Customer Reviews

Adam Bede (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Adam Bede, the titular hero of George Eliot's first novel, is of a character so sterling that one little anecdote serves to define his whole life and work ethic: He's a carpenter, and he had done some work for a lady whose father, an old squire named Donnithorne, suggested that she pay him less than the fee he requested. Adam insisted that he would rather take no money for the job, for to accept a reduced amount would be like admitting he overcharges for shoddy work. By standing on his principles, he won his full fee in the end and cemented his reputation as a businessman of honor and acumen, proving his fairness to both his customers and himself.

Thus he seems an unlikely match for Hetty Sorrel, the prettiest girl in the village of Hayslope. Vain, selfish, materialistic, hating her laborious farm chores, Hetty bears more than a passing resemblance to Flaubert's Madame Bovary. However, while Madame Bovary's unattainable dream world is inspired by her reading romances, Hetty "had never read a novel" so she can't "find a shape for her expectations" regarding love. Unable to foresee any possible consequences for her actions, she allows herself to be seduced by Arthur Donnithorne, the old squire's grandson, who stands to inherit the land on which most of the Hayslopers live.

Arthur is a radiant example of Eliot's mastery in complicated character creation. Acutely aware of his position in society, he has the kind of charisma with which he can talk to his tenants politely but with just the slightest hint of condescension and completely win their respect for his authority. In fact, he is so accustomed to receiving nothing but admiration for his apparent moral integrity that it comes as a genuine shock to him when Adam, a man he truly likes, reproaches him for his reckless behavior with Hetty, a girl both he and Adam truly love. And the tragic irony is that Hetty doesn't really deserve either of them.

Religion plays a curious role in the story. Adam's brother Seth is infatuated with a woman named Dinah Morris, a cousin's cousin to Hetty and a Methodist evangelistic preacher who was inspired by Wesley in the flesh. Her influence among the villagers comes to the attention of the Anglican Rev. Dauphin Irwine, the vicar of Hayslope, who visits her to try to figure out her game and concludes that she's essentially a good woman with a good heart. Indeed, she is the first one to sense that Hetty may be headed for troubled waters and earnestly offers her spiritual guidance, to which Hetty responds with distrust and irritation.

Most powerful of the novel's images is that of Hetty wandering through the darkness and dangers of the English countryside in desperate search of the departed Arthur, carrying with her a symbol of their tormented love, and oblivious to the goodness of Adam, whose only desire is to protect her from the disappointment, shame, and disgrace that result from her pitiful reliance on Arthur's ability to buy her pretty things. But Eliot is too fond of her hero to let him suffer for long when the tides of fate come crashing violently to their inevitable shores, and the ultimate product is a novel of great compassion for its characters.

Highly recommended for those who loves classic literature. George Elliot beautifully captured the lives of the people in rural English country in the late 18th century and early 19th century. I guarantee you'll fall in love with all the 4 main characters ie. Adam Bede, Hetty Sorrel, Lord Arthur and Dinah Morris before you finish the book. The courting scenes involving Adam Bede and Dinah are both very romantic and honest. George Elliot had a great understanding of human nature which makes the story very believable although it's fiction. ADAM BEDE's a hero in my heart, and this book's a must read for all literature fans.

I just finished "Adam Bede," turning to the novels of George Eliot after a long stint of reading only Thomas Hardy. A long-time fan of Hardy's work, I thought him to be my favorite English author -- George Eliot, however, has proven to be quite the challenger to Hardy for a place in my heart.

"Adam Bede" is the tale of simple people making their way in the world, each of them encountering hardship and sorrow along the way. Eliot's style is immediately engaging: she addresses the reader directly, and it seems like she is behind the scenes everywhere, pulling up a curtain to reveal vignettes in the lives of her characters. She forces the readers, almost, to fall in love with Adam immediately -- the strong, righteous man whom the story will carry along its rocky path. Similarly, Dinah emerges immediately as the source of peace and goodness in the novel, and it is always refreshing when, in times of turmoil, she appears.

I was bothered by only one element of the story, but I think it is rather easily overlooked: Adam's unrelenting love for Hetty. Eliot gives little background as to why his feelings for her are so strong, and all we really know of her personality is that she is incredibly vain because she is incredibly beautiful. Adam never struck me as a character who would fall for such a "surface" woman. His final choice for a wife (which I will not reveal in case amazon.com surfers haven't read the book yet) seems much more appropriate.

