Middlemarch, a conversation

Chapter 43  With these posts, I'd like to do a little more than just summary—I'd like to analyze some of the details that give the novel its richness. But I'm increasingly finding that what I want to address leads me to giving away plot points.  In any case, here we get our first glimpse into the domestic life of Lydgate and Rosamond—but first the awkward and unplanned meeting of Will and Dorothea at the Lydgates'. Eliot allows to see how both Dorothea and Will "process" this encounter, and I'm struck by the apparent difficulty Dorothea has in seeing why it might be untoward for a married woman to play host to an unmarried man alone (apart from her husband). Dorothea really is this innocent with regard to the realities of male-female attraction, it seems. In her defense, she senses that something might be objectionable, but she can't quite identify it with any specificity. But this scene does push her closer to gaining some first-hand understanding of ...

Chapter 54  A personal note to begin: Early in the chapter, when Dorothea says that she intends to return to Lowick after staying with Celia and Sir James, it is briefly proposed that they should go to Cheltenham (a "market town" of some size in the northern part of the Cotswolds), with Eliot opining, "at that period a man could hardly know what to propose if Cheltenham were rejected" (504). The personal connection is that I spent a week in Cheltenham in the summer of 2022. I'm not sure what it was like in 1830, but I was underwhelmed. The highlight for me was about 5 miles south, in the village of Cooper's Hill, where I had the good fortune to witness the world-famous "cheese rolling." You might not believe it if I didn't have the pictures and videos to prove it.  Maybe Dorothea would have perked up for that. But let's get back to the business at hand. I love that Dorothea stands up to Mrs. Cadwallader, who describes sanity as "call[...