After finishing Far From the Madding Crowd, I started reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. This is one of the first books that I've read by a female author. Despite its length at over 800 pages, I found taking nearly 6 months to finish worthwhile.

Middlemarch details the happenings of a small provincial town, primarily focusing on the lives of Dorthea, a serious young woman committed to devoting her life to a higher cause, and Dr. Lydgate, a French-educated doctor with grand ambitions of making a profound medical discovery.

Clearly, both Dorthea and Dr. Lydgate have noble intentions. Throughout the novel, they are proven to be of good character, too. One of the novel's themes is how the "imperfect social state" can make carrying out such noble intentions impossible. For Dorthea, the imperfect social state is the second-class role of women in society along with her naive marriage to the older Mr. Casubon. Dr. Lydgate confronts a town in upheaval, mistrusting of change and his new medical ideas. His somewhat hidebound view of marriage traps him in a marriage with the spendthrift Rosamond.

One very interesting aspect of this novel is that both Dorthea and Rosamond are married without children. Having acquired husbands, being a memeber of the gentry, and not having children to raise, both characters struggle with ennui and what exactly can a women do. Many of the male characters are dismissive of women's capacity for serious intellectual endeavors and see them only as entertainment. In the end, I find the novel to be ambivalent on a woman's role.

On one hand, Dorthea's impulsive, self-sacrificing nature leads to her disastrous first marriage with Mr. Casubon, but Dorthea's second self-sacrifice ends in happiness. Dorthea gives up her grand ideas of improving the lot of the poor with her fortune, yet the narrator notes that the "growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts" such as simply being a wife and mother. As for Rosamond, we should despise her for secretly disobeying her husband's wishes and using her beauty to manipulate, but yet we are made to pity her because we realize these are the only mechanisms of agency that she has. Perhaps, the message here is simply that women should have more freedom to choose their life, whether it be as a wife or fighting for social reform.

Given my perpetual loneliness, I found the romance and marriages of the novel most interesting. Mr. Farebrother's advice to Fred Vincy, "Men outlive their love, but they don't outlive the consequences of their recklessness," I found all too humorous as I'm still living with the consequences of my recklessness. While I often yearn for the seemingly simple, intentional nature of Victorian courtship, both Dorthea's first marriage and Dr. Lydgate's marriage to Rosamond lead to unhappiness. Caleb Garth perhaps says it best:

Young folks may get fond of each other before they know what life is, and they may think it all holiday if they can only get together; but it soon turns into working day,

which alludes to same idea that occurred in Far from the Madding Crowd. Dates are often rather artificial environments where we only see one side of the person. We associate in pleasure away from the true hardships of life. I have often thought that this is why couples from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette never last.

I suppose that there is something to be said for these so-called "organic" relationships that spring up by chance because you and the other person just naturally have similar interests or friends. When I was watching Master of None, I think about how Rachel and Dev get into a relationship. It's a near year long process of chance encounters: one night stand, run into each other somewhere, go on a date, hook up, run into each other again, etc. Because I never could stand the ambiguity of intentions in this type of relationship, I often envied how simple the process was in Victorian novels, where a guy would simply visit her house a few times, maybe talk to her father, and then propose. I have to admit, though, that perhaps these "organic" type of relationships may lead to more "similarity of pursuits" that binds a couple more strongly since if you're spending more time together by chance it's very likely that you're similar people. Perhaps this is why online dating fails for so many.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now. The best is probably a compromise between the two. Relationships can't be forced, so there needs to be certain amount of chemistry. But in my limited experience, I do think people are putting a little too much faith in chance, for they don't want to be seen as trying too hard. Both men and women being more honest and intentional would probably save a lot of lonely souls out there.