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    Silas Marner
    Silas Marner
    Silas Marner
    Ebook247 pages4 hours

    Silas Marner

    By George Eliot

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    This antiquarian book contains George Elliot's 1861 novel, "Silas Marner". It is an ostensibly simple story of a weaver that is famous for its strong sense of realism and its precocious treatment of issues ranging from religion to industrialism. A wonderful example of Elliot's masterful writing, "Silas Marner" is highly recommended for all lovers of English literature. Mary Ann Evans (1819 - 1880), commonly known by her pseudonym 'George Eliot', was an English novelist who is considered to be one of the most accomplished writers of the Victorian era. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book now, in an affordable, high-quality, modern edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateJun 8, 2015
    ISBN9781473375260
    Author

    George Eliot

    George Eliot (1819–1880), born Mary Ann Evans, was an English writer best known for her poetry and novels. She grew up in a conservative environment where she received a Christian education. An avid reader, Eliot expanded her horizons on religion, science and free thinkers. Her earliest writings included an anonymous English translation of The Life of Jesus in 1846 before embracing a career as a fiction writer. Some of her most notable works include Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss(1860) and Silas Marner.

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    Reviews for Silas Marner

    4/5

    87 ratings66 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Dickenesque plot, lots of sentiment and melodrama. It contained a lot of social commentary that made it preachy and outdated. More relevant as a historical document; though I would think that the author's class background would make her "insights" into working class values and mores less valid.
    • 3/5
      Re-read 9/20/17. Still meh. Reads more like a church parable than a story with interesting characters. Compelling to read but unsatisfying in the end. One too many bows put on the mysteries. Maybe I should give it two stars instead of three.
    • 4/5
      Still wonderful, a grownup child's story.
    • 2/5
      Simplistic.
    • 4/5
      Silas Marner by George Eliot was originally published in 1861 and I think this book has withstood the march of time remarkably. Silas Marner is a weaver who comes to the village of Raveloe as an outsider never quite fitting in. He spends much of his time alone with his only comfort being the gold that he has saved and now hoards. When his money is stolen he is left anxious and confused. But he rescues an orphan child whose mother perished in a snowbank, and, with the help of the villagers he raises this child with care and love. Eppie, the child grows into a beautiful young woman but when the local quarry’s water levels go down, a body is revealed and alongside the body is Silas’ gold. This body is that of the local squire’s never-do-well brother who not only stole the gold but was also blackmailing his older brother who had entered into a marriage with a barmaid. The woman who perished in the snowbank was that lower class wife and the squire has known that Eppie is his daughter all this time. When he finally reveals this to his wife and they decide to claim Eppie for their own, they realize that they have left it too late as Eppie will have no parent but Silas.With his gold restored to him, and Eppie entering into a happy marriage, the book ends with Silas realizing that money is best used to improve life rather to to be hoarded and worshipped. While the squire sadly realizes that he has lost his chance at fatherhood by ignoring his daughter when she needed him. Overall an interesting morality tale that I thoroughly enjoyed. I read this book through installments from Daily Lit and the story certainly held my attention through all 70 segments.
    • 4/5

      This is a book which countless teenagers have been forced to read as part of the school syllabus. For some reason I didn't have to read it when I was at school. I'm glad that's the case, because I've a feeling this would not have appealed to me very much when I was a teenager.

      As has been the case when I've read other novels by George Eliot, it took a while for me to become fully engaged with the narrative. But once the links between the various characters became clear, listening to the audiobook (beautifully narrated by Nadia May) became a joy. Essentially a story about the redemption which can come through love, the novel has something of the fairytale about it. Eliot might be criticised for sentimentality, but this is ultimately a feel-good story with an important moral. Added to this are Eliot's deft characterisation, elegant prose and the sure manner in which she evokes Victorian village life. Overall, listening to this was a most enjoyable experience.

