Before this year I had read George Eliot’s Adam Bede and Middlemarch, but I’d also heard plenty about The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, and Daniel Deronda. After I joined an Eliot readalong, I’ve reread Adam Bede and finally read The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner, and now I’m getting a chance to read the two books I knew nothing about: Romola and Felix Holt. We’re starting Felix Holt in a couple of weeks, but I just got through Romola, and this is a case where if it weren’t for the readalong I wouldn’t have gotten far. I’ve loved — absolutely loved — all of Eliot’s books until Romola, so when it wasn’t really doing it for me I relied on group momentum to keep going. I’m genuinely glad I did, as I did ultimately enjoy it, though perhaps I’d not feel a great loss if I had never gotten to this one.

Romola takes place — surprise surprise to me — in Renaissance Florence, beginning in 1492 when Lorenzo de Medici has just died. What a rich cultural setting Eliot chose! There was so much going on in Florence at this time related to religion and governance and the economy. This might, in a way, be one of the novel’s problems. Eliot insists we get the picture, which often, particularly in the first half of the novel, comes at the expense of the story that is developing among the characters. And while characters are so often one of the strongest aspects of Eliot’s work, here I had a hard time finding them in the setting.

Though I now feel I’m being a bit unfair. See, I did ultimately find the characters, and by the end I cared for them quite a lot and was quite captivated by the story, even if I was a bit fatigued by the prior 400 or 500 pages. But if I boil it down, I find so much to admire.

The novel begins with a young man named Tito Melema shows up in town and charms many of the folks he meets, including Romola and her father, the scholar Bardo de’ Bardi. Tito and Romola fall in love and marry. At the same time, though, Tito has a mock wedding to the naive Tessa, who has fallen in love with him. That’s not Tito’s only secret. Over the next several years Tito’s corruption grows along with his paranoia that his secrets will spill out. Meanwhile, Romola grapples with her own ideas of duty, faith, and loyalty.

It’s interesting to me how much I am enjoying the novel as I look back upon it. I’m certainly enjoying it more than I did while reading it. I think that’s because Eliot does have some tremendous ideas flowing throughout it, and her characters are still strong even as they work to explore Eliot’s themes. I particularly loved watching Romola struggle to understand “where the duty of obedience ends, and the duty of resistance begins.” Her embodiment of the tumult that comes with the combination of religion and enlightenment is fascinating to behold and, truly, masterfully done. Even if there’s a lot around it that didn’t make this a fantastic read, at least in the way I often envision “a fantastic read.” Writing this has helped me come to appreciate the novel more, and I’m glad for that.

Next it’s Felix Holt, which, as I said above, I know nothing about. But I’m excited to learn!