Middlemarch… finally

I figure people have had enough time to read this novel but if not, perhaps don’t read this post, or listen to my rambling audio because there are spoilers. Occasionally when I’m driving in the car I record voicenotes to myself (yes it’s probably unwise and even illegal). One such note I recorded last year, or maybe even earlier. I was part-way through reading Middlemarch for the first time (I’d had a false start before that; couldn’t dedicate proper attention and got overwhelmed by characters) but this time, I finished it! It took several months of reading a chapter or so at breakfast so it’s not as if I fully stepped into it and read heaps each day.

This voicenote is about me mulling over how deftly Eliot managed plot and character and how dense it all is. The two beeps are my novel title for an upcoming project, which is a big one and I’m wondering if it will be four books, a quartet. In this day and age in publishing and world it’s a crazy and ambitious thought but fuck it. I write on spec not to contract and I have the freedom to write what I want, and take as long as I want. This is a freedom but also a privilege, I’m aware. So I can’t write unless I am gripped, and the subject matter and characters and thought processes around the work captivate me across years. Perhaps this is a mad idea, four books. Who do I think I am? Knausgard?

I’m thinking I might sometimes whack up a voicenote here when it’s to do with reading or writing. Why not. Even when the quality is shit, as this one is (I’m in the car), but I’ve run it through something called Magic Mastering which has tidied it up.

Here also are my pics taken of the character notes I made while reading, trying to keep it all straight.

Next book for breakfast reads: Moby-Dick (which I started late last year and then got sidelined with my very-bad-no-good 2025). I’m going to try to get back to it because it was surprising and not at all what I expected! To me it was reading as a queer text! Who knew!?

Until next time.

x j