Product Description

From the author of MIDDLEMARCH and SILAS MARNER, a story of frustrated intelligence and longing, featuring the intelligent Maggie, who yearns to be loved, and her brother Tom, who is forced to study. When Maggie is cast out by Tom, she is ostracized by society, and must face the consequences of renunciation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1795545 in Books
• Published on: 1980-05-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Review
Novel by George Eliot, published in three volumes in 1860. It sympathetically portrays the vain efforts of Maggie Tulliver to adapt to her provincial world. The tragedy of her plight is underlined by the actions of her brother Tom, whose sense of family honor leads him to forbid her to associate with the one friend who appreciates her intelligence and imagination. When she is caught in a compromising situation, Tom renounces her altogether, but brother and sister are finally reconciled in the end as they try in vain to survive a climactic flood. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Review

see record 3842

From the Publisher
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Customer Reviews

Great book for some, including me, contrived for others..
This was my first (of four, so far) George Eliot novel. It's also my favorite. Unlike Adam Bede or Silas Marner, I found the characters to be interesting and enjoyable. No, it's not a finely-crafted piece of literature like Middlemarch. And it might be a bit on the melodramatic side. But for some odd reason I found the story to be ultimately quite moving.

Other folks who I gave the book to gave it mixed results. No one disliked it, but most found the "brother-sister" element to be a bit corny. And pardon my sexism, but I thought the book would appeal more to women than men (since the main character is a teenage girl). Not so. This book is definitely "not for women only".

I imagine if you have a sentimental streak through your bones you will probably love this book.

A work of great depth & beauty.
Powerful and moving, "The Mill on the Floss" is considered to be George Eliot's most autobiographical novel. Along with "Middlemarch" it is my favorite. Set in early 19th century England - St. Ogg's, Lincolnshire to be exact - this is the tale of gifted, free-spirited Maggie Tulliver and her selfish, spoiled brother, Tom, who were born and raised at Dorlcote Mill on the River Floss. Eliot's portrayal of sibling relationships is terribly poignant and plays a major part in the novel, as does the longstanding rivalry between two local families - the Tullivers and the Wakems.

From earliest childhood Maggie worships her brother Tom, and longs to win his approval, and that of her parents. However, her fierce intelligence and strong streak of independence bring her into constant conflict with her family. She finds, in literature, the kindness and love she longs for in life. "...everybody in the world seemed so hard and unkind to Maggie: there was no indulgence, no fondness, such as she imagined when she fashioned the world afresh in her own thoughts. In books there were people who were always agreeable or tender, and delighted to do things that made one happy, and who did not show their kindness by finding fault. The world outside the books was not a happy one Maggie felt. If life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie?" Her nature, complex, passionate, sensuous, noble, intellectualized, and spiritualized, is of great importance to this novel, as is the pathos of her relationship with Tom.

Maggie's early years are brilliantly and unsentimentally portrayed from a child's perspective. The author structures a sequence of childhood's phases, which might appear, at first, to be random vignettes, but constitute an excellent psychological basis on which to build a character and motivation. Eliot once stated, "my stories always grow out of my psychological conception of the dramatis personae." Thus, the author chronicles Maggie's life as she grows from a precocious little girl to a strikingly attractive young woman, tall with full lips, and a "crown" of jet black hair. Her lack of social pretension makes her even more charming and likeable. As she matures, her conflicts with her brother, her family, even with her community, increase significantly. She, herself, feels torn between what is considered her "moral responsibility" and her search for self-fulfillment. Ultimately, she demonstrates honor and courage in the face of the disapproval of a narrow, tradition-bound society.

Parallel to, and intertwined with Maggie's story, is that of families Tullivur and Wakem. After Tullivur loses his mill and social respectability through bankruptcy, (a loss precipitated by a rash lawsuit he undertook), Wakem purchases it all. Mr. Tullivur agrees to stay on as manager. At first he seems resigned to his misfortune. However, within the space of a few pages he is swearing vengeance on the new owner and cursing him. He actually summons Tom to inscribe his curse on Wakem in the family Bible, and makes his son swear to uphold it. The feud becomes violent when Wakem, in the role of proprietor, appropriately corrects Tullivur's management of the mill. Of course the criticism is taken as an insult, and shortly afterward, upon meeting his boss on the road, Tullivur horsewhips him in "a frenzy of triumphant vengeance." Tom sees this uncontrolled outbreak of madness as the result of long repressed hatred. Mr. Tullivur never repents his beating of Wakem. His injured pride and sense of righteous indignation, justify him in his own mind. This lack of forgiveness is also demonstrated by Tom for his sister. In direct contrast, Maggie couples love with forgiveness.

