Why "The Mill on the Floss?"

Well, several reasons, actually.  The most important being that I wanted to read a new book.  I thought that should I choose a book I already read, I would come into this class with preconceived notions about the book, and I would not be able to take the time to fall in love with it.  I have already read a number of books on the list (all of the ENG272 books and Great Expectations).  To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of Dickens, so that crossed a number of books of the list.  I really like George Eliot; I fell in love with the 1994 BBC "Middlemarch" as a kid (my parents are really into period dramas - it's a pretty fun way to grow up when you are pre-English major).  But, I've already read Middlemarch, so that was out.  Then I tried to read Adam Bede and Daniel Deronda and didn't get through enough to enjoy them.  So Mill on the Floss it is.

And now (spoiler alerts), here are the literary reasons I chose this novel.  You may want to look at a summary - http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/millonthefloss/summary.html

I really like that I'm not dealing with a serious romance.  Don't get me wrong, I adore love stories, but I don't think I could have committed to a semester with a love story.  I would probably get bored quickly and start cursing at the characters for being stupid.  Maggie and Tom are a love story in a sense, an unrequited, naive kind of love on Maggie's part, and a conditional, idiotic kind on Tom's.  Tom has a distinct sense of right and wrong and only loves Maggie if she's doing the right thing.  Otherwise, he is incredibly cruel to her, and not in the "I'm-only-doing-this-because-I-love-you" kind of way.  Personally, I think Tom is an idiot, but that's besides the point.

Secondly, I like having an intelligent female protagonist.  Maggie is known not for her beauty, but for her brain.  Our first encounter with her occurs when she is talking to Mr. Riley about the book she is reading... a book about the devil.  As she grows up, Eliot describes her as "brown" skinned.  So we actually associate Maggie and her "brown" (according to her aunt, Mrs. Pullet) atypical beauty (according to her cousin's suitor - though later Maggie's - Steven Guest) with the devil, thus intelligence and the devil - but does Eliot want us to do that?  Would Eliot rather make us redefine intelligence?  Hmm... questions... though I'd like to think that Eliot was portraying a hormonal teenager.

Okay, that was long and a bit too profound for an introductory post.  Now to stop procrastinating on my Latin homework.  As much as I love the internet, Horace is calling.