Shadow Runner (Shadow Series)by K.J. Fieler; What Victorians Do in The Shadows

 

Shadow Runner (Shadow Series)by K.J. Fieler; What Victorians Do in The Shadows 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: K.J. Fieler’s Shadow Runner novel uses shadows as a frequent motif. Characters appear and disappear into shadows. Mentors hide their true selves from students. People discover hidden secrets about Victorian London's elite. Everything and everybody is concealed by some veil of secrecy, hiding who they are, and showing their dark sides, their shadow selves.

Ada is from a wealthy upper class Victorian home who was once spoiled and coddled and now no longer is either one. Her mother died in childbirth along with her newborn baby brother. Her father, once loving and wise, has now withdrawn into himself and avoids her entirely. Besides grief, Ada is tormented by strange clouds and creatures that come in and out of the shadows at night. She is afraid especially after one of those creatures kidnaps her. It is revealed to be Nadine, a human woman, who exposes some ugly truths about the girl's father. She is part of an organization called The Shadow, a team of thieves, spies, and assassins who are capable of fighting, killing, and turning practically invisible. Finding that she no longer has a home to return to, Ada takes Nadine up on her offer to join the organization and begins a rigorous training where she learns to outfight, outwit, and outlast any opponent and to treat everyone like an enemy including those closest to her.

This book presents a fascinating look at a young girl who has to be stripped down to her barest minimum before she recognizes the hidden strength and adaptability that she needs to survive in the world. Ada starts out as an object of beauty living an ornate existence of opulence and artifice, almost a doll-child made of porcelain in a doll house. If she has questions about marriage, position, social class, her role as a woman in society, and other important issues they are all dismissed, repressed, and just flitted away. 

Ada’s life is summarized as pretty to look at but don’t touch or express any feeling or deep emotional connection.That will cause the entire house to crack, flaw, and break under its fragility. Her family life stands, as did many wealthy homes in the Victorian Age, a monument to propriety, beauty, ennui, and comfortable ignorance. People who will never want for anything because they have everything. 

Ada’s only sense of authenticity is when she plays chess with her father and shows profound intellect and analysis in playing the game. Besides showing her intelligence, her chess games prove useful in her Shadow career. However, at this point, it’s still confined to a game with rules in which one side wins, another loses, and there is no collateral damage. It's also one of the few moments of real bonding between Ada and her father. It is a time to out play and outsmart each other. However, Ada never realizes that she has already lost and her father had a checkmate in a game in which she didn’t even play.

The artificial existence that Ada lives in changes after the deaths of her mother and brother and her kidnapping by Nadine. For the first time, she is swept up in grief, loss, and the reality that comes with them.These emotions overwhelm her because she is so inexperienced with them. She is in torment as her once idyllic seemingly perfect world’s cracks have become more visible. She is a stranger to her father and while she still is close to some of the servants, they are dismissed by him. Ada thought that she had another family. For the servants though, it was just a job, a job that they can walk away from anytime, either by choice or by force. 

Ada realizes that she is invisible in this house, a fact made clear during a bizarre multi page sequence where she actually turns invisible in the presence of the servants. She shows no reaction during it or after things return to normal and she is noticed once again. She has been pampered and petted as a pet or an ornament but is never acknowledged or seen for her true self in any way that mattered. She has been invisible and replaceable her whole life. She just didn’t realize it until now.

 It is no coincidence that Ada joins The Shadows after she finds out some disturbing motives from her father. She is faced with the truth that the opulent surface that she lived in was a complete fabrication, one in which she was exalted only to be knocked down and replaced like a shiny bauble that has lost its value. Once she is shut out from that life, and she feels the despair, anger, and hatred that simmers inside, she is ready for her new life as a Shadow.

