Middlemarch

I've been reading George Eliot's "Middlemarch" for the first time this century (I read it several times during the previous century). Indeed, I plan to inflict this novel of ideas on my students.

I'm enjoying the shapely sentences, none of which is in a hurry.

And my reading of the novel has changed! I appreciate the sensibility of Mrs. Cadwallader enormously. Dorothea really does seem to be a prig. Take your mother's jewels and cherish them! And what's wrong with a little Maltese dog?

Mr. Brooke is not merely a tedious windbag; he's like many of my friends and colleagues who live via their past experiences.

I recently read a wonderful little piece in the NY Times by VERLYN KLINKENBORG
on rereading which I heartily recommend. Take a look at it and let me know what you think! I have always agreed with Nabokov's comment that there is no reading but in rereading.