27 thoughts on “Excerpt from this book: Middlemarch”

    1. I’ve had it on my to-read pile for a long time. An artist and author I admire (Austen Kleon) is reading it as his “summer book” so I decided to read it too. Honestly I’m really loving it, but I know I wouldn’t have loved it years ago so it’s come into my life at the perfect time. So when you decide you’re ready to read it…that’s when you’ll be ready!

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      1. It’s been on my shelf for years. It’s soooo thick! LOL Considering I just finished an 800-page French book, I don’t know why I’m so stressed. Oh right. the font on that one was not so small… I’ll have to relook at what to expect 🙂

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      3. Oh Lordy… I am presently reading Frankenstein (I never had!) and while it’s only 234 pages long, it’s not super fast going for a few reasons: Mary Shelley wrote insanely beautiful sentences that require me to pay attention or keep going back to reread to make sure I understood (she is very Virginia Woolf-like in that some sentences go on for days); the font is small and there aren’t many breaks.

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      5. It is a beautiful read. I cannot wrap my head around the fact that she was all of 18 when she wrote it! It was about time I read it, I say.
        I have just reached the part where Victor is talking for the first time to his creature in the mountains.

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      6. I think this is why Jane Austen reads quicker…there are so many pages of dialogue in her work, they’re almost play-like in the way they read sometimes. And I have had to give up on Virginia Woolf twice, once with the Waves and years ago with Orlando. Although I have loved Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.

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      7. That does make a huge difference. The French book I read had a very comfortable font and lots of spacing and dialogue. Still took me four months to read.
        It took me FIVE restarts to get through Mrs. Dalloway – so much that I think I can recite the first few pages. 😀

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      8. So I have a hard time with attention span. I often have to read pages several times. My first read of Dalloway I did the same. But then after I was done, I started again. And then I liked it very much. I thought The Waves would also be like that, but no, I couldn’t do it. I literally had no idea what I was reading. And then I tried again several years ago, no…no idea, also it irritated me. So there you are, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t!! Maybe in a decade I’ll try again and I will like it then. Who knows. What is the French book?

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      9. I understand you. I found myself losing focus with Virginia Woolf’s long-ass, page-long sentences so many times. When I reached the period, I was like what? What did I just read? And back I went.
        The funny thing is, I watched the movie with Vanessa Redgrave before I tried one more time to read it. It sorta didn’t really help but hey.
        The book is called Les Perroquets de la Place d’Arezzo by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt (I looked it up and it is called The Carrousel of Desire in English. Very sexy, funny, poignant…

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      10. Sometimes when I’m reading, I start to think about the last time I took my mum to the grocery store, and I think that by now, her bananas are surely gone. And then, I realize I’m reading and have no idea what I just read. Back I go to the top of the page…..all the time. If I’m actually liking what I’m reading, then I just keep going in this fashion. And if I don’t like it, I can’t put this much energy into it, it’s exhausting.

        The Carrousel of Desire is a really great title, but I think that EVERYTHING sounds sexy, funny, and poignant in French. I think if it were called, The Cabbages of Detroit in French, it would still be sexy!

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      11. I know exactly of what you speak! That’s a sign, I think, that we are just not focused on the reading at hand because it has not grabbed our attention sufficiently. Then again, as women, we always have so much on our minds, we have to force ourselves to shut off the rest (not always possible). I love your example, by the way. Such an inane and everyday thought can occupy our minds.

        It IS exhausting to read like this!

        It’s quite a good read. Imagine all the tenants in a building with a square in the middle. All of their lives intertwined and, suddenly, most of them get an anonymous note, written on yellow paper that states: “Just a note to tell you I love you, signed you know who”.
        Needless to say the reactions to receiving such a note are varied. It was a page-turner.

        Hahahaha! You are so funny!

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      12. Yes, you are right, “we” always have so much on our minds, indeed. I wish we had a glass of wine and a nice fire to have this conversation!
        The premise of your book sounds brilliant. All the shocking ways for that sentence to wreak havoc on people’s lives, for good and bad I can imagine.

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  5. I read Middlemarch a couple of years ago, thoroughly enjoying the read. I hope you’re finding it the same.

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