    • 4/5
      Not as good as I remember, but wonderful nonetheless. The earliest section of the book (Marner's setup by William) felt oddly out of place with the rest of the book, but once you get past that, it's a great story. Silas's relationship with Eppie reminds me of Jean Valjean's relationship with Cosette to the point where I question whether the father/adopted daughter was a common theme of the era?
    • 5/5
      This book was excellent! I loved the way the fairytale and social realist strains came together and mixed and wove and you weren't ever quite sure which world you were in. Silas Marner is expelled from the society of his fellows because their religion makes unsound claims for unsavoury reasons. He becomes a Rumpelstiltskin, a mountain gnome with his gold. The world intrudes again, and he is left bereft and thrown back on the people, but luckily this time back in the village, where their suspicion of this eldritch figure with his inhuman clack-clack-clackery is trumped by their need to help. The collective in all its complex glory, building up as it tears down--not only Silas, but the gentry--Godfrey, who loses his title, his child; Dunsey, who loses his life. Eliot's sensitive, sad but equanamitous observations on that which buds within us and before we even know it's there is half-grown. The absolutely exquisite balancing of fates that makes Godfrey and Nancy neither better nor worse than they should be but still so sympathetic; similarly, Silas's failure to go back to Lantern Yard and receive revenge or revelation, and how it doesn't matter at all because the best narrative arcs bend towards happiness, and youcantalwaysgetwhatyouwantbutifyoutrysometimesyou mightfindyougetwhatyouneed (or YCAGWYWBIYTSYMFYGWYN). Silas Marner literally ends with the words "I think nobody could be happier than we are" and sells it. Reminds me of Thomas Hardy at his most sunny (least cloudy?). (Weirdly, it was also the inspiration for Black Snake Moan, in which Samuel L. Jackson keeps Christina Ricci chained up in the basement so she won't have sex wth boys.)
    • 4/5
      I read this in high school, but somewhat haphazardly. I appreciated it more when I was in the process of reading all Eliot's books, which I eventually did--even Scenes from Clerical Life, which I managed to find, in two volumes, at a Library used books sale in 2012--acquried on the last day of the sale, when the books were free!
    • 4/5
      A short and appealing novel about the life and misfortunes of the title character, betrayed by his best friend and fiancee and finding new life elsewhere where he meets new challenges and joys. This has interesting things to say about the influence of religion over people's lives and how different people find fulfillment in different things in life. Early on there are also some good humourous scenes between two brothers, whose actions both before and during the action of the novel affect Silas's life in different ways. 4/5
    • 4/5
      I would have great difficulty justifying to my seventeen-year-old grandson why he should read George Eliot’s Victorian novel “Silas Marner,” a part of which he might be assigned to read in a summer high school English class. Elliot’s verbosity and frequent ultra complex sentence structure were not meant for today’s broad-based reading public and certainly not for most high school juniors.Example: “A dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.”However, Eliot provides a heart-tugging story, compelling characters, and insightful commentaries about people true 200 years ago as they are today.At times Eliot is both perceptive and eloquent. Examples:“The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature …”“I suppose it is the way with all men and women who reach middle age without the clear perception that life never can be thoroughly joyous: under the vague dulness of the gray hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, and finds it in the privation of an untried good.”“Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.”The story is about the loss of trust in man and God and its rebirth. Silas Marner, a young man totally immersed in the beliefs of an unspecified strict religious sect burrowed away in a large 18th Century industrial city, is accused by sect leaders of stealing chapel money. They ex-communicate him. Silas’s love-interest rejects him and marries, instead, his closest friend, the actual thief. Silas leaves the religious community and settles far away in the “rich central plain” of England near the community of Raveloe, “never reached by the vibrations of the coach-horn, or of public opinion.” He begins a bleak life weaving fabric to be used for dress-making. The community views him with suspicion. He is an outsider. He is a near-sighted, peculiar-looking man given occasionally to cataleptic fits. Disillusioned by his former peers’ cruelty and God’s refusal to protect him, he shuns human contact.Silas’s life becomes one of incessant weaving and hoarding of gold coins. 15 years pass. One stormy winter night, while he is away delivering dress fabric to a client, Silas’s hoard of coins is stolen. Members of the community cannot determine who is the thief. On New Year’s Eve a two-year-old child crawls into Silas’s cottage to escape a freezing mist. Her mother lies dying unseen just off the path to his opened door. Silas, suffering a cataleptic fit, does not see her enter and notices her lying near the warming hearth only after he recovers. Because nobody in the village claims her, he takes ownership of her and proceeds to raise her. She changes his life.“The gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer and longer, deafened and blinded more and more to all things except the monotony of his loom and the repetition of his web: but Eppie called him away from his weaving, and made him think all its pauses a holiday, reawakening his senses with her fresh life, even to the old winter-flies that came crawling forth in the early spring sunshine, and warming him into joy because she had joy.”Other characters have varying importance. The author displays here especially her acute perception of human strengths and weaknesses. Godfrey Cass, eldest son of the Squire of the community, is a significant character. Cass is a weak-willed man with a strong conscience. He has made a major mistake in his life and strives to conceal it in order to win the hand of a desirable, respectable young woman. His subsequent aspirations ultimately interfere with Silas’s rebirth. I enjoyed additionally the theme of the novel, expressed inarticulately by the selfless, illiterate community do-giver, Dolly Winthrop, who has become Silas’s advisor and confidant. “’… there’s trouble i’ the world, and there’s things as we can never make out the rights on. And all as we’ve got to do is to trusten, Master Marner—to do the right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten. For if us as knows so little can see a bit o’ good and rights, we may be sure as there’s a good and a rights bigger nor what we can know—I feel it i’ my own inside as it must be so.’”
    • 4/5
      I liked this for lots of reasons that didn't relate to the plot or the execution of the plot: namely, for historical details about weaving (that one person in a village would have a loom set up in their house and would take in spun flax from the rest of the villagers and would turn it into cloth for them), about relative isolation of villages (that Silas Marner could seem like a complete otherworldly alien, not merely because of his profession, but because he came from over the hill and far away, and that you could have Dissenter villages, such as the one SM grew up in), for portrayal of drug addiction back in the 19th century (Godfrey's first wife), and for portrayal of a single, working parent--and a father at that--bringing up a child. That last part I found fascinating, though in terms of percentage of the story, it occupied a very small portion. Silas Marner must find a way to keep his adopted daughter Eppie out of harm's way while he's weaving. He ties her to the loom at one point; at another point he puts her in something like a high chair or a playpen. He also has to deal with disciplining her; he can't bring himself to mete out corporal punishment, and the thing he hits on as a replacement, on the recommendation of his solicitous neighbor, Eppie turns into a game. These details struck me as so realistic and charming! As did this portrait of toddler Eppie, who's wandered off one day:
      The meadow was searched in vain; and he got over the stile into the next field, looking with dying hope towards a small pond which was now reduced to its summer shallowness, so as to leave a wide margin of good adhesive mud. Here, however, sat Eppie, discoursing cheerfully to her own small boot, which she was using as a bucket to convey the water into a deep hoof-mark, while her little naked foot was planted comfortably on a cushion of olive-green mud. A red-headed calf was observing her with alarmed doubt through the opposite hedge.

