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Barry Pierce's Reviews > Adam Bede
Adam Bede
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The fact that George Eliot called this novel Adam Bede and not Hetty Sorrel proves that there is no justice in this world.
The novel itself, Eliot’s first, is a fairly quaint pastoral romance. Everyone’s in love with the wrong person. You get the picture. The plot doesn’t really wear the novel’s weight well. It just about breaches 600 pages and there is absolutely no need - no need.
It’s a pity that Adam Bede is such a meh tale, considering that for the novel Eliot invented a character as complex and as loveable and as utterly tragic as Hetty Sorrel. I adored Hetty, and judging by most of the other reviews on here, everyone else did as well. Her story is just so completely harrowing, which is impressive, as most characters from Victorian literature really just go through it.
I have to admit that at points I really became fed up with this novel, only for everything to pick up again when Hetty comes along. But I’m also not going to recommend a 600 page long minor Victorian novel just because one character is good. So I guess that’s that.
The novel itself, Eliot’s first, is a fairly quaint pastoral romance. Everyone’s in love with the wrong person. You get the picture. The plot doesn’t really wear the novel’s weight well. It just about breaches 600 pages and there is absolutely no need - no need.
It’s a pity that Adam Bede is such a meh tale, considering that for the novel Eliot invented a character as complex and as loveable and as utterly tragic as Hetty Sorrel. I adored Hetty, and judging by most of the other reviews on here, everyone else did as well. Her story is just so completely harrowing, which is impressive, as most characters from Victorian literature really just go through it.
I have to admit that at points I really became fed up with this novel, only for everything to pick up again when Hetty comes along. But I’m also not going to recommend a 600 page long minor Victorian novel just because one character is good. So I guess that’s that.
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Reading Progress
October 11, 2017
– Shelved
August 11, 2018
–
Started Reading
August 16, 2018
–
Finished Reading
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Stef
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rated it 2 stars
Oct 08, 2020 06:09PM
You've explained the "meh" of this book a lot better than I did. I think you put your finger exactly on the point
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I’m enjoying this repartee as I’m trying to decide whether to get beyond the halfway point with this book, which is constantly putting me to sleep! Barry’s comments may have helped me decide!
I like this book a lot, but it also made me uneasy for the reason you stated. After chapter 47, Hetty did not appear again in the novel except in the talk of other characters. I feel that's really unfair considering her harrowing journey and fate.
This is really interesting to me, I didn’t like her character that much. I liked the Bedes and Mr Irwin’s, and wanted to find out what was going to happen. I am really surprised it was her first novel. For me, it was just as engrossing and captivating a world as Middlemarch
