The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot

...hoped for books in which the less pretty, dark haired girl triumphed rather than the elfin blondes. The Mill on The Floss is the tale of the dark girl triumphant - for the man prefers her to her pretty blond cousin. It is also a tale of honour and courage in the face of social disapproval. Finally the fate of the heroine is not a happy one, but as a tragic heroine, maggie is certainly preferable to many of the 'dappy bints' occupying that niche.. ...
...the book deals with the heroine's early life - her adoration for her older brother, her parent's pretentions and errors. Her father's foolishness leads the family into abject poverty. We see snippets of other family members and local people - not as much detail as you get in Middlemarch, but certainly enough to provide richness. Quite sweet anecdotes, but also some shrewed points about education, and especially the education of girls who really weren't ...

Bryn_Pearson 03.05.2002 · Read full review
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Review of The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot

The mill on the floss falls into the category of realist fiction. Elliot creates a whole society (and quite a believable one at that), and although she really only focuses on a few of the characters, you get a sense of the history involved with the whole area. The story is mainly concerned with the Tullivers who live in the mill on the Floss. The family consist of Mr and Mrs Tulliver and the two children; Tom and Maggie. Tom is very good at practical ...
...and is not entitled to the same rights as Tom. Mr Tulliver (not a particularly well educated man) wants Tom to have all the advantages that he didn't have and so sends him off to school. This is like torture for poor Tom. Maggie, on the other hand is restrivcted in what she can do, limited by the roles that society will allow her. This story is amusing up to a certain point where a calamity befalls the family and their whole world is turned upside ...

Zoe.e 01.03.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot

...into real Victorian lives, follows the fate of the Tulliver family - the resident of the Mill on the River Floss. A lazily, long portrayal of childhood is rudely ended by swift, sharp changes, from whence point the story flows fast and with unrelenting fury. The first few pages of this book did not really grab me when I read it for the first time, in fact that's probably true of most of the book. It seemed somehow predictable, conventional which ...
...me away. I realised that the reason it had seemed familiar or predictable, was that it was literally perfect - every event that occurs makes tear-inducing, perfect sense. The characters are so eerily real, and Maggie in particular of course could be straight out of the 21st Century - which makes her confinement in her own era so maddening that the book is unforgettable, immense. An absolute must read, a treasure I cried with laughter, frustration, ...

missJoL 07.09.2005 · Read full review
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Review of The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot