Arguably the greatest work from the Victorian Era.
Like many great novels, this book took time to get into. At first, it seemed like just another book by Jane Austen, but it is more than that. To quote Virginia Woolf, it is "one of few English novels written for grown-up people."
It is a story about idealism and the failure the live up to it. Whether it is marital mismatches, career set backs, or societal frustrations, this book is about what haunts all of us: a slow and painful acceptance that the window of opportunity for achieving all that we want to achieve in life is quickly closing as we get older. However, it also a story about redemption, about realizing that living a normal life can still be a rewarding experience. In many ways it is a book about a mid-life crisis and about coming to terms with who you are.
One of my major criticisms of Victorian Era literature is that far too often these writers neglect the stories of the lower classes. However, I think we must give the authors a bit of a pass in that regard. At that time, only the upper classes were literate and social interaction was very limited. The one exception to this that I've seen so far is Charles Dickens, who grew up poor. Nonetheless, I'd go as far as to say that if you had to read two authors from this time period, I'd recommend George Eliot and Charles Dickens.
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