      As for the story itself, and its execution. . . It bewildered me slightly. George Eliot spent an awful lot of time (from my perspective) on things like SM's early years in his first village, and his being falsely accused of a crime there--I understand why *some* time needs to be spent on that, but it felt like a lot to me--and on things like the pub scene, which seems to be there just to establish local color, or on the ladies talking together prior to the squire's ball. These were all interesting in their own right, but for me, they also bogged down the forward motion of the story. I liked the time spent in Godfrey's head. He was such a weak-willed guy, so capable of lying to himself and taking the easy way out, and George Eliot showed that perfectly. I wasn't as persuaded by her portrait of SM in his gold-hoarding days. I could accept what she was telling me about SM, but I didn't believe it viscerally. (Whereas, his transformation and his desire to parent Eppie--all that I did believe.)

      In the end, I thought this was a very engaging story, but not in the ways that GE probably intended me to find it engaging, and it failed (somewhat) in engaging me in the ways I think she intended it to be engaging. But still, I liked it very much. For psychological portraits, and for an interesting glimpse into history--and for the surprising single-male-parent angle--I think it's an excellent story.
    • 3/5
      This was quite a sad tale in the beginning, as Silas through no fault of his own ends up having to leave his home town & travel far away to Raveloe, where he takes up his weaving, & becomes wealthy in the bargain, until Dunstan, the ne'er do well second son of Squire Cass breaks in to his home, & steals the hoard of gold that Silas' hard work has built up. Later on, Silas finds Eppie, who is "sent to" him after she wanders in to his home through his open door deep one winter night when her opium addicted mother passes out under a bush & dies not far from Silas' home. How these events are tied to the Cass family is kind of convoluted, but it all turns out well in the end.Very sweet tale!
    • 5/5
      In Silas Marner, George Eliot has crafted a heartwarming fable woven with incisive commentary on religion, community and the true meaning of wealth. The title character starts out as a faithful member of a religious commune, poised to marry the love of his life. He soon finds himself framed for theft and is exiled from the community. Betrayed, disillusioned and heartbroken, Marner settles on the edge of a faraway village. He becomes a hermit, finding solace in counting his precious stash of gold coins each night. He interacts with the outside world only as required to sell the cloth he weaves and accumulate more gold. But fate intervenes in Marner's life once (well, twice) more. He is forced to engage with the village community, and the rest of the story follows his resulting growth and redemption.Though the material is more simple than that of her larger works, Silas Marner still showcases Eliot's masterful (but admittedly dense) literary style, signature social commentary and humanist beliefs. Her keen observation of human nature helps her writing speak to readers hundreds of years and thousands of miles distant. I heartily recommend Silas Marner to all lovers of literature. Due to the book's modest length, it is especially suited to someone looking for a taste of Eliot's work but who may not have the time or patience to take on Middlemarch. Or the world-weary intellectual looking for an uplifting, fairytale-like story to restore their faith in humanity.
    • 2/5
      It took me three years to finally finish this book. I found it one rainy day when I was 7, decided it was good enough to pass the time....and hit a brick wall. I would pick it up periodically but still I found myself unable to read it. Finally at the age of ten, I managed to finish it. Imagine my relief at finally being able to rid myself of the torment of having an unfinished book. So the story is bland enough, and the personal emotions attached to this book great enough that I absolutely cannot remember the plot. I do think that at the time I thought it mediocre at best.
    • 4/5
      The introduction writer was correct - this novel is rather like Thomas Hardy but *not annoying*. Possibly because the characters are actually likable and understandable in their motivations.