All in all, the journey through this book is a most rewarding one. I look forward to my next Eliot read!

ADAM BEDE is a thrilling read, though it may seem hard to believe given the unpromising setting and the stilted way Eliot introduces her story. But after the first few starchy chapters, abruptly, something wonderful happens: she gets wise to herself. It's as if you can see her realize that the upright characters she *thought* she was pinning her story on, dull Dinah and Mr Irwine, aren't really the stuff of which fiction is made -- so she shoves them aside and takes up the flawed characters of her triangle, who resonate with possibility at every turn. Suddenly, miraculously, with almost no warning, all Eliot's amazing gifts as a writer take center stage: Her psychological insight. Her phenomenal wit. The dramatizing genius that allows her, effortlessly, to plot the most intimate narrative developments against the gigantic backdrop of a county-wide feast or funeral. Her fearlessness and surefootedness in picking her way (and ours) through the tangle of social and class relationships of an entire village. In this embarrassment of riches, maybe most rewarding for a reader like me is Eliot's unerring ability to pay off her plots: here, ladies and gentlemen, is a writer who knows how to write the hell out of a climax -- George Eliot's big confrontation scenes never, ever disappoint.

Too, some wizardry seems to keep her narrative touch both incomparably delicate and completely unflinching at the same time. At the heart of ADAM BEDE is a story so sordid I wonder whether it could be broadcast on network TV today, and Eliot tells it without vulgarity but without ever shying away from its ugliness. My most serious criticism of the book is that Eliot didn't quite trust herself enough not to tack an unconvincing (and, worse, uninteresting) happy ending onto her story. But the hair-raising drive of the middle two-thirds of the book is something you'll never forget.

I love Marion Evans and expect others would enjoy her very much too. I'm writing this review to make sure that, if Adam Bede is your first experience with her, you not judge her by it and, if there is anything you find you like in it, that you go on and read more by her... Silas Marner, Middlemarch, essays, etc.

Adam Bede is, if I recall correctly, one of her earliest (if not first) extended works... the rest only get better. It is the only one that I would give less than five stars. There's really only one thing that mars it.

But first, what's good about it? Well, there's her deeply probing, psychological characterizations that leave all of her characters fully understood by the reader. We may love, admire, sympathize with, hope for, dislike, or disapprove of them. But we always understand them. Even the most minor characters or bit parts get well-developed. She puts more into a characterization of dogs than some writers do of humans... and it's clear that she loves them both very much!

Then there's her beautifully dense english: within a single sentence she can present a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. She has the most charitable way of using irony I've ever encountered. Also, she was very much to British vernacular what Mark Twain was to American vernacular. This is especially marked in Adam Bede and may lead some people to shy away from it.

Also, she takes on the big issues of her day... political and religious change, the position of women and the otherwise disenfranchised, etc... in a way and to an extent that no one else in her day was doing. It's somewhat stealthy at times, being cloaked in the lives of the individuals who are affected by the issues. Not infrequently her own views come, comically, from the mouths of those who must otherwise be taken to least likely represent them... very sly. An example from Middlemarch flows from the nontraditional Dorothea's very traditional sister: "Oh, women are better than men at most everything [Dorothea smiling in response and her sister catching herself]... excepting of course the things they're not I mean!". I think her writing definitely stands the test of time.

Now what's bad? One thing only... Adam Bede has one radical plot twist that's either physiologically impossible or relies on the unbelievable ignorance of most of the characters. I can only imagine that the twist was less perverse to the Victorian reader's sensibility but it left me cold near the end of an otherwise warm, engaging, moving work by a great writer.

This world-famous novel is all about love and loss and making choices in marriage. Adam loves Hetty who loves Arthur who is a scoundrel. Hetty gets pregnant by Arthur, who deserts her, despite Adam's efforts to save her. Later Adam marries Dinah, a serious, calm cousin of Hetty's, after his brother Seth unselfishly gives her up. Obviously, this summary is only the tip of the iceberg. Eliot is truthful, moving, intelligent, never dull--this is perhaps her best novel. (I liked it better than "Middlemarch.") Begin reading it and you won't be able to put it down--AND it will stay with you for a very long time afterward.

