Middlemarch - or Am I Missing Something?

In the past years I have seen Middlemarch (written by Mary Evans under the pen name of George Eliot) listed as one of the greatest novels of all time. Since I generally enjoy 19th-century literature, I duly downloaded it from Project Gutenberg - all 853 pages of it.

The reviews are uniformly positive - in some cases, reviewers will tell you this novel "changed their life." Boy, I have read a lot - classics and otherwise - and I cannot think of a piece of fiction that has changed my life. With the possible exception of Quo Vadis, but in that case it was more of a confirmation of what I had already believed. Think about it. Change your life. Somehow, the story, which is made up, and the characters, which are made up, can act as a catalyst for a life-changing event. Maybe I am just shallow, but while I can admire the moral story or adopt a view that I may not have had before, I am not sure what a fiction would have to encompass to change my life.

At any rate - and since Middlemarch was written in 1871 and 1872 (first published in installments) regarding a 'provincial town' in the early 1830s - here following are spoiler alerts.

Let's look at the characters:

Dorothea - the beautiful, walking saint whose life goal is only to do good. First she becomes enamored of a professor who is writing, to her mind, something high and mighty and worth her life to help him in his quest. She marries him and he dies. She eventually marries the one person her jerk husband forbids her to marry in his will, as this will remove the extensive wealth of his estate from her, and she will live in poverty (not really, though, as she has an independent income of her own which is not insubstantial).

Casaubon - the jerk husband. He is much older than Dorothea, and spends his time doing research, doing research, doing research, doing research, and doing research, for a book that Dorothea realizes will never be written. He becomes unnecessarily jealous of a distant young relative of his in regard to Dorothea - thus the codicil on the will.

Sir James - at first in love with Dorothea, but when he lost out to Casaubon, he neatly transferred his affections to her sister, Celia. Celia is sort of an empty head and is more than willing to let Sir James think for her, and encourages Dorothea, when widowed, to let Sir James think for her as well. Sir James unnecessarily takes on the role of the protector for Dorothea and is also bound and determined that she not marry the only person Dorothea really loves.

Ladislaw - the distant relative. He is in love with Dorothea; no other woman even exists. Except when he is found flirting with the married Rosamond.

Lydgate - the doctor who hopes to change medical practices in the small town, because it would be a good place to do some experimenting with new methods. He is totally shut out by the locals, especially the other doctors, even though he has cured some of the few that would see him with his newfangled methods. He is hopelessly in love with Rosamond, who basically sends him to his ruin.

Rosamond - the drop-dead gorgeous spoiled brat. She simply doesn't understand why, after marrying Lydgate, she would need to moderate her expensive tastes, even though Lydgate does not have the income to match.

There is a whole host of other characters, some sympathetic, most not. There are two earnest young people, a rector/vicar/curate (not sure exactly which), and a buffoonish uncle. These two leaven the depravity of the rest. The back-biters, the know-it-alls, the greedy, and the grifters move the story along.

So put all this together in a provincial town and hilarity ensues. Except...it doesn't. There is no comedy, no lightness, no joy. Even at the end, when Ladislaw and Dorothea finally decide to acknowledge their love for each other, it is with a hesitancy that does not produce any satisfaction in the reader.

I tried to find a good reason why this is regarded as one of the 50 greatest novels of all time. Reviews expound on the human relationships and the wise aphorisms of the author. I found the relationships to be very constrained - certainly, I'm sure, by the norms of the times, but even so, again, not in a way that would satisfy a reader looking for a good story. Or not me, anyway.

After spending my time in Middlemarch, I did not come away with a life-changing resolve, an appreciation of the characters, or human relationships. I found it to be an overly long soap opera in which no one is truly happy, and they just go on making the others around them unhappy as well. Change my mind.