“Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another.”
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My mother - Late Minati Deb (Dev surname is mine and my daughter's fiefdom) was a great lover of Bengali fiction. She would regularly insist that as a young boy I too develop the liking for novels. Of course, some Bengali novels --- I always enjoyed reading. Storyline would fascinate and excite me.
But I also noted that most good Bengali stories (or any literary work) would deal with pathos.
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| Maa - a diehard fan of Bengali fiction |
Everyone seems to be in pretty miserable condition, I would often complain. She would dismiss my argument but would often try to put up an argument that stories must be read with some basic understanding and appreciation about Morality, hypocrisy, social influence, family obligations, religion or spirituality as one would understand.
And also elements such disappointment, hope, ambition and jealousy. Many years later when I took up English literature - I could make better sense of what she wanted to say. Of course, I had grown up a little more !
I also started writing for local newspapers in Nagaland then. Hence, the distinction between fiction and non-fiction was also getting clearer.
Mom had simple way of telling 'big things'.
For example, she also used to say -- "you must note many characters ... would like to change the society and the world around .... but the world would change them in the end".
Non-fiction would convey information.
But it would be one theme or one set of information. This I thought was 'limitation' about journalism too.
But Fictions will have a series and a wide range of experiences. It was for the readers to grasp and if it is films - the viewers have to gauge that.
One English book had struck me. It was not part of any academic course. But I would spend hours reading and re-reading.
It was Middlemarch -- penned by George Eliot. -- 'Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life'
Published in 1871–72, the novel had a complete bouquet.
It portrayed the intersecting lives of residents of a Midlands town.
The drama focused on Dorothea Brooke's ill-fated marriage, the professional struggles of Dr Tertius Lydgate,
the romantic fortunes of Fred Vincy and Mary Garth, and even the disgrace of the banker Nicholas Bulstrode.
I am sure I would like to read it again from a fresher's perspective.
In circa 2026, the novel Middlemarch has made news yet again.
To my surprise the 900-page portrait of 19th-century provincial life has been voted the best novel of all time in a Guardian poll of writers, academics and critics. There are interesting plots and sub-plots -- a character is drawn closer to Dorothea like a moth to a lamp.
Though Dorothea is beyond reproach, her jealous husband isn’t so sure. He imagines the two of them getting up to .... !!
George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans) was already a highly successful novelist by the time Middlemarch was published in instalments in 1871 and 1872.
Beginning with a marriage, and a deeply unhappy one, it upends the marriage plot.
The novel is set 40 years before it was written, just before the Reform Act of 1832 and the arrival of railways. England is on the brink of change: the enfranchisement of the middle classes and the end of an old order. But reform in the novel is about more than politics. Eliot’s characters want to change the world.
'The Guardian' has put up a lovely edit. "Eliot herself is a wise and gracious voice in the novel, breaking the fourth wall to remind us to look or think more carefully", it says.
The article - also says - "In placing an intelligent, high-minded young woman at the centre of her novel, Eliot reshaped English-language fiction".
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| Mom's Toolkit |
Now a few paras on Bengali novel writing. This may not be linked to Middlemarch. Nevertheless.
The emergence of the Bengali novel in the 19th century was fueled by the Bengal Renaissance, colonial encounters, and booming print culture. It shifted literary focus from mythology to social realities.
Pyarichand Mitra's Alaler Gharer Dulal (1857) and
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Durgeshnandini (1865) mark the birth of modern Bengali fiction.
Coming back to Middlemarch; George Eliot conveys a universal truth, life lesson .... !!
In other words, she is a great source of quotation.
Aphoristic ---- describes a style of writing or speaking that is short, concise, and full of general truths !!
A few references : “Time, like money, is measured by our needs.”
Our vanities differ as our noses do, all conceit is not the same conceit....
“We are all of us born in moral stupidity ...
We all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors
“Destiny stands by sarcastic with our dramatis personae folded in her hand.”
“Souls have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another.”
Wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions...
snap - The Guardian ::::
Juliet Aubrey as Dorothea Brooke in the 1994 BBC adaptation of George Eliot’s Middlemarch)
Henry James said that some of the scenes in 'Middlemarch' were the most intelligent in English fiction. Martin Amis, over 100 years later, called it “a novel without weaknesses”.
The Guardian edit drives home a simple point, pretty straight.
"The magic of the 19th-century realist novel is succumbing to its world for hundreds of pages, and never more so than when reading Eliot’s masterpiece.
It is a joy to live among the gossipy, imperfect inhabitants of Middlemarch. The backdrop of local elections and national uncertainty are particularly timely, as are its lessons on sympathy and tolerance.
As Amis observed, “it renews itself for every generation”.
ends
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