Ada’s training as a Shadow is both disturbing and mesmerizing.The Reader wants to simultaneously look away but at the same is drawn to reading what happens to her and how this experience changes her. The training is like the worst kind of bootcamp imagined and to think this is happening to children younger than thirteen, some as young as seven. The trainees are shorn of their hair, deprived of their clothes and made to wear uniforms. Some are given new names and identities. They are trained rigorously in various fighting and defense techniques and frequently challenge one another in fights to the death. They are given limited rations and are often beaten, assaulted, and verbally abused. They are brought to their lowest and most aggressive instincts and are pushed into using them for a means of survival.

The physical training of the Shadow is triggering enough, but the psychological training is also captivating and troubling. Ada and the other Trainees are not only stripped of their identities but any sense of family, friendship, or belonging. They are drilled not to trust anyone, especially not one another or their handlers. They are told things about their families that may or may not be true but certainly puts them in an air of suspicion towards those who they left behind. The trainers intentionally encourage competition and infighting among the recruits so friendship does not form within the Shadows and they see one another as enemies. This even carries over as Shadows ascend within the organization and gain recruits of their own. They then have to use those same techniques on any new trainees continuing the cycle. 

The Shadow’s strongest ally in their battle against the world is the environment that surrounds them. While on assignments, they are either told to wear uniforms or period appropriate clothing to blend in and disappear within a household, sometimes impersonating servants or houseguests. At night, they also wear ghoulish disguises and masks so when they attack, they remain unidentified and can appear to be unreal like an ominous spectre or a figment from a nightmare. Then they disappear just as suddenly as they appear with no one the wiser about where they came from, where they disappeared to, their real names, or in some cases if they ever existed at all.

It is fitting that they call themselves The Shadows, because that is their most prominent weapon. They use shadows to sneak in and out of streets, alleyways, houses, and nature. They conceal themselves as they extract information and kill those whom they are assigned to. They do this to avoid emotional and mental connections with their targets and because they are not within that outside world any longer. They no longer trust it. Instead they are hidden, secret, observing a world in which they are no longer a part of except to take something from it at the behest of someone else. 

Ironically as Ada remains hidden like her colleagues, her true, most honest, most authentic self emerges. Before she was living a shallow existence in a luxuriant shell. She was never honest with herself, always playing the perfect and dutiful daughter as her parents were playing the loving and proper caregivers. As a shadow, she is able to use tremendous strength and agility in fighting opponents. Her chess training allows her to strategize so she can solve problems and find solutions that result in victory. Her literacy and education helps her to visualize possibilities and research pertinent information that prove useful on assignments. As a Shadow, she is able to use skills and knowledge that would not have been possible in her previous life.

Despite all warnings. Ada’s biggest drawback is that she develops a conscience and begins to genuinely care about certain people. As her body and mind develops as a Shadow, so ironically does her heart. She becomes attached to a younger Shadow and while they engage in vicious battles and backstabbing, she withdraws from actually killing her even though she has plenty of opportunities to do so. On an assignment where she poses as a governess for an employer whom she has to steal some documents from, she bonds with the young girl that she teaches, perhaps seeing her younger self or a more assertive version in this child. She stands on the edge of a romance with the girl’s brother until Ada does something unforgivable in the name of her assignment, something that closes her connection to the outside world forever.

The strongest bond that Ada develops oddly enough is with Nadine. Despite subjecting her through physical and psychological stress that tests her endurance and ability, Ada feels a strange emotional bond with her. Call it Stockholm Syndrome. Call it codependency. Call it BDSM. But something develops between the two women that becomes mentor-student, mother-daughter, sister-sister, friend-friend (maybe lover-lover?). It is one in which the two hide much from each other but ultimately reveal the true depths of their love and loyalty. A love and loyalty that far superseded and exceeded the love that Ada and her parents, especially her father, shared.  

In being rejected from the bright and beautiful but dishonest world in which she lived, Ada had to find herself in a world of honesty and authenticity, a world of tough choices and real emotions, a world of courage, stamina, thought, and sacrifice, a world of darkness and of shadows. 

