Adam Bede, by George Eliot
Title: Adam Bede
Author: George Eliot
Published: 2002 by Modern Library
Originally Published: 1859
Pages: 624
Summary from Goodreads:
"Carpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival in the local squire's son, Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur's seductive charm and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam, but many others, not least, pious Methodist Preacher Dinah Morris.
"A tale of seduction, betrayal, love, and deception, the plot of Adam Bede has the quality of an English folk song. Within the setting of Hayslope, a small, rural community, George Eliot brilliantly creates a sense of earthy reality, making the landscape as vital a presence in the novel as that of the characters themselves.
"Eliot probes deeply into the psychology of commonplace people caught in the act of uncommon heroics. Alexandre Dumas called this novel 'the masterpiece of the century.'"
Ok, so, Adam Bede. Not the longest or most laborious Victorian novel I've ever read, but it was close. My struggle mainly came from the great amount of minutia being described at all times. Also, when someone came into a room expecting to see someone, they would greet everyone, drink a few drinks, sing a few songs, engage in some lively conversation and THEN ask where said person was hiding. *headdesk headdesk headdesk* Right, moving on. That said, it was a fairly enjoyable book. The story is set in 1799. Adam Bede is a carpenter with a loyal younger brother, a drunk for a father (who dies early in the book) and possibly THE most annoying mother I've ever come across in literature. Most of the time she was just whining and complaining about every single thing that happened to her and "it would be better if I were dead and in the ground" and "you have to be here for me in my declining years" and on like that every single time she appeared. Soon we established not a love triangle but a love pentagram of sorts. Adam is in love with Hetty. Hetty is in love with Arthur. Seth is in love with Dinah. And when Adam and Dinah first meet, it's pretty much obvious to the audience but not to themselves that they just need to get together.
I'm going to try and give the gist from here on out.
So, Dinah is a Methodist preacher who believes she can't marry and leaves the town early in the books. So, for now, she's out.
Adam is in love with Hetty and wants to marry her. Hetty finds that she is far more attracted to Arthur and has secret meetings with him and wants to marry him. After the last secret meeting they have, Adam spots Hetty and Arthur kissing under a tree. Hetty walks away and Arthur tries to pass it all off (not knowing that Adam was in fact in love with Hetty because if there's one thing Adam doesn't do, it's talk about his feelings to anyone). Adam gets angry and they have angry words and they fight and Adam nearly kills Arthur. But Arthur is all right and Adam patches Arthur up and has him write a letter to Hetty ending their affair, which he does. Hetty, as you can guess, is distraught. But she settles on marrying Adam.
But then... Uh oh! Hetty as it turns out is pregnant by Arthur (because that's the annoying thing with Victorian novels, you kiss someone and you get pregnant). Also, I had to sit there for a minute and remember that "her condition" and other such expressions were their way of whispering "knocked up!" So she goes to find Arthur. She travels for three or five days to go find Arthur and upon getting there discovers that he is gone to Ireland to fight. (This is the point at which email and phone calls and even telegrams seem like the greatest inventions on earth.) She mills about a couple of days trying to think of what to do and then tries to go see Dinah (who we later find out was also gone from her house when Hetty went to see her. Seriously, email, greatest thing on earth).
At this point we go back to Adam Bede's point of view who is waiting for Hetty to get back from her trip to see Dinah. And when they don't see her for two weeks he goes to Dinah's house to get her, only to find that Hetty hasn't been there this whole time. So he goes back, informs a couple of people and thinks she may have gone to Ireland and been led away by Arthur again. But then gets word that she is in prison for killing her child. Yeah, you heard me right.
So, there's a trial and there is evidence and witnesses and other such things but Hetty won't talk or say why or who or anything. And she's found guilty and will be hung in a couple of days. That's when Dinah comes into the story again. She goes to the prison and stays with Hetty through the next few days and gets her to confess about the child. As it turns out, she abandoned the child on a road thinking someone would hear it and take care of it. But the poor baby died due to exposure to the elements.
