...because each immediate step was clogged with evil.

[icepixie]

I finished The Mill on the Floss. Siiiigh. I guess that was the only way to end it, but man, these Victorians. No one escapes unscathed in their novels.

Downer ending aside, I really liked it! It got to be a page-turner by the end, and she has an excellent eye for familial relationships, and writes interesting female characters. I also detected more than a hint of biographically-related bitterness in the "shunned woman" part, and a sort of incipient "rah rah women's rights" kind of feeling that I much appreciated. Maggie is a great character.

(BTW, yes, the subject line is a direct quote. Not, perhaps, one of Eliot's finest clauses. Although it truly amuses me that, instead of the usual meaning of "clogged," i.e., "filled with," I think she means "shod in clogs." CLOGS OF EVIL.)

*

I'd do that sorting hat meme thingy, but really, is there any doubt which House y'all would sort me into? I mean, really? (For that matter, is there much doubt about which house basically all of fandom would be sorted into?)

Comments

[rivrea.livejournal.com]

See, I didn't spoil you for the ending! There's quite a bit of heavy foreshadowing, though, with the water symbolism running through the entire novel.

ETA: Ooops. Wrong Victorian woman writer in my icon.

[icepixie]

There's quite a bit of heavy foreshadowing, though, with the water symbolism running through the entire novel.

I suppose, although I think I only realized it was foreshadowing after the ending came to pass. I was mostly thinking of it in relationship to Adam Bede and Hetty's inability to drown herself. (Oh lord, now I'm thinking of George Eliot serving as counselor to Virginia Woolf, telling her not to drown herself. Brain, why do you do these things?)