 

Weekly Reader: Victorian Adventure Stories by Jon Stephen Jones; Nostalgic Adventurous Fun Set In The Victorian Era

 

Weekly Reader: Victorian Adventure Stories by Jon Stephen Jones; Nostalgic Adventurous Fun Set In The Victorian Era

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Question: Are you a fan of the old 19th century Adventure Novels written by Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H.G. Wells? Do you like the mysteries featuring characters like Sherlock Holmes, A.J. Raffles, Arsene Lupin, and Fantomas? Do you dream in Steampunk? Does your preferred style of reading end in the 20th century before Realism and psychological motivation became the thing? Do you read just to embrace a good adventurous escape? Then look no further than Jon Stephen Jones' Victorian Adventure Stories. 

This anthology is exactly what it says on the tin and in some ways that's what makes it good. The stories are predictable, but exciting. They are entertaining and fun. When a Reader is under stress sometimes it's good to kick back with an old fashioned adventure yarn and Jones provides that.

The best stories are:

"Henchman"

Most of the stories stand on their own but there are some plots that carry over into multiple stories. "Henchman" is the first of three stories that feature The Medics, a ruthless gang that rules London's Underworld and are headed by the mysterious Dreaded Doctor, an unidentified figure who has had some medical training which they put to good use when taking apart an enemy or a stool pigeon (and might be that other frightening unidentified Victorian medico, Jack the Ripper.).

The trouble starts when John Felmersham, a Medic operative, has decided that he has had enough of gang life and wants to resign. Unfortunately, the Medics don't exactly take rejection well. As John struggles to escape from his former employers, they use various intimidation tactics such as death threats on windows and stalkers following him from train station to train station.

The story has its share of tension since John never knows who is in the Medics, so much of the suspense lies in the fact that anyone that he meets could be a potential threat. One of the more interesting twists is the revelation of the Dreaded Doctor's true identity. While in the context of the story, the twist is obvious, the implications and back story behind this character and how they became the Dreaded Doctor are rather fascinating to imagine. The Dreaded Doctor takes an older story and gives it a more modern outlook.

"A Hebridean Adventure"

If "Henchman" is a tribute to the crime stories for Arthur Conan Doyle, then this story is a tribute to Doyle's other well known work, The Lost World with a lot of Jules Verne thrown in. It is also the other plot that carries over into multiple stories in this anthology.

Professor James Bedford accompanies his colleague, Giles, and several others to a mysterious island near the Outer Hebrides.  Of course the island is filled with prehistoric creatures that scare the daylights out of our plucky scientists and adventurers.

"A Hebridean Adventure" is one of the definite tributes to the old adventure novels in writing style and characterization. The band of scientists are the typical characters that would be found in such an adventure of the time period. There is the cynical first person narrator, the enthusiastic science expert who cares more about exploration than the cost of human life, the assistants that provide their expertise to the expedition, and the working class muscle. We even have the bratty kid whose involvement causes more harm than good (and in this case whose actions carry over into another story, "The Great Exhibit." I told you the Outer Hebrides Island carries over into other stories.) Characterization takes a back side to action and adventure just like in the real life books and stories of the era.

In fact the only real modern touch in this story is that the dinosaurs have feathers, keeping with modern paleontological research that has shown that dinosaurs may have had them as potential evidence of their subsequent evolution into birds. 

The reason that this one is one of my favorites is because it is such a pastiche of the writing of the era, that it could have been written then. While "Henchman" takes centuries old ideas and gives them unique modern twists, "A Hebridean Adventure" is firmly stuck in the past and that is part of the antiquated fun.

 

"The Magic Circle"

You know the fairy stories where some poor mortal gets invited to share a drink or a dance with the Fair Folk only to return from the party to find that centuries have passed? "The Magic Circle" takes these old fairy legends and transports them to the Victorian Era. Geoffrey and Edward, two drunken Victorian gents, take a spooky ride on the London Underground. No one else is on the train nor is anyone driving. Things get weirder when they encounter a very short man who politely offers them a drink.