Meanwhile, Arthur gets back from Ireland because his grandfather has died and he is now the lord of the land. One of the letters he gets in his room is a letter about Hetty. He dashes out of the house and onto his horse and speeds away.
Morning the execution, they are taking Hetty to the gallows when here comes Arthur as a perfect Deus ex Machina on a horse with orders in his hand that she not be hanged but "transported" (which I found out means "imprisoned at a penal colony"... don't ask me how they got "transported" out of that, I don't know).
The remaining chapters detail (in great detail) how the characters deal and live on with their lives after this. Mostly as you'd expect: Arthur goes to war and stays away to keep bad favor from falling on Hetty's family, Adam is still a carpenter, Adam and Dinah finally set their beady little eyes on each other and after somem faltering finally get together. And the epilogue is several years later where we find Adam and Dinah married with two children, Seth hanging around a bunch as a devoted uncle, Arthur in very poor health and Hetty dead. Yep, dead. But not in the penal colony. She died on the way back although no one really says how.
So, a book that has to be read? I don't know. This was her very first book. It was based on a story that George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) got from her aunt Elizabeth Evans who had been a Methodist preacher and was the basis for Dinah. Her aunt had spent much time in a jail cell with a girl accused of killing her child and finally confessed to her. Obviously the story she got from her aunt was just a very small part of the book since only about three or four chapters are dedicated to it. She showed rural life and the way they acted and thought then very well. I think the writing is fantastic (even though incredibly detailed). And the story line, while muddled, fairly easy to follow. A few characters just about annoyed me to death, but Adam, Seth and Dinah I liked very much. Even Arthur with all that he did was quite likable. Overall, I'd give it to a person who is a nut about Victorian literature or one of my old English teachers. But I think anyone might find this torture! :-P
Author: George Eliot
Published: 2002 by Modern Library
Originally Published: 1859
Pages: 624
Summary from Goodreads:
"Carpenter Adam Bede is in love with the beautiful Hetty Sorrel, but unknown to him, he has a rival in the local squire's son, Arthur Donnithorne. Hetty is soon attracted by Arthur's seductive charm and they begin to meet in secret. The relationship is to have tragic consequences that reach far beyond the couple themselves, touching not just Adam, but many others, not least, pious Methodist Preacher Dinah Morris.
"A tale of seduction, betrayal, love, and deception, the plot of Adam Bede has the quality of an English folk song. Within the setting of Hayslope, a small, rural community, George Eliot brilliantly creates a sense of earthy reality, making the landscape as vital a presence in the novel as that of the characters themselves.
"Eliot probes deeply into the psychology of commonplace people caught in the act of uncommon heroics. Alexandre Dumas called this novel 'the masterpiece of the century.'"
Ok, so, Adam Bede. Not the longest or most laborious Victorian novel I've ever read, but it was close. My struggle mainly came from the great amount of minutia being described at all times. Also, when someone came into a room expecting to see someone, they would greet everyone, drink a few drinks, sing a few songs, engage in some lively conversation and THEN ask where said person was hiding. *headdesk headdesk headdesk* Right, moving on. That said, it was a fairly enjoyable book. The story is set in 1799. Adam Bede is a carpenter with a loyal younger brother, a drunk for a father (who dies early in the book) and possibly THE most annoying mother I've ever come across in literature. Most of the time she was just whining and complaining about every single thing that happened to her and "it would be better if I were dead and in the ground" and "you have to be here for me in my declining years" and on like that every single time she appeared. Soon we established not a love triangle but a love pentagram of sorts. Adam is in love with Hetty. Hetty is in love with Arthur. Seth is in love with Dinah. And when Adam and Dinah first meet, it's pretty much obvious to the audience but not to themselves that they just need to get together.
I'm going to try and give the gist from here on out.
