Adam Bede (Penguin Classics)
by George Eliot
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Book Summary Information
Author: George EliotBrand: Penguin Group USA
Editor: Margaret Reynolds
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-06-24
ISBN: 0140436642
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Penguin Books
Book Reviews of Adam Bede (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: Adam Bede is the classic tale of child murder & bucolic romance in early nineteenth century England
Summary: 5 Stars
"George Eliot" is the masculine pen name of the brilliant English classic novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). Evans grew up in Warwickshire and knew rural England like the back of her hand. It was with this background allied with her literary genius that persuaded her in 1859 to write her first full length novel "Adam Bede. She did so at the urging of her longtime lover George Henry Lewes. After a career penning short stories, literary reviews and translation she was ready to begin one of the greatest careers in all of English fiction. Eliot produced such masterpieces as "Silas Marner"; "The Mill on the Floss"; "Daniel Deronda"; "Romola" and her lengthy masterpiece "Middlemarch"
Adam Bede occurs in the time of the Napoleonic wars. Adam Bede and his brother Seth are carpenters living in the small village of Hayslope. Their mother is the cranky but good Lisbeth. The novel begins as a young female Methodist preacher the fetching Diane Morris is preaching in the village square. Seth is in love with her but his dreams of matrimony will not be fulfilled. Adam is smitten with the seventeen year old featherhead but lovely Hetty Sorrel. Hetty is an orphan who lives with her relatives the Poyser family at the Hall farm. Hetty will be seduced by the rich but weak willed Arthur Donnithorne. He will abandon her; she will kill her baby and plans on being married to Adam. Hetty is tried for murder but at the last minute is saved by a reprieve won for her by the repentant Arthur. Diane and Adam marry. Order and tranquility are restored to Hayslope but Eliot and her readers of 1860 knew that the rural life of sixty years before would soon yield to the encroachments of industrialism.
Adam Bede is a leisurely novel with a slow pace. We see the seasons unfold in all their English glory; met the Poysers and the garrulous Mrs. Poyser and her passel of children. We attend drinking and harvest parties and catch up on the gossip with the "rude mechanicals" of the town who share their folk wisdom and foolishness with the reader. Much of the book is written in a dialect but this is understandable and not an obstacle in perusing Adam Bede's many pages.
Although an agnostic, Eliot displays a deep knowledge of the Christian Bible and teaches us about the early Methodist movement in these pages. Many of the characters such as Adam, Seth and other characters have biblical names.
Hetty Sorrel reminds this reviewer of the character of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" of 1850. Unlike Hester, however, we see little moral growth in the soul of Hetty. Eliot had an understanding for those under a moral black cloud due to her unorthodox relationship with Lewes. Her style probes psychological corners of the human soul. Eliot wrote for literate adults producing a work of beauty, wisdom and love. She is the brighest of Victorian novelists and one of the best. I have read this book several times and list it as one of my all time favorites. Essential!
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