Welcome to Litsy!

Merry Christmas, everyone! 2021 just flew by despite all the problems, did it not?

#Christmas
#quotes
#GeorgeEliot

I read most of this book on my commute but I was glad that I read the ending in the comfort of my bed so I could stare sadly out of my window at the rainy sky. I think, one of the strongest character of the book was Mr. Tulliver, not only did he carry the story along with his firm, decided views, but also provided as a strong connection between pretty much all the characters. His headstrong nature was, at once, plot- propelling and believable.👇🏽

#QuotsyJul21 Day 6: #Cover

There were some bits that were a bit rambly, but overall a good story. Honestly a bit like a soap opera. I really did not like the ending.

What happened here? #FreeKindleEdition

I've tried The Meursalt Investigation twice and I just can't. Giving the tagged book a try and liking it better so far. #audiobooks

#action #quotsysept20 @TK-421

I can't continue. I will have to get back to this book at a different point in my life.

It was a time ... when country surgeons never thought of asking their female patients if they were fond of reading, but simply took it for granted that they preferred gossip; ...

Goodreads thinks that because I enjoyed The Mill on the Floss, I would enjoy Catch-22 😂

Coincidentally, though, I did think of Catch-22 while I was reading Piece of Cake.

Compelling characters and high emotional intensity made this a pick for me. There were times when the narrator digressed about things and I tuned out, but overall it was interesting.

“I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.”

This is so true for me as well. Music is what keeps me going.

Tried starting this a few weeks ago but was put off by the status it carries and never actually managed to pick it up... it‘s sometimes so hard to overlook everything you hear and try to just enjoy a book for what it is but I‘m going to give it another go🤞🏼
in love with the app Book Breeze - helps track how quick I am reading and how much longer I have to go!! Going to use it for motivation until I get engrossed and enjoy this for what it is :)

I'm having a dilemma. Which book do I start the #20BooksofSummer, Reading with Style and Reading Women challenges with?

Do I start with one of the classics? This stack of great Canadian fiction? Or the other two which sound really great too?

I need help deciding! Which one would you choose?

I was struck by the writing, the analysis of the motives and reasons for the feelings held by the central characters and their extended family. Ms. Eliot occasionally ignores traditional grammar rules to confide her opinions to the readers, which is a playful way to break the rules. Whilst she created her microcosm of humanity a century and a half ago, it is pertinent today. Alas, it had a tragic ending.

Tragic and hard to get through

#MayMovieMagic

(Day 2 - #BehindTheWheel)

*Behind the [mill] wheel, perhaps? Don‘t know, but maybe we should ask Maggie?

1. If you've read it, you'll probably understand why.
2. Goal is to bring a lunch. Reality is to work at desk through it...
3. From the past week? Trying to open my classroom door by pressing car unlock button on key... 🤣
4. Cardamom and bookstores
5. Blue American

Thanks, @howjessreads for the great #Friyayintro each week!

My daughter is nearing the end of the book. It‘s been great following her journey. Exclamations like, “Enough of Mr. Tulliver already, I want to hear about Maggie. ...oops.”, “Tom, you‘re an idiot”, “Argh, Mrs Glegg is so horrible!”, “Oh no, Mrs Tulliver, there‘s no way this can backfire now, is there?”, “I ship Maggie and Phillip”, “OMG Stephen you‘re a madman, someone call the police!” 😂
Can‘t wait to see what she thinks of the ending. 😬

My daughter's entry for #DrawItOut #minichallenges in the #readathon
The text got cropped a bit in the upload, but reads "The Mill on the Floss. (Tom being an idiot.)"

@DeweysReadathon

The school won't let my 11 y/o read YA because of potential mature content. So my daughter decided to just go straight for the grown up stuff. At a 9.9 rating this is the most difficult book she could find, within her range, that isn't labelled YA. I'm a bit gobsmacked. 😆 Like... there are no troubling themes here that can be hard to access for the pre-teen mind?! I told her I'm impressed and available for questions and discussion.

