Felix Holt: The Radical, by George Eliot, is the first of the 10 novels I’ve assigned myself to read this year because I own them but haven’t read them.
Why I own this book: When I studied abroad at the University of East Anglia, I took an awesome class called “The Condition of England Novel,” and this was one of the assigned texts, so I dutifully bought it at the campus Waterstone’s.
Why I haven’t read it: The professor spent too many class periods lecturing on Frankenstein, his area of expertise (it was worth it—he had a great theory about the monster as metaphor for the struggling poor, supplemented with a gory, revelatory history text called Death, Dissection, and the Destitute) and had to cut one book from the syllabus.
Why I still own it: I love George Eliot (I’ve read Adam Bede and Middlemarch so far), and soapy Victorian novels in general. I was a little worried my brain had atrophied and I’d find the book hard going, especially since it’s supposed to be her “political” novel, but so far it’s mainly a juicy love triangle set against the background of the Reform Acts. Esther, a silly, selfish, superficial girl with potential, must choose between Harold Transome (a wealthy no-goodnik running for Parliament as a Radical, but only for expediency) and Felix Holt (the poor, heroic true radical who wants her to make something of herself and says things like, “If a woman really believes herself to be a lower kind of being, she should place herself in subjection....If not, let her show her power of choosing something different”). So far, most of what I’ve read has been exposition, but various secrets, scandals, and complications are starting to loom. I’m intrigued—though I do have to admit, every time I read “Felix Holt” I think “Steve Holt!”
