Silas Marner | George Eliot
In the following excerpt, Speaight argues that while Silas Marner may not be Eliot’s best book, it may be her most well-structured.
Silas Marner is not the most important, but it is perhaps the most perfect of George Eliot’s novels. It is flawed by no failure of characterisation and no excess of moralism. Where Adam Bede had in parts the still beauty of an eclogue and where Maggie Tulliver expressed with great tenderness and truth the unsatisfied longings of her creator, Silas Marner represents a significant advance in objectivity. Even the familiar landscape is viewed with greater realism; nowhere, except in the passages between Marner and his foster-child Effie, is there the slightest effort...
[The entire page is 1733 words long]
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