As she reaches adulthood, Maggie finds herself torn between her relationships with three extremely different men: her proud, stubborn brother, Tom; Philip Wakem, a beloved friend who is also the son of her family's worst enemy; and a charismatic but unacceptable suitor. When Tom is thrown suddenly into the role of adult, after his father's death, he becomes obsessed with acquiring social status and power. He attempts to arrange a socially advantageous marriage for Maggie, and when she refuses, he severs ties with her.

I won't spoil your read with any further discussion of the novel's details, especially the dramatic conclusion. George Eliot writes with a keen sense of humor, especially when addressing the grotesque in the human character. Her narrative has great depth, as insight to character and social observations are more important to Eliot than pace and action. "The Mill On The Floss" is deeply romantic - a work of great beauty and a literary classic. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

"The Mill On The Floss" is based partially on Eliot's, (born Mary Ann Evans), own experiences with her family and her brother Isaac, who was three years older than she. Eliot's father, like Mr. Tulliver, was a businessman who had married a woman from a higher social class. His wife's sisters were rich, ultra-respectable, and self-satisfied. These maternal aunts provided the character models for the aunts in the novel. Like Maggie, Eliot was extremely intelligent, energetic, imaginative and unconventional. She did not fit traditional models of feminine beauty or behavior, causing her family a great deal of consternation. Eliot lived with a man who she had not married - a daring enterprise in Victorian England. By the time this novel was published, she had gained considerable notoriety as an "immoral woman."

This edition has been edited by Gordon S. Haight, with an Introduction by Dinah Birch further relating "Mill On The Floss" to George Eliot's own life and times.
JANA

The divided self.
_The Mill on the Floss_ (1860) was George Eliot's third published book (after Scenes from Clerical Life and Adam Bede)and tells the story of Maggie and Tom Tulliver, two children who grow up in the middle-class rural community of St. Ogg's.

It has been a while since I last read Mill on the Floss, I think that the last time I did I was in my early 20s, just graduated from school. I got a lot more out of the book this time. I think it profits both with re-reading and age. The first time I read it I identified so strongly with Maggie that I practically skipped over everything dealing with the other characters. I found Tom loathesome and the ending of the book appalling.

As a slightly more adult human, I was able to read it for more than just Maggie's story and enjoy it even more. I was surprised by how compulsively I read it. I had every intention of stretching it out over several days, but I literally found that I could not stop reading it and carried it with me from room to room in the house. I laughed at Eliot's sly humor and this time around saw people like the Gleggs as people and not simply stock appendages of the story.

I think what makes Mill On the Floss such a powerful book (aside from the writing style, which is excellent) is this notion of the divided self which is being worked out both through Tom and Maggie. Tom has a firm clear sense of right and wrong and is always being forced to question or do injury to that sense because of his very difficult sister. On the other hand, Maggie cannot seem to find the right balance between self-indulgence and renunciation. She never manages a way to negotiate between the sharp emotions that she feels and her desire not to inflict the consequences of those emotions on her family and friends. It is a tragedy that neither of them ever really manage to understand each other and are constantly hurting and being hurt in their drive to do the right thing and be who they really are.

Interesting how Eliot plays with the tropes from all the popular weepy sentimental novels of the time. A young unattractive girl (unattractive because she has dark hair) overcomes poverty and goes on to attract the eye of the most fastidious and eligible man in town... However, in the world of St. Ogg's (unlike the novels of the sentimental sisters like Mary Jane Holmes) Maggie is unable to overcome her obstacles to happiness and is as trapped by her beauty and popularity as she was her unattractive hoyden girlhood. Given the position of women at the time and the strength of the social norms, it is unfortunately a much more believable view of the outcomes of things.

If you have not read Eliot, I would agree that it is not her best book (still Middlemarch, for me, and I would begin there first) but it is hugely thought-provoking and honest. It should make many a young woman of today count their blessings and thank the stars that the world has changed since the time Maggie Tulliver was a girl.