      Generally a fun, moving little tale. I found Dunsie a cartoonish villain and the disposal of Eppie's mom rather heartless, but I loved the themes of chance and choice that thread through these characters lives - they can't control their lives, but whenever they give up their moral agency, bad stuff happens.

      I also loved the narratorial voice at the beginning. It was like George Eliot was telling me a bedtime story.
    • 3/5
      That was fine. Good. Nice. Pleasant. I really liked a lot of the writing, which was often witty and perceptive, surprisingly modern-sounding and good enough to keep me interested throughout what is, I guess, a fairly slim book (just under 200 pages in large print, although the print wasn't as enormous as some large print can be) but the overall plot was fairly pedestrian. As a result, this only gets 3 stars and goes on my pile of books to get rid of, as I won't be needing to read it again. I might, however, pick up other George Eliot books, should they cross my path, on the basis of the quality of the writing.
    • 3/5
      My first George Eliot, author number 2 in mission 'let's try some Victorian fiction after all.' Author number 1 was Trollope. It's hard to imagine two more different experiences than this and my first Trollope, The Warden.

      Eliot really should have been born in the 20th century. She might have been one of the greatest sociologists of all time: great imagination, great ability to sum up the social changes of modernity, great ability to see ancient parables in modern settings. All good. I'm ambivalent, though, about her prose. It manages to be convoluted (whereas Trollope, for instance, is straightforward) and not particularly attractive (whereas Austen before her and James after her might have been complicated, but generally very pleasant to read). That's fine for 200 pages, but I'm worried that it'll make Middlemarch a bit of a slog. Nonetheless, I'm willing to try on the basis of Silas.

