.
I thought this group would appreciate this link to A.O. Scott’s essay on reading:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/books/review/book-bans-humanities-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Yes! Qualities which will meet our needs! I guess romance hasn’t changed that much in 200 years!
Was never sure and still remain unsure how to feel about Casaubon's Key to All Mythologies. It's easy to write off the project as hacky, grandiose, foolhardy, imperialistic. And certainly there's something self-aggrandizing and untrustworthy in C's almost defensive posture as he claims his version will be more just and thorough than all previous attempts. But am I mistaken in also perceiving something poignant in his tragic dedication, and something sensible in his thesis? You can't really write off Casaubon without writing off, say, Joseph Campbell. (How would Eliot feel about the latter, I wonder?) In Casaubon, she's is personifying the foundational aspirations of Western intellectual culture. It's a radically unflattering portrait, falling somewhere between melancholy and ominous, but a human one.