There is probably no scene better than when, having taken on some parenting advice, he puts her in a coal hole for a few seconds as punishment (something probably frowned upon by most people today) and she thinks it’s utterly delightful. This part is undoubtedly the highlight of the book, as we finally get two characters of equal verve in a delightfully sweet interplay. Silas then takes her into his home and raises her as if she were his own daughter. After her mother dies, a young toddler finds her way to Silas’ home and makes her home in front of the fire.
It is not until we have the arrival of Eppie that the book sparks back to life again. For though it is a short book, the hump in the middle makes it seem unduly long. It was no wonder that those who were made to read it between the ages of 13 & 16 found it tough-going. So when, in the middle third of the book, Silas Marner largely drops out of the picture as we get embroiled in what seems like a side plot, my interest began to dwindle greatly. The trouble that I found with the book is that the title character is so brilliantly written that all the other characters are muted by comparison. Effectively driven from his home he made his living in a new place, yet as a consequence of the hurt he suffered he now lives alone, almost as a hermit. We get a short backstory telling of how, as a youthful man, he loved, was engaged, was tricked and who lost all that was important to him. Our title character is introduced to us as a man who has been wronged. It has to be noted that this is a very short book indeed, I am led to understand that it is the shortest of George Eliot’s works.
She was recommended to me on the back of my fondness for Thomas Hardy as I was told by several people, “”.
I could name a few of her books in a pub quiz, but beyond that, I must confess my ignorance. I was not particularly interested in at the time and George Eliot has been just a name of an author that I was aware of, but I have not had any great yearning to read her works. I vaguely recall a tv adaptation I saw of this when I was a child, sometime in the late 80s or early 90s.
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