My Life in Middlemarch

I found “My Life in Middlemarch“ to be an unusual blend of memoir and literature. Eliot’s “Middlemarch” is fondly remembered by Mead with a focus on how it impacted her at different times in her life as she reread it over the years. When she was a young girl aspiring to an elite English education coming from a working class background it represented hope for the future, a different way of being, and unknown adult world. As an unmarried woman searching for love it provided various ways of finding and creating a permanent home and family and then as a mature woman, married for years and with children of her own, it gave comfort that her struggles and joys were common to many of the women and men Eliot created. Mead also looks at Marian Evans’s (George Eliot’s) own unusual life, a life that in many ways was not representative of other Victorians yet through all the anti conventions Eliot was a consummate traditionalist as evidenced in both her books and her way of living. She became a wife to the estranged but still married George Lewes and mother to his children without the formal title of either. The richness of those experiences informed her writing.

For those stay away from memoirs because they can become too self indulgent you should know that Mead does not do this. Her exploration, while being personal, stays firmly on Eliot’s literature. There’s also a nice cultural blend in that Mead grew up in England but has lived most of her adult life in the U.S.

"Middlemarch" is one of my favorite books. If you haven't read it, yes, it is long. Yes, it has a lot of characters, but yes, yes it is well worth reading. George Eliot wrote of marriage and provincial English life. Pairs of characters make disastrous decisions and then have to deal with the outcome in their closed, parochial world. The author of "My Life" admires "Middlemarch" as much or even more than I do and she maps out her own personal journey from teenage years to maturity, weaving in the themes from "Middlemarch" (marriage, choice of mate, impulsive decisions, the conflict of maintaining "appearances" versus what's really lying in your heart of hearts.)

As author Mead rereads the book every few years, her perspective changes and grows. I admire this book because I also reread my favorites every year ("Jane Eyre", "Middlemarch", "Age of Innocence") and get new revelations. The author shows how important books are in shaping one's life AND shows the value and creativity of writing your reading life into your journal of your life. Worth reading as a novel way to document your personal growth. Recommended!

Rebecca Mead read George Eliot's Middlemarch at a young age. Ever since, she has been an admirer of the book and its author. My Life in Middlemarch is her tribute to Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) and a heartfelt "thank you" for all the joy and adventures that Middlemarch brought into her life. In a sense, the book is about Mead, Eliot, and the world of the fictional Middlemarch. In her journey through Eliot's life, Mead sees parallels between Eliot's life and her own. It is to some degree a biography (George Eliot) and an autobiography (Rebecca Mead).

I must confess that, although I enjoyed getting to know something of George Eliot by reading My Life in Middlemarch, I have never read it. Indeed, my only attempt at reading one of Eliot's novels was during my junior year in high school. I was seventeen, the same age as Rebecca Mead when she first read Middlemarch. Eliot's Silas Marner was mandatory reading in my Junior English class. I do not remember if I actually finished reading Silas Marner. I suspect that I abandoned the book in favor of the Classic Comic Book version.

I enjoy reading books about authors more than the novels they write. Such biographies are especially good reading when written, as is My Life in Middlemarch, by one who admires, or even adores, her subject. That is why I chose to read this book, and I conclude that it was a good choice.

From the moment New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead first read George Eliot she found striking parallels in their lives. Mead has fashioned a memoir around the inspiration and insights offered in what is considered to be Eliot’s finest work, Middlemarch, famously described by Virginia Wool as “one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.” Mead’s memoir is earnest and without irony, which is its biggest surprise. The author considers George Eliot herself and Dorothea Brooke, Middlemarch’s female protagonist, to be enduring role models and cautionary tales worth taking to heart by young women born in ho-hum places and in ho-hum circumstances. How does a girl escape her fate and make lofty intellectual dreams come true? Eliot asked this question in 1874 and we're still asking it now.

This book will have special appeal for English majors who read Middlemarch way back when, but it will also inspire readers to re-read the book or read it for the first time.

Just as during the last five years we have seen many novels imagined around the lives of figures in the art and literary world--Loving Frank, The Paris Wife, et al—I wonder of Mead’s book will be the first among other memoirs built around favorite fictional works and authors. It’s an interesting thought.

