REBECCA MEAD: Thank you! I’m relieved, in fact, that I first read Middlemarch when I was still young enough not even to have heard of literary theory. QUESTION FROM WENDY: Do you hope your own son will find solace and advice and happiness in “Middlemarch”? I haven’t done a thorough search of her books for it, but I feel GE was the author least likely to be worried about wrinkles I can think of. Incidentally this week I came across another quote she allegedly said which seems even more implausible to me: “wear a smile and have friends, wear a frown and have wrinkles,” or words to that close effect. REBECCA MEAD: So agree, though I do find when I am reading her that there are lines I underline all the time. I was just telling a friend that GE is the least ‘quotable’ author I know of.and that’s not a bad thing. I think it is significant that no one could find the source of the ‘never too late’ quote. QUESTION FROM DAVID: I really enjoyed your article. And I even like the “Jewish” parts-the bits that one critic-I think it was FR Leavis-thought should have been excised! The relationship between Grandcourt and Gwendolyn makes my blood run cold. REBECCA MEAD: I adore Daniel Deronda! It’s a magnificent novel. QUESTION FROM FL: What do you think of “Daniel Deronda”? What I love about George Eliot is that she has no easy answers-because there are none. Though there’s nowhere better to go than a good novel to learn about what matters in life. REBECCA MEAD: I think it’s very unfashionable among scholars, at least, to think of novels in what might seem a simplistic way.
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