This is the first book that I have read by George Eliot. I have serveral others of hers but I alway seemed to have another book I wanted to read. In fact, I started Adam Bede once and was about 150 pages into and put it down. After 6 months or so, I decided to pick it back up and I am glad that I did.

This is a wonderful story about a person who is true to himself and to those around him. This is also a story about how the actions of a person affect more than that person and those immediately involved.

The only problem I had with the story (and thus the 4 stars) was the dialect of the language used in the book. It is difficult to get used to the dialect and it is difficult to know what the character is trying to say. However, after the first 200 pages, I did get the hang of it but it was difficult going at first. In fact, it was because of that difficulty that I put the book down before.

I was glad to have read this book. It does have a shocking part to it though it is subtle at first. What really helped me was to read several chapters and then go the the sparknotes and read them to make sure I had not missed anything which was a big help in fully understanding the story. I would recommend that if you read this book, read the sparknotes after every 4 or 5 chapters.

I would also recommend this book to anyone that likes Thomas Hardy and espcially his "Far from the Madding Crowd." I loved "Madding Crowd" and this book reminded me of it.

I truly recommend this book to anyone that likes English Classic Literature. Once you get the hang of the dialect you will like this story. If you read this one and have not read Thomas Hardy's "Madding Crowd" I would recommend that you read that one as well.

"George Eliot" is the masculine pen name of the brilliant English classic novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). Evans grew up in Warwickshire and knew rural England like the back of her hand. It was with this background allied with her literary genius that persuaded her in 1859 to write her first full length novel "Adam Bede. She did so at the urging of her longtime lover George Henry Lewes. After a career penning short stories, literary reviews and translation she was ready to begin one of the greatest careers in all of English fiction. Eliot produced such masterpieces as "Silas Marner"; "The Mill on the Floss"; "Daniel Deronda"; "Romola" and her lengthy masterpiece "Middlemarch"
Adam Bede occurs in the time of the Napoleonic wars. Adam Bede and his brother Seth are carpenters living in the small village of Hayslope. Their mother is the cranky but good Lisbeth. The novel begins as a young female Methodist preacher the fetching Diane Morris is preaching in the village square. Seth is in love with her but his dreams of matrimony will not be fulfilled. Adam is smitten with the seventeen year old featherhead but lovely Hetty Sorrel. Hetty is an orphan who lives with her relatives the Poyser family at the Hall farm. Hetty will be seduced by the rich but weak willed Arthur Donnithorne. He will abandon her; she will kill her baby and plans on being married to Adam. Hetty is tried for murder but at the last minute is saved by a reprieve won for her by the repentant Arthur. Diane and Adam marry. Order and tranquility are restored to Hayslope but Eliot and her readers of 1860 knew that the rural life of sixty years before would soon yield to the encroachments of industrialism.
Adam Bede is a leisurely novel with a slow pace. We see the seasons unfold in all their English glory; met the Poysers and the garrulous Mrs. Poyser and her passel of children. We attend drinking and harvest parties and catch up on the gossip with the "rude mechanicals" of the town who share their folk wisdom and foolishness with the reader. Much of the book is written in a dialect but this is understandable and not an obstacle in perusing Adam Bede's many pages.
Although an agnostic, Eliot displays a deep knowledge of the Christian Bible and teaches us about the early Methodist movement in these pages. Many of the characters such as Adam, Seth and other characters have biblical names.
Hetty Sorrel reminds this reviewer of the character of Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" of 1850. Unlike Hester, however, we see little moral growth in the soul of Hetty. Eliot had an understanding for those under a moral black cloud due to her unorthodox relationship with Lewes. Her style probes psychological corners of the human soul. Eliot wrote for literate adults producing a work of beauty, wisdom and love. She is the brighest of Victorian novelists and one of the best. I have read this book several times and list it as one of my all time favorites. Essential!

Adam Bede is a wonderful, tragic story in the very best tradition of 19th century English novelists. You will be swept away by the marvellous enigma that is Hetty.

I came across an original review of Adam Bede on The Atlantic Monthly's website. ... if you are interested, go to their website and under the section entitled "Books and Critics" type in "bede". The review itself was posted in October 1859.

Compared to Middlemarch and Mill on the Floss, Adam Bede is a dull read. Sure it has all the richness of George Eliot novels, but the story seems a bit contrived and the ending isn't very satisfactory.