It's been years since I read _Middlemarch_, but as a literature major who is now an English professor, I was so excited to read this book since I love books that speak to our love of other books -- and this one doesn't disappoint.

_My Life in Middlemarch_ is a mix of a biography of George Eliot, a memoir about Rebecca Mead's own life, and a contemplation about aging and about life in general. Mead weaves Eliot's story into her own, and the result is a compelling tale that I found hard to put down.

Since it had been many years since I had read __MM_, I wish I had re-read it before reading this, and you might feel the same. If you're not familiar with _MM_ at all, definitely read it before reading this; you'd be able to glean many of Mead's insights about _MM_ and about Eliot from this book if you haven't, but reading _MM_ will enrich your experience and allow you to enter more fully Eliot's world as Mead presents it.

This story of a New Yorker writer's relationship with Middlemarch, some say the greatest British novel ever written, was a treat. It was fun to follow Mead's lifetime journey through the novel and to discover her reinterpretations of the characters within the novel. Mead's trips through the locations that George Elliott frequented were illuminating and they also helped me understand the neighborhoods in London and its surrounds. I felt sad when she described the house that Elliott grew up as filled with garish kitsch and billiard tables--a more appropriate shrine to Elliott would be my preference. The parts I loved best were usually about Elliott's contemporaries such as Spencer, whom she dated, but he rebuffed her affections. Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen were among the writers with whom she corresponded. I wonder if it will take another 150 years to develop a reverence for today's writers--who will survive that test of time?

I thoroughly enjoyed My Life in Middlemarch, which I listened to as an audio book immediately after finishing the audio book Middlemarch. I was expecting a memoir, which it was to some extent. But to a greater extent, it was a biography of George Eliot. It told the story of Eliot’s life as it related her writing and to Middlemarch. It greatly enhanced my understanding of both Eliot and Middlemarch. I’d highly recommend My Life in Middlemarch as a companion to the reading of and/or listening to Middlemarch.

I also found a graduate paper titled: Louisa May Alcott and George Eliot on Class, Gender and Marriage written by Elizabeth Michelle Meyers in December 2010. I’m going to read it, because I think it will be an interesting read and may help me better understand the works of both authors.

Quoting George Eliot, "Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love."
Rebecca Meade has the kind of beauty that most of us would like to have. I am glad she moved to the U.S. and became a journalist.
My English teacher was my mentor. I grew up in a town that had no colleges, no theaters and no museums. I also have a passion for great works of literature.
It is not easy opening up the soul and heart and pouring it out for all to see.
Rebecca Mead is an ardent student of literature and extremely adapt at bringing us into a literary place that won’t let us down.
It is just possible, we might learn how to absorb the smell of books and become an exuberant reader of books and life.
In the meantime, we can learn the meaning of our own lives.

Jeannie Walker (Award-Winning Author) "Fighting the Devil" - A True Story of Consuming Passion, Deadly Poison, and Murder

I had never read Middlemarch prior to reading this book, nor Mill on the Floss. I was intrigued by it more because it was the memoir of a woman - a writer - whose life had been profoundly affected by a single book, in her case Middlemarch. (My own life has been effected by several books - some non-fiction, some fiction.)

By the time I was a third of the way through I was ready to check out Middlemarch from the library and read it simultaneously with this book.

Rebecca Mead is a professional writer and this is quite evident in this book. She writes well and enlighteningly about George Eliot, as well as such other authors as Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf.

It doesn't matter if you've read Middlemarch or not - if you want to learn about the power of writing in one's life, you'll want to read this book. (And by the end you'll be ready to read George Eliot's work.

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead is a wonderful cross between a memoir and a book about books. (Is there a genre for that? There should be.) Ms. Mead read and re-read Middlemarch by George Eliot many times over the course of her life. Within the pages of that remarkable novel, she identified many of her own struggles as well as those of Eliot. I enjoyed this book because I get a thrill out of hearing other people's interpretations of novels with which I am familiar. There is a camaraderie amidst book lovers that even crosses over between author and reader. In this case, Ms. Mead treats the reader as a friend sitting across the table, discussing a favorite book over coffee. I recommend this book to any book lover, especially one that has read Middlemarch. I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Mead's book is part biography, part autobiography, part bibliography, but adds up to a discussion of the power of art and how favourite works can mean different things to us at different stages in our lives. It's also provides good reflections into the characteristics that made Eliot so complete a writer - her courage, humanity, intelligence. Mead revisits many of the places where Eliot lived and worked and there's a lot of focus on her personal relationships, especially with George Henry Lewes - one of the most touching parts of the book.