Jones clearly has a lot of fun visualizing a fairy land that has gone Industrial like its human counterparts. The legendary creatures have their own station in which they dub the "real London Underground," a station where they lure unwary travelers. The drinks are now offered in pubs and stands rather than in a court setting. The Little Man that speaks to Geoffrey and Edward could be mistaken for the average London train goer of the day. It's an interesting twist when most fantasies write Faeries as still living in an agrarian Medieval in appearance society, that some author modernize them.. Jones writes the magical creatures as capable of modernizing their culture and using human's styles and inventions against them. 

The other interesting aspect to this story is that it's a tribute to the London Underground System and was meant to correspond with the 150th anniversary. Jones reveals how much the system has changed over the centuries and how it's still a part of London daily life.

"The Box"

Let's see we have criminal gangs, dinosaurs, and fairies. Why not a story that pays tribute to the con artist and Gentleman Thief, that charming lying conniving bane of law enforcement's existence as popularized by characters such as Maurice Leblanc's Arsene Lupin and E.W. Hornung's A.J. Raffles (the latter of whom was created by none other than Doyle's brother in law)? "The Box" is a clever game of one-upship as the various characters seek to outdo and outsmart each other.

Gordon is upset because his box containing a precious treasure is missing. He recruits various people including Bill, the station attendant, Arthur, a gentleman, and Marcus and Wayne, a pair of rough Cockney men go on the search for the box. Each one hopes to hoard the treasure for himself or at least for a financial reward.

The story is brilliant as the characters attempt to outdo each other and find the box. Bill and Co's seemingly altruistic desire to help Gordon is definitely put aside for financial gain. 

However the thieves are themselves outsmarted when Gordon reveals himself to be much smarter and more cunning than they are. Two plot twists come into play revealing a clear winner in this battle of wits.

"Next of Kin"

Who doesn't love a good ghost story? The Victorians certainly did as evidenced by works like A Christmas Carol, The Woman in White, and many short stories such as the ones that I reviewed in the anthology Women's Weird.

Terrence storms into the home of his friend, John terrified. He has been haunted by a poltergeist. Concerned for his friend's health and sanity, John goes to Terrence's house to confront the ghost. An apparition threatens to frighten Terrence to death.

John tries various means to get rid of the ghost from engaging in friendly conversation, finding out why it's still on Earth, to physically fighting him. As a last resort, John has to call in a relief player: another ghost with a familiar tie to the duo.

The resolution is sweet compared to the creepy actions previously that shows that even death can't stop true friendship and loyalty.

"To Stay or Not To Tay"

This story mixes fact with fiction by using a real life tragedy as a backdrop for the fictional happenings. The Tay Bridge Disaster happened on December 28, 1879 during a violent storm. The first Tay Rail Bridge collapsed as a train passed over it, killing all aboard.

This disaster is graphically described as a married couple take a fateful ride on the train to flee for their lives.

"To Stay or Not To Tay" calls back in many ways to the first story, "Henchman." Once again we find someone escaping via train from the dastardly Medics and their leader, the Dreaded Doctor. (Unfortunately, even though we now know the identity of the Doc, they don't make a personal appearance in this story and are only name dropped a couple of times. It's rather disappointing since in the first story, the Doctor made a very effective and brilliant antagonist.) 

This time married couple, Lionel and Anne Spadwick are the unfortunate targets for an umm unscheduled surgery after Lionel steals from the gang.

While the story is similar to "Henchman" in the increased paranoia that they are being followed, the biggest issues aren't from the Medics themselves but from the elements and faulty construction. This story shows that no matter how people act, there will always be events that are completely out of their control. Sometimes, Fate doesn't care what you have done or are planning to do when it has other ideas.

