Friday reads

It's the first week of february and I'm still reading Middlemarch. I was definitely nervous about tackling a book of this size, but for the first few days it was going well. Unfortunately I lost momentum about half way through. I liked Dorothea immediately, despite her obvious flaws, and looked forward to seeing her develop over the course of the novel. Some of the subplots were less interesting, particularly the political/ historical parts. I see that Eliot is deliberately showing different types of marriages (and relationships in general), I just wish she had dedicated more time to the Dorothea storyline. I'm now about 100 pages from the end so you can expect an 'I finished Middlemarch!' post soon.

I haven't read much else while I've been focused on Middlemarch, but, to my surprise, I finished Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage. Sometimes I think Munro is something you have to be in the mood for, so I've been reading stories sporadically. Like Middlemarch, Hateship is very much about marriage but also about growing old. Many of the stories have a Munro-like quality of stretching over long periods of time, so that often older people are reflecting on their youth. That in itself is a really interesting relationship (aside from the obviously very interesting relationships between people she explores). My next (and third) Munro will be Runaway, which I bought last month.