The main idea (that books can mean different things at different stages in life) might seem like a simple point but Mead does a good job of considering how this happens: through a reader's identification with an author and her characters, the things that happen to her, and the stories she chooses to tell. I was sceptical at first but Mead gets stronger as the book goes on and she won me over completely by the finale. It is likely that most readers who have a similar passion for Middlemarch, or any other favourite novels will recognise what Mead is talking about and enjoy this book.

Sometimes it is a little repetitive, and Mead's formula - of describing an episode in her life which is a bit like an episode in Eliot's life, or one of her characters's lives - occasionally feels a bit laboured. Also sometimes Eliot's power seems to be over-intellectualised and the philosophical moments are discussed at the expense of the straightforward emotional response Eliot was drawing from her drama and characters

I read and loved Middlemarch first as a 32 year old man (I've since read all other GE novels), so it is maybe not such a surprise that my response was quite different to Mead's. The many different opportunities Eliot creates for individual responses to her story is though one of Mead's main points in the book. Overall this will be a worthwhile read for anyone who loves Middlemarch, or who just loves art. A really worthwhile book.

I read Middlemarch a long time ago - long enough that the idea of a woman named George was faintly amusing.

This book took me back, and far enough that I was able to recall the novel, appreciate the story and how it is truly a story of modernity - of classical and romantic notions confronting the changes in privacy, in work, in notions of career and virtue and love that came with the modern industrial era. I had to order another copy of Middlemarch and I am glad I did; it is rare that the reading of one good book can enhance another.

Reading itself is a quiet pleasure that itself is on the wane these days - I wonder what Eliot would have made of this book and the place I'm posting its review.

Finishing Middlemarch, I wanted to reread it. How could an author have such insight into human character? Other things got in the way, then I saw this book and thought it would be interesting. It's written with a light touch, as the author explores George Eloit's life and the deeper meanings of the novel. Among its charms are the excerpts from Middlemarch and descriptions of the places Eliot lived.

Rebecca Mead has created a narrative that deals with literature as it defines us through our encounters of lives lived on the page. The book she identifies with is Middlemarch, and she walks us through the ways she experienced it at different stages of her life. Through her scholarship she shares what she has come to know of and feel about its author and George Elliot's world.
It achieves its purpose in portraying the development of the moral self through developing an ability to see the many facets of a character's personality, which Eliot developed to impart an ability to feel empathy, not pity, not judgement, but the complicated reality of each character. The narrative allows us to think upon that development of moral character and the small ways it makes our lives more noble.

I admit -- the answer to that question is probably not. Rebecca Mead does a perfectly respectable job blending the chronicle of George Eliot's life and her creation of her masterpiece, "Middlemarch", with her own appreciation of that novel.

But -- and for me, it was an increasingly large "but" as I read further and further into this literary memoir/tribute -- with every chapter, this became more about Mead's own personal interactions with Eliot's work, to the extent that I grew irritable. This is a tricky line to walk, whenever someone tries to build a memoir around their reading life, whether they're tackling an author, a genre, a specific work or simply a list of Great Books (a la David Denby). And perhaps what appeals to a reader of such memoirs is highly subjective.

Mead acknowledges that her Middlemarch isn't going to be anyone else's Middlemarch: "it is not even the same as my "Middlemarch" of twenty-five years ago." That said, while I acknowledge the elegance of her prose and the erudition of her insights into a novel and an author whom she has approached on every possible level over the course of decades, Middlemarch a la Mead simply didn't resonate with me. Perhaps it's due to the fact that while we have shared some life experiences, others have diverged too much for me to relate? I could theorize indefinitely, but the broader point is that not only could I not approach the book with the same degree of empathy, but I found less empathy with Mead as a reader as the pages progressed.