      I also see that many people were forced to read this in high school. One day teachers will realize that it's better to teach long, clearly written books to teenagers than to pick short books by 'classic' authors. I hope that day is before my kids hit high school.
    • 4/5
      I picked up Silas Marner as a spring board to George Eliot’s work, AKA Mary Anne Evans, before bigger commitments such as Middlemarch. Yikes – Silas did not turn out to be a walk in the park. Some misleading facts: A) The book is maybe 50% about Silas. Lots of other key (and non-key) characters occupy pages and pages of the book. B) The synopsis of the book suggests the book revolves around Silas and the child Eppie. Well, the child shows up at Chapter 12, page 108 out of 183 pages. C) I wonder if whoever did the illustration for the cover read the book. She was a 2 year old, in rags, and certainly was not holding a note!! :P Now, re-calibrate yourself to a slow Victorian start, with background stories galore and even some unrelated non-story thrown-in, and ta-da, you will enjoy Silas Marner.Seriously, reading it was a bit of dental work, lots of poke and prod, before the pretty polishing touches. A devoted and dedicated man, deceived and framed by a devious friend, Silas leaves Lantern Yard to Raveloe. Embittered and humiliated, he keeps to himself, working non-stop, living miserly, skipping church and friends, finding joy only in the gold he has painstakingly horded, and yet to have this gold stolen. Dum dum dum. That was page 37, end of Chapter 4. Now fill the pages between Ch 5 through 11 with character stories and backdrops before we arrive at who really matters – Eppie. The story lights up when she arrives. An entire Chapter 6 at the Rainbow (pub) was lost on me. As soon as town folks spoke in “village language”, I was stumped. It wasn’t until I arrived at this passage from the Miss Gunns sisters that I realized I wasn’t processing my reading correctly, “…what a pity it was that these rich country people, who could buy such good clothes should be brought up in utter ignorance and vulgarity. She actually said ‘mate’ for ‘meat’, ‘appen’ for ‘perhaps’, and ‘oss for horse’, which, to young ladies living in good Lytherly society, who habitually said ‘orse, even in domestic privacy, and only said ‘appen on the right occasions, was necessarily shocking.” Doh! Of course, I needed to put on the decoder ring and play guess that word. morrow for tomorrow. gell = girl. allays = always. Got it. Two other main characters occupy the core of this book. 1. Godfrey Cass, the selfish wimp, who pines for Nancy Lammeter, hides the fact that he is married and is the biological father of Eppie for 16 years. His ‘punishment’ – a childless marriage to Nancy. “Dissatisfaction, seated musingly on a childless hearth, thinks with envy of the father whose return is greeted by young voices…” 2. Nancy Lammeter contributed to his laments by denying his request to adopt Eppie (without being told he is her father). Nancy “…had her unalterable little code, and had formed everyone one of her habits in strict accordance with that code.” This code dictated leaving things be as god defined (no adoption) and yet Godfrey is the rightful father and they can provide more physical comfort to Eppie. I had a slight urge to slap her for standing by Godfrey in persuading Eppie to leave Silas and join them. The cream of the book is undoubtedly the love and bond between Silas and Eppie. He dotted on her as lovingly as any father possibly can, and she was the sunshine of his life, representing the gold he lost. I thoroughly enjoyed these pages and wish there were more. “…where Silas Marner sat lulling the child. She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep - only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky - before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.” In return, Eppie loved Silas for all he has given her, declining Godfrey and Nancy with “And he’s took care of me and loved me from the first, and I’ll cleave to him as long as he lives, and nobody shall ever come between him and me.”Reading fiction can be quite a stab to the heart, when your own parental love (or spousal love) do not measure up to the ideals of fiction. This book easily pressed such a button.A few more quotes:On the Rich vs. the Poor:“The rich ate and drank freely, and accepted gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families, and the poor thought that the rich were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly life; besides, their feasting caused a multiplication of orts, which were the heirlooms of the poor.” On Men: :)“…viewing the stronger sex in the light of animals whom it had please Heaven to make naturally troublesome, like bulls and turkey-cocks.”On Women: :)Heroines are always somehow petite-ly dainty - “…while she was being lifted from the pillion by strong arms, which seemed to find her ridiculously small and light”Vs.“Mrs. Kimble was the Squire’s sister, as well as the doctor’s wife – a double dignity, with which her diameter was in direct proportion.” Lol.This book is themed much around karma. From Dolly, Eppie’s godmother:“Ah, it’s like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest – one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it’s little we can do arter all – the big things come and go wi’ no striving o’ our’n – they do, that they do; and I think you’re in the right on it to keep the little un, Master Marner, seeing as it’s been sent to you…”
    • 5/5
      Silas Marner is a weaver who has cut himself off from the world because of a severe wrong done to him. He becomes a hermit and a miser who only cares about his gold. When his gold is stolen from him, he is devastated. However, losing the money actually wakes him up a bit because he has to converse with his neighbors about his loss, whereas before he would only talk "business".Soon a little girl comes into his life that opens up his heart and soul. Their love for each other as two "castaways" is truly heartwarming. Highly recommended classic.
    • 3/5
      This is a sweet little book about how one person's life is changed after he loses everything he cherished in his life. After losing all that he thought was most important, he has an opportunity to devote his life to serving and loving someone else, and then his soul is enlarged and he learns what is truly important.I do recommend this book. The story is a bit sad, but it ends very sweetly, and it deals with such timeless questions as honesty, family responsibility, & love. I found the Victorian language overly flowery, at least in the first half, and it made it difficult to stay connected with the story. If one recognizes the ornate language and is prepared for it, however, there should be no problem. There are also several colloquial speech spellings which may confuse at first, but make perfect sense if you just say them out loud.
    • 4/5
      I've been going through the classics lately and don't have much good to say from them. This is the first so far that I can say that I liked. I think it's my modern perspective looking at it to think this, but I think it could have been much shorter. The first half, at least, of the book seemed to be too drawn out and didn't seem to connect things till much later in the story. I see all the connections now but I don't see that it was needed to put so much detail in it. I also like the fact that Eppie didn't want to have money. Most of the characters I have run into so far in older books, namely (and clichely) Pride and Prejudice, have wanted almost nothing but money and material wealth. But Eppie loved Silas and her way of life and didn't want to change. That made me appreciate the book much more.
    • 3/5
      When I read the synopsis of “Silas Marner” I thought that this was going to be one of those classic heartfelt easy reads that would make you feel all warm and fuzzy. The first portion of the book is definitely slow. The first chapter was easy going for the most part and Silas’s past and how he came to Raveloe was interesting. You feel bad for Silas – for everything that he has lost but hope comes when he gets to Raveloe for a new beginning. Once Silas gets to town though the book begins to creep by as you are introduced to the various townspeople. While you drag yourself through the beginning and introductions, you are given important background information on why certain characters act the way that they do and what motivates them.

