| PRODUCT DETAILS | | Silas Marner (Bookcassette(r) Edition) | | |
Silas Marner (Bookcassette(r) Edition)
The story of Silas Marner's redemption and restoration, which is interwoven with the lives of Eppie, Dolly Winthrop, Dunstan and Godfrey, is part beautifully realized portraiture of rural England and part fairy tale. Silas Marner has long been the most beloved and widely read book by George Eliot, the pen name for the 19th century English woman writer Marian Evans.
Silas Marner is an amazing presentation of Eliot's power to combine symbolic and realistic narrative. In the story of an isolated, misanthropic old weaver - whose life is forever changed by the appearance of a little girl (Eppie) in his cottage - Eliot created a compact, tightly structured, pleasingly patterned novel. The tale is one that endorses the common goodness of rural people, yet remains agnostic as to the ultimate cause of good and evil.
Manufacturer: Bookcassette
Price Range: $11.94 - $17.95
 Silas Marner (Bookcassette(r) Edition)
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| User Reviews |  | Read it in high school and read it again in your 30's
rating: 4
If you're required to read this book in high school, then kudos to your teacher for introducing you to George Eliot.
Having said that, when I was in high school, I wouldn't have appreciated George Eliot either. She was a master crafter of literature, choosing words thoughtfully and laying patiently the foundation of characters, observations, storylines to form a more perfect novel. In other words, to most high school readers of classic literature, her books can be boring.
But wait at least 10 years, pick up her works again, and find yourself pulled into stories that simultaneously take you back to provincial Victorian England while portraying the lives of characters who could be your friends, family, yourself.
Silas Marner is a wonderful precursor to Eliot's Middlemarch. The story focuses on the main title character, of course, following this sad little weaver from the time he was a respected member of his community to the moment he was cast out to his wandering and settling in sleepy Raveloe where he seeks to be left alone. Betrayed by his best friend and rejected by his fellow worshippers at Lantern Yard, Silas loses faith in God and people. He means to live the rest of his life in Raveloe, shielded from the God who failed him and from people who would only disappoint and hurt him.
He passes the next 15 or so years of his life, shunning society who responds to this odd-looking stranger by alienating him. Silas finds solace in weaving, weaving, weaving, accumulating gold for his work, and transferring his love to these gold pieces.
Silas' core is shaken again by a shocking event, and he is in danger of soon dying a broken man. He is restored when a little girl with golden curls toddles into his life. He comes to believe the gold he lost came back to him in this "golden-haired replacement." And from then, Silas is slowly drawn back to life, back to society, back to faith in God. The little orphan he saves and names Eppie ends up saving him.
Sounds like a simple almost sappy story, no? Under George Eliot's pen, it's a wonderful telling of faith (in God, in people, in life) lost and found because of unconditional love for a little child. But it's also much more than that. The story explores themes of alienation, societal rejection of otherness and being different, questions of where one fits in society and how that role is interdependent on one's participation in society as well as its acceptance of one on what terms, love of course as a restorative panacea, love between a father and his adopted daughter trumping all, and so many different aspects of life and its challenges and rewards.
All of these ideas are so expertly presented and turned over, my eyes were sometimes stopped dead in their tracks by a passage that I would then reread several times to appreciate the beauty of its truth and language. I'm about to date myself (I'm currently in my late 30s), but I just had to share one of the most memorable observations I'd read in a long time. It's about Godfrey Cass, a man who seems to have everything, except a child to call his own:
"Meanwhile, why could he not make up his mind to the absence of children from a hearth brightened by such a wife? Why did his mind fly uneasily to that void, as if it were the sole reason why life was not thoroughly joyous to him? I suppose it is the way with all men and women who reach middle age without the clear perception that life never *can* be thoroughly joyous: under the vague dulness of the grey hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, and finds it in the privation of an untried good."
I don't think George Eliot is saying here that Godfrey is silly for wanting a child when he has everything else a man could possibly want. It is the idea of many men and women never being able to be truly happy and forever chasing some thing, which they find is lacking in their life at that time, because they're sure that thing will make them happy. This is the classic middle crisis, but it is universal in us all to desire what we can't have and to think our happiness depends on us getting it. It doesn't of course.
I say this book is a precursor to Middlemarch because we start to see in this novel George Eliot's beginning of writing novels with distinct townsfolk full of characters as memorable as the main characters -- folks that populate a village and are as recognizable as your kind neighbor, local bartender, neighborhood elder. I'm thoroughly entertained George Eliot's creations here: Mr. Macey, Dolly Winthrop, Squire Cass and his brood, Nancy and Priscilla and their respectable kin.
So why did I not give this 5 stars? Honestly, it was too short. Much time was spent on Silas and his life before finding Eppie, but not enough was flushed out in the story after. I loved the chapter when Eliot described how this old bachelor is suddenly befuddled by the two-year-old he's adopted and becoming a father to her. Where does he begin? And when Eppie turns 3 and mischievous, it's hilarious to follow Silas as he tries to discipline his precious...and can't. Those little nuggets are treasured by this newish mom. But it comes to an end too soon and Eppie is next seen as an 18-year-old girl about to embark on her new life.
The second part of the book feels hastily completed. Loose ends are tied up; difficult conversations improbably take place and are resolved in one day; Silas' journey to his old life at the former Lantern Yard and back home to Raveloe is rushed; and Eppie's story has its happy ending.
Had George Eliot wanted to keep writing to flesh out all these paltry scenes, I would have happily kept reading and delighted to have given this book a 5-star rating.
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A bit boring in the beginning
rating: 3
When I read, I tried instead of condemning Silas Marner, to see the book through his eyes. And as the book went on, I almost felt myself getting dimmer,more cut off from society. It was rather sad.
