The Mill on the Floss

I love classic books because they still have something to tell us in our times, and the ominous presence of the river throughout the book kept my heart racing. It feels like our own dangerous climate crisis waiting to sweep us away.

All sorts of things flood in this book, along with the water, most notably Maggie’s emotions and her forbidden passions. I think this flood is based on a historical event as well. Again, this book is English. I love the Brit books. 

I love George Elliot’s writing and her brilliant character observations.

The Mill on the Floss, like some of her other novels, explores the minutiae of living in small towns and villages; the births, deaths and marriages as well as the ambitions (both thwarted and achieved) and expectations of the inhabitants. The Mill on the Floss features a strong, intelligent woman out of place in her world and how she struggles to fit in.

It may have been written over 160 years ago and set thirty years before then, but the story and the characters sucked me in. I actually gasped… show more.

As someone occasionally made to feel I was “too much” as a child—too emotional, too smart, too odd—I’ve always been drawn to The Mill on the Floss’s temperamental and bewildered young protagonist, Maggie Tulliver. I’m moved by her attempt, as she grows older, to navigate relationships with three men who represent three different possible paths for her: her staid older brother; a gentle, intellectual soulmate; and an erotic tempter. One minute I’m hooked by the drama, the next I’m chuckling at the comic portraits of Maggie’s many colorful relatives.