I've just finished Middlemarch, purchased at a yardsale and sitting unread on my shelf for a few years, because it seemed too daunting an undertaking for an exhausted mother of an overactive toddler, and my reading list has thus far largely been a collection of Space Opera and Dystopia peppered with the occasional deviation from those genres.
Once I started though, I could hardly put it down to feed myself. 50 odd pages in, I was convinced it would become one of my all-time favorites.
Now that I've finished it though, I'm at a loss. I hardly believed anything could leave as lasting an impression on my soul as it did. The prose was spectacular and honestly put most of what I've read before it to shame (but that might be because of lack of experience with literature of this sort)
I'm still struck by the vivid picture Elliot painted of provincial life in the Victorian era, and the way I was made to care so deeply about even the most morally conflicted character by the author's careful handling of their innermost passions, fears, and motivations.
I'm not ready to default back to sci-fi just yet. I want more of…this. Does anyone have suggestions for something that would fill this crater of a hole inside my heart? Something that evokes the same type of feeling, maybe the next work by George Elliot I should get my hands on, or a comparable work by another author?
by UrsulaKLeGoddaaamn