The book isn't the best representative of what life in 19th century England would have been like, but it is a very good picture of how uncultured people treat other people from other lands. It's only when misfortune falls upon that person, do they accept them.
I absolutely loved the fact that Silas found a "golden-haired replacement". That was the sweetest thing I've read in my life, how he instantly wanted to protect her and give her the best things in life. Godfrey seemed nice at first, but as the book uncovered his past, I started to like him less and less. He needed to act like a man, buck up and take control of his life, and not be constantly cowed by his father. I can understand due to the time period why he thought Eppie would come with him and Nancy, but still, the way he kept asking even after she said no the first time was rude.
The book was very uninteresting in the beginning. I had to force myself to read it. It was only after Dunsey stole Silas's money that it began to be interesting. Still, it was a sweet book and I liked it a lot.
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Silas Marner
rating: 2
This book is required reading for freshman in our high school. This version is very hard to read due to the Old English style of writing.
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Return to Raveloe
rating: 5
Silas Marner is a skillfully crafted novel to be enjoyed by readers with varied tastes. It was written by a woman, who found it necessary to use a man's name because of attitudes in England in the nineteenth century. It is built around problems that all of us face in our lives, such as, "How important is money?" As in all great novels, the characters change as the plot develops.
SILAS MARNER is a realistic novel because it portrays life in a real and believable fashion. The author, Mary Ann Evans, who used the pen name, George Eliot, pays careful attention to a few distinguishing details about here characters and settings.
For example, we can see Silas Marner, the central character of the novel, with his pale skin and undersized body. We know how he looks with his large, near-sighted, bulging eyes. We can see the important-looking village of Raveloe, which lives peacefully in opulent neglect.
When I was a teacher, I directed many high school sophomores to read SILAS MARNER. Most students dreaded reading the novel included in their literature textbooks. Once they met Silas and spent enough time with him to become acquainted with his unique personality, they became eager readers of this well-crafted classic.
It has some of the same qualities that made Pride and Prejudice (Vintage Classics) an endearing and enduring novel. In both works, the idyllic English countryside is an enjoyable escape from everyday life. There is romantic courtship in both, but the romance of SILAS MARNER is not the central theme; therefore it is not as compelling as that in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Since the readers are not required to become obsessed with yearning for romantic fulfillment, young guys who were in my class felt free to enjoy it. (Sixteen year old young men are still self-conscious about these matters.) Both books contain the same kind of satire buffered with compassion. In both novels we laugh with the local rural and village people. Because the language in SILAS MARNER is less complex, adolescent readers enjoy it more than they do PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
When as a student I first read SILAS MARNER in high school and when I read it with my students, I considered the coincidences plot weaknesses. Life doesn't work that way, I thought. Now that I have experienced a life of incredible coincidences, I no longer find anything in the book unbelievable. Events caused by Silas Marner's catalepsy seemed unlikely, but now they represent no problem.
Theft with its resulting bitterness provides conflict with which the readers can identify. Earlier I found it difficult to believe that the lightning of theft could strike twice, but that part of the plot is one more realistic element now. Other twists and turns with their ironic mysteries are typical of human life as I have lived it.
All the parts of the novel that seemed to be a contrived fairy tale are now a vignette of life. Even if I could not believe it all, the book would still break my heart the way Forrest Gump does with its twists and turns of satirical accounts.
When I enjoyed SILAS MARNER in my twenties with thirty teenagers at a time, I did not notice the shaping of Silas' religious beliefs as much as I do now. I remember that the students and I were indignant about the way Silas was duped by the evil church members at Lantern Yard. Now I have compassion for them, especially William, as well as for Silas.
Mary Ann Evans showed the futility of idolatry. All my students understood the disaster of worshiping money. If I could return to my students, I would like to ask them what they thought of the villagers who seemed to rely on the habits of their church to bring them close to God. Could we discuss that in the 21st century? I feel sure we would discuss the addiction to narcotics as it is realistically portrayed.
SILAS MARNER is a great English novel not difficult to read, but rich in insights. It shows what is evil and what is good in human hearts.
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Redemptive
rating: 4
Silas Marner / 0-553-21229-X
Silas Marner always invariably compares in my mind to Dicken's Scrooge. In the height of his youth, healthy, happy, and in love, he is betrayed, cast down, and taught the 'lesson' that only the criminal and avaricious get ahead in life. Banished to a new town, he abandons all attempts to connect with the society around him and instead focuses on hoarding his wealth carefully, counting his money lovingly in the evenings. When the money simply disappears one day, stolen by a burglar, Silas is crushed. Only the arrival of an "angel" - a little orphan girl with golden curls on her head - saves him, and starts him down the long road to redemption. Given something to love, Silas flourishes and learns to join the society of people.
The local nobility, Cass, serves as a perfect counterpoint to Silas' lessons. Cass is rescued in one fell swoop from all his burdens - his inconvenient lower class wife dies suddenly clearing the way for his 'true love' and noble girlfriend, his illegitimate child is adopted by Silas, and his blackmailing brother disappears into the snow for good - and yet, Cass is doomed to a life of disappointment. His perfect upper class wife Nancy cannot bear children, and their perfect home is turned into a silent as the two simply age (they do not grow) and they find that they never really loved each other after all. When Cass realizes, too late, what a treasure his daughter would have been in his life, he finds himself rejected as the girl prefers her adoptive father to the natural one who would not claim her. And though the girl marries below her father's level of nobility, she marries a good man who loves and appreciates her, and her future seems much more rosy than that of her upper class 'parents'.
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Silas Marner (Bookcassette(r) Edition)
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