Indeed, at times I found myself annoyed the occasionally doctrinaire tone she adopts. "Most serious readers," she declaims, "can point to one book that has a place in their life like the one that Middlemarch has in mine." Moreover, she goes on to say, portentously, knowing what that book is helps her know her friends better. Wow. So those of us whose tastes shift as we evolve; who have moved on from Hardy to Wharton, Woolf and arrived at Henry James late in life, are a kind of second-class literary citizen? Like those who can point to half a dozen different works that have played different roles in their lives? That may not be what Mead means, but that's the impression I received, even after coming back to this segment six weeks after first reading the book. Nor is that the only occasion on which I felt Mead was disdainful of the "naive reader". Meanwhile, some of her other insights teeter on the verge of the banal -- weddings as beginnings, rather than culminations, in Middlemarch.

None of this is a reason not to pick up this elegantly-written, thoughtful and deeply personal novel. It's simply an explanation of why, when I had been looking forward so much to reading a book about a novel I love by a journalist whose writing I admire, I found myself feeling disappointed. Mead takes both her subject and herself seriously -- which is fine -- but shows it too much, which weighs on the narrative too much for me.

Definitely recommended for anyone reading Eliot, or who is more passionate about memoir as a genre than I am. But while Middlemarch may be a Great Book, this personal overview didn't measure up, at least for me.

For readers of Middlemarch this is a good memoir that follows the writer's rediscovery of Elliot. Mead provides the background of what was going on while Elliot was penning the story.
Mead states that some books read you as much as you read them. I guess she means to say that some books are worth reading over and over again as your life unfolds. For me, I felt I may have missed what was going on when I gave that book report in school covering this book. It seems there was more beneath the surface that I wasn't seeing.
It makes a person appreciate this contribution to literature..

Mead begins the book with a return to her own childhood when she yearned to get away from her English village. From this beginning, I expected an autobiography, but that's not what's written here. Instead, Mead writes of her deep attachment to the novel. She doesn't analyze it so much as experience it. She introduces us to the author, not with stiff biography but with an informal description, so we see Eliot more as she would appear to her own contemporaries.

The book seems to have two themes. First, Mead undertakes a journey to learn about George Eliot. She visits original documents in dusty libraries. She travels to places where Eliot lived. She writes not as a historian but as a reporter and admirer.

A second theme is the return to places of childhood and seeing them through adult eyes. Mead returns to the Middlemarch novel as an adult, observing that she had ignored certain characters. She also sees themes she hadn't noticed earlier and she finds parallels between Middlemarch and her own life. Along the way she revisits some of her own early experiences, such as working as a magazine fact-checker, realizing these experiences had more value than she realized at the time.

I haven't read Middlemarch but now I want to! I would have liked to learn a little more about Mead's life, as we get only some tempting glimpses. We learn she married at thirty-nine, she had a successful career in journalism, and she joined the working world when women were given legal but not social equality. That's a close paraphrase: Mead writes beautifully, with some very nice phrases throughout the book.

Perfect timing. This book arrived in the mail from the publisher only days after I finished Middlemarch. It’s a book of reflections upon Middlemarch. Mead takes a deep look at Middlemarch, examining letters of author George Eliot, visiting spots from Eliot’s life, and thinking about the relationship between the lives of Middlemarch characters and the life of Eliot and Mead’s own life.

This book added so much to my experience of reading Middlemarch. Thoughtful and erudite.

In Rebecca Mead's well rendered extended essay MY LIFE IN MIDDLEMARCH she not only pays homage to one of the great novels of Victorian literature but illustrates how this book has helped her view her own life. Mead's book is best appreciated by those who are familiar with and already have an admiration for MIDDLEMARCH and other examples of classic literature. This summer one of my planned self-improvement projects is to revisit MIDDLEMARCH for the first time in many years (and first time as a mature adult) with Rebecca Mead's work as my guide and inspiration.

I greatly enjoyed this book. I agree with other reviews that this is very much a biography of George Eliot. But it is also more than that. It is a biography written by someone who has genuine esteem for her subject. George Eliot is far and away my favorite author. I could easily relate to Miss Mead's emotions as she relates them in this book. I have studied the life of George Eliot, and I found Miss Mead's work is well researched and highly accurate as it relates to the life of George Eliot.