So, Dinah is a Methodist preacher who believes she can't marry and leaves the town early in the books. So, for now, she's out.
Adam is in love with Hetty and wants to marry her. Hetty finds that she is far more attracted to Arthur and has secret meetings with him and wants to marry him. After the last secret meeting they have, Adam spots Hetty and Arthur kissing under a tree. Hetty walks away and Arthur tries to pass it all off (not knowing that Adam was in fact in love with Hetty because if there's one thing Adam doesn't do, it's talk about his feelings to anyone). Adam gets angry and they have angry words and they fight and Adam nearly kills Arthur. But Arthur is all right and Adam patches Arthur up and has him write a letter to Hetty ending their affair, which he does. Hetty, as you can guess, is distraught. But she settles on marrying Adam.
But then... Uh oh! Hetty as it turns out is pregnant by Arthur (because that's the annoying thing with Victorian novels, you kiss someone and you get pregnant). Also, I had to sit there for a minute and remember that "her condition" and other such expressions were their way of whispering "knocked up!" So she goes to find Arthur. She travels for three or five days to go find Arthur and upon getting there discovers that he is gone to Ireland to fight. (This is the point at which email and phone calls and even telegrams seem like the greatest inventions on earth.) She mills about a couple of days trying to think of what to do and then tries to go see Dinah (who we later find out was also gone from her house when Hetty went to see her. Seriously, email, greatest thing on earth).
At this point we go back to Adam Bede's point of view who is waiting for Hetty to get back from her trip to see Dinah. And when they don't see her for two weeks he goes to Dinah's house to get her, only to find that Hetty hasn't been there this whole time. So he goes back, informs a couple of people and thinks she may have gone to Ireland and been led away by Arthur again. But then gets word that she is in prison for killing her child. Yeah, you heard me right.
So, there's a trial and there is evidence and witnesses and other such things but Hetty won't talk or say why or who or anything. And she's found guilty and will be hung in a couple of days. That's when Dinah comes into the story again. She goes to the prison and stays with Hetty through the next few days and gets her to confess about the child. As it turns out, she abandoned the child on a road thinking someone would hear it and take care of it. But the poor baby died due to exposure to the elements.
Meanwhile, Arthur gets back from Ireland because his grandfather has died and he is now the lord of the land. One of the letters he gets in his room is a letter about Hetty. He dashes out of the house and onto his horse and speeds away.
Morning the execution, they are taking Hetty to the gallows when here comes Arthur as a perfect Deus ex Machina on a horse with orders in his hand that she not be hanged but "transported" (which I found out means "imprisoned at a penal colony"... don't ask me how they got "transported" out of that, I don't know).
The remaining chapters detail (in great detail) how the characters deal and live on with their lives after this. Mostly as you'd expect: Arthur goes to war and stays away to keep bad favor from falling on Hetty's family, Adam is still a carpenter, Adam and Dinah finally set their beady little eyes on each other and after somem faltering finally get together. And the epilogue is several years later where we find Adam and Dinah married with two children, Seth hanging around a bunch as a devoted uncle, Arthur in very poor health and Hetty dead. Yep, dead. But not in the penal colony. She died on the way back although no one really says how.
So, a book that has to be read? I don't know. This was her very first book. It was based on a story that George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) got from her aunt Elizabeth Evans who had been a Methodist preacher and was the basis for Dinah. Her aunt had spent much time in a jail cell with a girl accused of killing her child and finally confessed to her. Obviously the story she got from her aunt was just a very small part of the book since only about three or four chapters are dedicated to it. She showed rural life and the way they acted and thought then very well. I think the writing is fantastic (even though incredibly detailed). And the story line, while muddled, fairly easy to follow. A few characters just about annoyed me to death, but Adam, Seth and Dinah I liked very much. Even Arthur with all that he did was quite likable. Overall, I'd give it to a person who is a nut about Victorian literature or one of my old English teachers. But I think anyone might find this torture! :-P