      George Elliot’s writing is without a doubt of the era she lived in. For those unaccustomed to the turns of phrase and vocabulary, the regional dialects can be an impairment to an easy read, however the dialects do add interest to the story. Filled with religious references, moral and ethical musings there is little doubt that she intended her readers to learn from her characters’ errors.

      A tale of karma, the characters of “Silas Marner” reap what they sow. Elliot proves that your behaviors and actions have consequences and can come back to haunt you. She has succeeded in demonstrating to us that what we assume people to be is not always accurate. Sometimes the thing that seems most significant to us is just a substitute for what really is important.

      And while we all hate to admit it . . . everything happens for a reason.
    • 4/5
      A cult member, Silas Marner placaes his entire faith, literally and figuratively in the hands of his fellow sect members. They betray him in two ways - one his best friend frames him and persaudes his girlfriend to jilt him and two the other members of the sect believe the lies about him and expell him.Sials turns against human kind becoming a hermit and a miser; until he accidentally becoems the adoptive father of an abandoned baby. Through the child he returns to life, and society and he loves her deeply.However the child is not what she seems, eing in fact the legitimate heir of the local landlord. When this secret is discovered the issue arises - will she choose gold and social status over the plain love of her adoptive father and his fellows?More sentimental and less profound than Middlemarch, and occasionally straying into hyperbole and didactic moral fable-telling Silas Marner is nevertheless one of the classics of English literature. Its plot reveals hidden pockets of 19th century life including their very own version of what modern society calls cults, the class divide, the lure of greed over humanity and much mroe, under a deceptively simple disguise.
    • 4/5
      This too I had to read for a class when I was much younger, and I hated it!! Once again, I've read it on my own and I fell in love with it. Great book! One of my favorites.
    • 5/5
      This used to be required reading in high schools. It doesn't seem to be any longer. I don't have a decided opinion on this, since most people hate the books they are assigned, but I loved it.Because of its concision, I go against the grain of received literary opinion and judge this to be George Eliot's best book. Its simplicity saves it. Eliot's characteristic periphrasis does little harm here, and the story redeems all the whole. Eliot (Evans) was surely an interesting figure in 19th century life. Her pessimism, "fearless realism," and principled opposition to romanticism can be seen very well in this great little novel. When I first read it, I was disappointed in the ending. I wanted it happpier. I wanted Silas's old friends in the religious sect to welcome him back. But that was tragic backstory, and, like in life, the story here is just happy enough. Not ALL possible plot points find idealized resolution.But then, I was a pious member of an obscure Christian sect when I first read the book. Twenty years later, it seemed perfect.And so it still seems, to me.
    • 5/5
      Solitary simple-hearted weaver Silas Marner has lived alone for 15 years amassing a hoard of money. One New Year's Eve he finds a baby girl left abandoned by his cottage; for the next 9 years he fosters her and she becomes all in all to him. It transpires that she is connected with the son of the village Squire. A novel of rural England before the Industrial Revolution. Filmed several times.
    • 4/5
      What a lovely book that I put off reading for far too long. Eliot weaves important themes through her tale of Silas and Eppie. We see human and earthly values put into perspective and we see humanity in its frailty and in its strength. It may have a bit of a saccharine element by twentieth century standards, but sometimes a little sugar is nice.
    • 4/5
      What a lovely, heartwarming tale. A really feelgood book. A definite must read again. 
    • 4/5
      Silas Marner is a strong and lovely little tale, with a blessed departure from all the tedious and repetitive society conversationsand obsessions which overruled the intriguing characters and stories of both MIDDLEMARCH and The Mill on the Floss.A happy ending was totally unexpected and welcome.

    Book preview

    Silas Marner - George Eliot

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