Silas Marner

Having read Mill on the Floss by George Eliot I was not overly keen to read Silas Marner for my local reading circle, but I thought I'd give it a whirl and see if could overcome my resistance to it. Well I'm glad I did because it's wonderful and a story very much as relevant today as it was in the 18oo's.

Silas Marner is a weaver who's been treated very badly by the people and church of his former village and is forced to leave and move to the village of Raveloe. Here he lives a very lonely life weaving cloth for the local people, building up his stash of gold coins whilst shutting down his heart which is so full of the past hurts.

Each night at his evening meal he takes out his gold to hold, feel and squint at the colour - it never fails him always staying the same, but one day things take a dramatic turn and his gold stash is stolen leaving Silas Marner in a state of despair. But, things take an even stranger turn because whilst Marner has shut down he has left his front door open on a very cold snowy night and in toddles a very young child with golden hair. Here begins the resurrection of Silas Marner and his intergration into village life.

I didn't expect to enjoy this book but I did - I loved the way George Eliot wrote her story with so much insight into the emotions and spiritual needs of Silas Marner. She has some wonderful characters of course some you'll skim over but most are relevant and fleshed out in depth.

I highly recommend this book not just for it's reading quality but see how many commas and semi colons she puts in one sentence!

There are many different publications of Silas Marner but the version I read was a £2 Penguin Popular Classic