Classic Victorian literature. It was a lot more readable than other British lit. I'll read more of her work. I enjoyed the young years of Maggie and appreciated her yearning for affection from her older brother whom she adored, yet he only tolerated. Eliot chose a male name to keep her private life out of the news (affairs with married men) #agameoffavorites @WhiskeyMistress @ErinSueG

A parcel from the generous @Sarah83 arrived! Danke Sarah! So many literary goodies 😍, the notebook, the lovely bookmark (not only for nights 😄), that beautiful little edition of The Mill on the Floss (I have never read it!), and the tasty liquorice. Mjamm! (My husband approves, he's a big liquorice fan.)
Thank you so much for the gifts and for hosting the challenge in the first place. And who knew that the german post could be that fast?

feeling #blue , looking at books makes me feel better !
#readingresolutions. 💙

I am sick... but that means hot whiskeys and boooooooooks! ....and cakes 👌🏻

Books for me, sports for him, pints for all! 📖⚽️🍻

Visited my library book sale and found these amazing editions of some of George Eliots work 😊. #classics #usedbookshavesoul

#classics #literature #hungerafterthebeautiful #bookdrunkard

I liked somt parts of this book much better than others. Occasionally I thought it all a bit too sweet, with an overkill of bonnets, table linen and tenderness. Take cousin Lucy for example, people like her don't exist in real life, do they?!
In contrast, I really liked the discussions within the Dodson clan. Last but not least: the end. That shows the real lovestory. And I didn't see it coming. #1001books

I'm an Eliot fan, so I enjoyed this book. The story follows the fluctuations in the fortunes of a family that occupies a mill on the Floss River. (I love alliteration!) The main character, Maggie, is a child at the beginning, but grows into a beautiful, intriguing young woman. Her propensity for metaphorical self-immolation irritates me, but she is still a fascinating character. Beautiful prose and thorough exploration of difficult moral issues.

Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.

"The religion of the Dodsons consisted in revering whatever was customary and respectable: it was necessary to be baptised, else one could not be buried in the churchyard, and to take the sacrament before death as a security against more dimly understood perils; but it was of equal necessity to have the proper pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one's funeral, and to leave an unimpeachable will," (290).

"It was very hard upon him that he should be put at this disadvantage in life by his father's want of prudence; but he was not going to complain and to find fault with people because they did not make everything easy for him. He would ask no one to help him, more than to give him work and pay him for it," (239). Hmmm . . . very different attitude from most of our millennials today!

"Poor child! It was very early for her to know one of those supreme moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we can dread or endure, falls away from our regard as insignificant--is lost, like a trivial memory, in that simple, primitive love which knits us to the beings who have been nearest to us, in their times of helplessness or of anguish," (211).

This is one of my favourite nineteenth century novels! It has an amazing ending.
#rockinmay (The River) - The Mill On The Floss

#bookblogger #bookstagram

@katedensen posted about Bridge to Terabithia, which reminded me of this other sad book set on #theriver. Broke my heart when I read it years ago. Life was not fair to Maggie Tulliver.😥 And her brother was a jerk! I think it's somewhat based upon Eliot's own childhood.
#rockinmay @cinfhen

Just finished this amazing Victorian novel and I feel like I need some major grief counseling. Damn, this was a good book. I'm going to read all of Eliot's novels now.💚😩

This is my #aprilTBR, plus all the ones I haven't finished from March. Some of these are for school, and some of these are just for me.😍📚🎓#aprilbookshowers

So I lost Reading Bingo for 2016. It was Mill on the Floss that slowed me down! It's ok, it was worth while read. As per the deal, I am currently reading Dan Simmons Hyperion and am enjoying it so far.

...the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims...

Maggie is in some ways a very mature 19 year old. "...if life did not make duties for us before love comes - love would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each other (...) but I see one thing quite clearly - that I must not, cannot seek my own happiness by sacrificing others."
Now if only she could also learn to separate both infatuation and gratitude mixed with pity from love...

Character is destiny - but only in accordance with whatever circumstances take place. This is not going to be my favourite George Eliot, but I do enjoy her somewhat sardonic observations.

That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of egoism - the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame, where there are no leafy honours to be gathered and worn.

It is something cruelly incomprehensible to youthful natures - this sombre sameness in middle-aged and elderly people whose life has resulted in disappointment and discontent, to whose faces a smile becomes so strange that the sad lines all about the lips and brow seem to take no notice of it, and it hurries away again for want of welcome. 'Why will they not kindle up and be glad sometimes?' thinks young elasticity. 'It would be so easy(...)'

Sometimes you want classic spines. Yay George!#bookriot #riotgrams #day21 #coolspines

"In their death they were not divided" (Even though in life he was emotionally abusive to her)

The #endpaper of my copy of this book printed in 1918

If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.

Closing this one literally left me in tears. I watched Maggie and Tom grow up from the sweet bliss of childhood into the incessant hardships of adulthood. I rooted for Maggie to listen to her profound soul and intelligent wit as she struggled with being the outcast. I felt both understanding and detest for Tom's quintessential tendencies of the patriarchal Victorian man. While it's the end of this adventure, it's just my beginning with Eliot ♡