Waterstones Felix Holt
94 ratings
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Price: £10.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: When the young nobleman Harold Transome returns to England from the colonies with a self-made fortune, he scandalizes the town of Treby Magna with his decision to stand for Parliament as a Radical. But after the idealistic Felix Holt also returns to the town, the difference between Harold's opportunistic values and Holt's profound beliefs becomes apparent. Forthright, brusque and driven by a firm desire to educate the working-class, Felix is at first viewed with suspicion by many, including the elegant but vain Esther Lyon, the daughter of the local clergyman. As she discovers, however, his blunt words conceal both passion and deep integrity. Soon the romantic and over-refined Esther finds herself overwhelmed by a heart-wrenching decision: whether to choose the wealthy Transome as a husband, or the impoverished but honest Felix Holt.
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9780140434354
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9780140434354
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Author: K. Golding
Rating: 5
Review: This is Eliot limbering up for the masterwork that is Middlemarch. It's not her best book, but it's still streets ahead of the competition and compulsively readable. Felix Holt: The Radical, like many books of the time, features religious controversy, an inheritance plot requiring several scarcely believable coincidences with much legal debate and a political theme as well as the obligatory central romance. What many of the other books, or rather their authors, lack, however, is Eliot's extraordinary empathy and moral breadth. Felix himself is in danger of being a bit of a self-righteous prig, and Esther starts out as the usual selfish, trivial-minded anti-heroine. But Eliot has this unwavering belief that people can grow, and change for the better, and that other people can help them do that, and Felix will be enriched and softened by love and Esther will discover what is really important in life through the example of a selfless nature. Eliot is the great purveyor of realism: she researched every aspect meticulously (she corresponded with a lawyer about the precise details of her intricate legal plot, and one of the great attributes of Eliot as a novelist and omniscient narrator is that she can share with you the depth of her knowledge of what makes her characters tick - there wasn't a fleeting thought in their heads of which she was unaware; she knew everything that had ever happened to them and what it had done to them. She can make us sympathise with characters who appear to have very little to commend them, like Mrs. Transome. She is wholly assured with all levels of society and has their various speech patterns down pat. The political theme here is very interesting. Eliot believed the vote was useless unless men were educated sufficiently to know how to use it wisely. Education was the key to everything for men and women, to help them learn how to be part of a larger society. Politicians should be made to read Eliot. She believed the individual can make a difference. There are some wonderful minor characters in this book - the Reverend Lyon, a genuinely good man, Jermyn the evil Dickensian lawyer, the oily Mr. Johnson the election fixer and so forth. And there are some splendidly funny parts, especially the set piece where the bible-spouting Mrs Holt braves the Transomes at home. So - all human life is here, you feel like a better person after reading it, and it's thoroughly enjoyable too.
Author: Andrew Hulme
Rating: 1
Review: Arrived the day after ordering - very happy.
