George Eliot books ?

Question

For those who read her books what did you think them?

Is Silas Marner or MiddleMarch any good?

Answer 1

I've only read Adam Bede and I liked it. It has it all, seduction, murder, jilted lovers. It's interesting a worthwhile read.

Answer 2

_Middlemarch_ is her masterwork--it has the most intellectual reach and emotional variety. _Daniel Deronda_ is equally complex but formally less focused and perfect. _The Mill on the Floss_ is very moving but slighter than _Middlemarch._ I am as fond of _Adam Bede_ as the first responder, and I love its freshness, but it is simpler than the great _Middlemarch._ _Scenes from a Clerical Life_ is short stories and as such lacks the concentrated force of the great novel. _Felix Holt_ seems to me too politically programmatic. I haven't read _Romola._ _Silas Marner_ was long a moralistic favorite, and it has since come to be denigrated because of that, but the study of the psychological way avarice corrupts the soul is expert. It does seem more shrill than _Middlemarch,_ which, I have to say, seems to me her real triumph. After that I'd pick _Daniel Deronda._