Review: Silas Marner

Silas Marner
by George Eliot

This is a book off the home library shelves. I probably picked it up at the library's used book store that I'm so fond of. I've never read anything by George Eliot before so I didn't know what to expect.

Imagine a man who is good to the core. Now accuse him of a terrible theft. Let him know that it was his best friend who actually committed the theft and that it was his best friend that accused him of the theft. Now make the man watch as the ex-best friend marries the ex-fiance(she left him after the theft incidence). Give the man 15 years in a new town where everyone thinks he's not right in the head but they use his services anyway because he's good at what he does. Watch the man fall in love with his money(what else does he have, after all?) and then take the money away from him. My heart ached for Silas. Couldn't just one person see the worthiness of this man?

Now give the man a baby with no known parentage. All that love and goodness that has been beaten down in him for years will bubble up to the surface. He will raise a daughter with a beautiful spirit who loves Silas and loves all that he represents. So when the real father of the child comes to raise the girl for himself, the girl will choose to stay with the man that has been her heart and soul for 16 years.

I kept waiting for the ax to fall. I kept waiting for the spark of treachery to take one more thing from Silas; to break him for good. I was so glad when it never came. I was relieved to see a true reformation in a character who started out wicked.

It seems that Ms. Eliot and I live in the same world. A world where terrible and heartbreaking things happen to people but ultimately the good will reward perseverance. Now I can look forward to picking up Daniel Deronda, Middlemarch, and the Mill on the Floss, all of which are 600+ pages long(Silas was under 200), and sitting conveniently on my shelf.

That's one book marked off my Classics Challenge list. Yeah!