Although I have been a Dickens fan since I read David Copperfield in high school, my interest in fiction has been varied and sporadic over the succeeding 50 years. Many of those years saw my reading interests diverted to quicker reads, mostly non-fiction, from magazines, including The New Yorker. As our children headed off to college and time started to free up I returned to fiction, gradually at first, and eventually with a vengeance, focusing mostly on classics, especially English fiction of the 19th century. About ten years ago I read Middlemarch. I am not a fast reader, nor do I have a brilliant mind. I am a persistent reader, willing to stop and reread a sentence when necessary, willing to look up the occasional word if necessary. I found myself rereading a lot of sentences in Middlemarch. I probably looked up many words. Middlemarch was worth the effort. Upon completion I immediately decided this was the best book written in the English language I had ever read. When it comes to non-fiction I find myself gravitating to books about books and authors, and this is why I read Ms. Mead's book. A wonderful trip down the Middlemarch memory lane, a wonderful look at the life of another book lover and why we readers love books so much, a good introduction to the life of George Eliot, and, finally, a wonderful inspiration to reread a great novel.

I've never read Middlemarch, and I'm not sure I've read any other books by George Eliot, but something about the description of this book caught my eye, and I'm glad it did. Rebecca Mead is a gifted writer, and her veneration of Middlemarch and its author led her to explore Eliot's life, and to tie it to the characters she brought to life in Middlemarch. Now I must read Middlemarch itself.

Almost twenty years ago, I read a book by David Denby (most famous then for being the film reviewer of "New York" magazine. Denby decided to pick up some of the books that he read in his youth, with the idea that some great works speak in a different way to a person in his 30s-40s than a lad of 17. I enjoyed it, and I occasionally do a similar reassessment of works I read decades ago, mostly histories (in addition to my intellect changing, often what is considered common knowledge in 1970 is different today).

Mead's "My Life in Middlemarch" has a similar approach-someone re-reading a novel read decades before. It didn't speak to me, though, possibly because the approach of just one book is so narrow.

If you read George Eliot's "Middlemarch," you should read this. But even if you haven't, and if you are just a fan of good writing, then you should still read this book. "My Life in Middlemarch" is a beautiful account of the author's personal experiences with Eliot's novel. It adds such an interesting new dimension to the story. I want to read "Middlemarch" again after reading this book!

As an English major, a lover of Victorian literature and someone who adored Middlemarch, I had high expectations for this book. Too often I am disappointed by memoir/literature books because they end up being 90% memoir and 10% literature conversation, so I steeled myself for Mead's life with Middlemarch sprinkled in, but what I got was far, far superior. Mead is a marvelous writer, so she could have gotten away with writing just about anything and I would have enjoyed it. But she chose to write something incredibly fascinating as well.

My Life in Middlemarch is all about George Eliot, Middlemarch and a little bit of Mead's experiences thrown in for context. It's excellent. It is what every memoir/lit should be. Not only does it add insight into Middlemarch and into literature itself, but it is just a downright great read even if you haven't read Middlemarch. And if you have, this book will make you want to pull out your old copy and spend a few weeks easing through it. Well done.

if you have ever savored a novel long after reading the last page you can appreciate this book. If you have a love of history or a love of biography or feel deeply about the books you read this is a great book to have. Part literary appreciation (of Middlemarch), Part memoir (of Rebecca Mead), part biography (of George Eliot). I snapped this up after reading the terrific review in the New York Times and becuase books have been such an important part of my family life that I thought it would be fun to read a book that focuses on the love of reading and the impact a single novel can have on one person. You don't need to have read George Eliot's 1874 epic novel 'Middlemarch',

Though I thought the title would lend to more explanation of how the novel formed the author's perspective, I found the reading to be mostly enjoyable. Note that it is more of an exploration of George Eliot's life and reflection as it relates to Middlemarch. George Eliot is a favorite author, so I found Ms. Meade's perspective to be an interesting consideration. All in all, I found this to be an excellent companion piece to the novel.

