Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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39 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A small literary masterpiece., 15 Jan 2002
Newspaper readers were invited recently to submit their choices for the greatest works published in the English language. When the choices were totalled, two works by Shakespeare featured in the top ten. Also featured, I was pleased to see, was a novel by George Eliot. Internet users, familiar with her works, will probably guess which of her novels was chosen. For those unfamiliar with her works, the best one to start with is "Silas Marner", a much shorter one. It is short, it is easy, it even works well in schools (as I can testify), and yet it is undoubtedly a masterpiece.
George Eliot sets her 1861 novel in the early decades of the nineteenth century in rural England. Silas Marner is a weaver. In the pattern that life weaves, he usually features as a victim. Because he is unjustly "framed", he loses his reputation and his betrothed in the town where he grew up. After years working as a weaver and living like a hermit in a rural district then, he is robbed by an unknown thief who uncovers and makes off with the cache of gold guineas Silas keeps under his floor. Happiness and joy come to Silas, however, and at the end of the novel he is told, "Nobody could be happier than we are".
George Eliot tells her tale with a mixture of womanly sympathy, sharp observation, tact, and humour. Her depiction of a long-gone past, and her clear pointing of right and wrong impulses, give the story qualities that are sometimes found in morality plays or in fairy tales. Don't skip over the scenes in the local inn, the Rainbow, where the simple-minded rustics discuss relevant issues, including the existence of ghosts.
For those who appreciate hearing good literature read aloud, I recommend the unabridged audio format of "Silas Marner" where the reader is Andrew Sachs. As you might expect of this fine English actor, who made Manuel from Barcelona so memorable in "Fawlty Towers", he is especially wonderful in portraying the argumentative, credulous, muddle-headed rustics that foregather at the Rainbow. His reading extends for nearly seven hours.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW!, 4 Mar 2008
Awesome book, simply awesome to the max. The kind of book that's so thrilling, you can't help but jump in the air and exclaim your glee with extreme volume every other page - indeed, I was thrown off the train for that very reason. I finished reading the book at the station in a feast of jumping and yelling, and I regret nothing.
Can't wait for the sequel!
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4 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A beautiful story about rekindling lost faith in humanity, 27 May 2000
By A Customer
How anyone could call this book boring! The story is amazing, a story of a man ostracised from his home town and his gradual acceptance into another. A story of true love between a man and an orphaned child of which no-one could deem possible. A story of questionning faith and Victorian morals, well recommended.
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