Comments on: Socks, two at a time

By: John Waters

John Waters — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:10:08 +0000

With my glasses off, the picture of the socks looks like a pair of flamingos.

By: F. R. Leavis

F. R. Leavis — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:43:30 +0000

It actually picks up (a bit) from here on. The logic of the plot unfortunately demanded that George had to put the most boring part, with the two dreariest characters, first.

By: Claire

Claire — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:59:44 +0000

I have read Mill on the Floss, and have almost no memory of it, but did remember it wasn’t too bad to get through, but clearly, it was more interesting than Middlemarch. Middlemarch is VERY slow. Good news though, Causbon finally died in the chapter I read this morning. Yay.

By: Mary Ann Evans

Mary Ann Evans — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:37:07 +0000

Middlemarch is definitely her most challenging book; it’s not quite boring enough to give up on, but not quite interesting enough to devour either. So you end up stretching it out over two or three months. Not all her books are that sprawling; Adam Bede, her first published novel, is actually quite compact, and The Mill on the Floss is pretty long but also tightly focused on one family. Keep away from Daniel Deronda, though. That one rambles more than most, and she indulges much too freely her penchant for long, involuted sentences. One that I decided to count was more than 250 words, and I doubt it was the longest in the book.