Generally, I don't care for books about books and the author's modern predicaments didn't quite meet my expectations.
The redeeming part of the book was the ample research she did on George Eliot. But I didn't like Ms. Mead to compare
herself to George Eliot. However, I'll admit that it inspired me to re-read Middlemarch!

Even if it's been years since you've read Middlemarch, and even if (like me) you don't remember it as well as you wish you did, this book is a great read. I love the way the author layers Eliot's compassion and gratitude with her own. It's just a beautiful and contemplative way to look at life, especially life and love in middle age.

I enjoyed this book. I learned much about George Eliot and about Victorian Times. I did think that parts were overly wordy and that Mead continued to write long after she had made her point, but this is a wonderful book nonetheless.

As the book is titled My Life in Middlemarch, I expected Rebecca Mead to include far more about her own life. The book instead focuses primarily on Mary Ann Evans who wrote Middlemarch under the name George Eliot. There's much here about parallels between the works of Eliot and the author's life which may have inspired the novels. Although it's an interesting and well-researched biography, I hoped to read more of Mead.

Mead's book is the story of how she has responded to George Eliot's masterpiece over several stages of her life and also an exploration of Eliot and how she came to write the novel. Mead tracks down the places where Eliot lived and wrote (inasmuch as they still exist in some cases) and reads the original manuscripts and notebooks to get a more clear picture of the writer and the woman. The writing is eloquent, assured, and often moving.

I fought about halfway through and then gave up and skimmed the rest. Even skimming it was hard going. I am not sure if it was the style of writing or what, but I could not engage with the book. The author loved "Middlemarch" by George Eliot all her life. As she moves through her life she read and re-read the book (which is a great book, by the way). The main thrust of this book is how a great novel can shape and re-shape our lives. By combining her life and the novel she explores the reasons we read books and how they affect us. It's a good premise, and at a different time in my life I will try this book again. But for now, I have to say, I slogged through, but didn't find much joy. Unless you share her love and fascination with the Eliot novel, I wouldn't recommend this book. Sorry.

Mead shares her life and her reading with the reader. She is an extremely intelligent, sympathetic, and generous reader--exactly the person that George Eliot hoped would result from reading "Middlemarch". My wife and I are re-reading "Middlemarch" and continually discussing it. After reading Mead's wonderful book, it feels as though a third party has joined our discussion.

I heard the author Rebecca Mead interviewed on The Leonard Lopate Show WNYC and decided to buy her book.

George Eliot is a masterful writer, and her famous novel Middlemarch has exquisite detail. Yet with Rebecca's insights into the book's characters and George Eliot herself, as well as her traveling to the geographic sights of England and the USA related to the book, it imprinted itself in my mind even more. I highly recommend this book to those who want insight into great authors and their novels.

I really wanted to like this book. I am a Middlemarch fan and reviews of this book said you need not read it but I have to disagree. If you haven't read or liked Middlemarch, reading My Life in Middlemarch will leave you in a muddle. It's an extreme paean to the book. I honestly don't know what the hype is all about. Again, good writing, but really a scholarly work best left to those literary types who love a good dissection of an author's life and what led them to write their magnum opus.

Having not read Middlemarch, I delved into this work of biography, reporting and memoir to perhaps gain a special insight, understanding and appreciation.

Believe I was at a distinct disadvantage in my assessment without reading George Eliot's original work. However, it was not cited as a prerequisite.

For a time, I had immersed myself in period English literature and was transported to that era, the mores, and eloquent writing by so many greats.

Rebecca Mead's research and comparative life present an interesting read, but for this reader, it was a difficult read.

First off, I've never read Middlemarch. So I read this with no context, however, it's my opinion that author took an essay she wrote in college, and turned it into a book. She did a nice job on her research, and is more courageous than I when it comes to taking a chance on publishing a book, but honestly. Why would anyone read a story about how another story effected the author? Like I said, just an expanded college essay, that I'd give a D.

Yet another book that promises one thung but delivers another. The book does not live up to its title. There is very, very little "my life" in this book. It is basically a biography if the novel, its characters, and Eliot herself, with a good amount if regurgitating of the plot. I can go straight to Middlemarch itself, thank you, which does a much better job!. Does not deliver on its title. I quit after about 75 pages, but skimmed to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I wasn't.