Despite the gravitas of Jones' writing in depicting the disaster and the enormous loss of life, there is a clever line that actually draws on some of the other stories suggesting that all of the stories in the anthology are tied together.

Sometimes you want a book that is deep in thought and analysis. Sometimes you want a book that is pure escapist adventure. Victorian Adventure Stories is the latter and that's what makes it fun.

New Book Alert: Trapped in Time by Denise Daye; Typical Time Travel Romance With Strong Independent Female Lead

 New Book Alert: Trapped in Time by Denise Daye; Typical Time Travel Romance With Strong Independent Female Lead

 By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Once again, we encounter a novel on the concept of love and time. This time instead of reincarnation, we encounter time travel. A modern woman is inexplicably thrust back into the late 19th century and has to compromise her modern independent feminism with a time of corsets, suffrage, and arranged marriages.

Emma, a modern 21st century woman, leaves a bad party. She had a rough go of things with an impoverished childhood with an abusive father and an inability to trust men because of that. However, she had a decent career as a pharmacy technician and is currently going to medical school to become a pharmacist. That is before a strange light emerging from an old coin transports her to 1881 London.

There are the typical comic scenes with the fish out of water away from their own time. People mistake Emma's iPhone for a music box and dismiss everything from her shirt dress to her modern slang as just being "typical American." Emma almost too quickly adjusts to being in the 19th century to the point that she questions whether her new 19th century friend, Lilly, would understand that she's a "pharmacist." Lily does understand when she uses the term "chemist" though thinks that it's odd for a woman to be studying such a field.

Since Emma has no idea how she got there and no way of getting back, her logical mind tells her that she needs to study this problem and she needs time and luxury to do it. There are very few employment options for women and only two that allow that time: what Lilly does, prostitution, and well marriage. Emma doesn't want to become a prostitute so marriage it is! The two conspire to get Emma married off to the most titled rake in England, a known heartbreaker (so it will be easy to leave him when Emma hightails it back to the 21st century.) Unfortunately, complications ensue when Emma and Lilly's thought out trap snares the wrong man and Emma starts to, gulp, like him.

The love triangle is standard for the historical romance well with the exception that the heroine is from the future. William Blackwell, Duke of Davenport, the one that Emma first has her sights on is the typical dashing womanizing rake. He is almost a stereotype of this character with few redeemable features. John Evergreen is the nice guy who of course falls in love with the girl and vice versa. The romance aspects are the typical ones found in these type of books. However, the ending is a bit unique for a time travel novel and is an unusual bright spot.

Actually, the parts that shine the most are the moments between Emma and Lilly. Lilly helps Emma adjust to life in the 19th century including giving her a Victorian era makeover and revealing the hard life of a prostitute and that she wasn't born one. She is happy to play the part of lady's maid to Emma's eccentric American widowed heiress considering it a step up.  When Emma tells Lilly about her life in America, actually her life in the 21st century, Lilly begs that Emma take her with her. Many of Emma and Lilly's moments together are the true heart of the book and show the real change that could come about when one is able to think forward enough to challenge the circumstances that they were born into.

Trapped in Time is mostly average in terms of romance but it's female characters stand out making it a sharp clever take on time travel and women's status in this and previous centuries.

Women's History Month Classics Corner: Middlemarch by George Eliot; George Eliot's Magnum Opus About the Reality of Dashed Dreams and Unhappy Marriages

Women’s History Month Classics Corner: Middlemarch by George Eliot; George Eliot's Magnum Opus About the Reality of Dashed Dreams and Unhappy Marriages

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: I admit I enjoy reading George Eliot after Jane Austen.

If Austen's novels are the frilly romantic girl who gushes over love songs and poems, dreams of Prince Charming (or Mr. Darcy), and wonders why life isn't a rom com, then Eliot's novels would be her prickly older bookworm sister who reminds her about the divorce statistics, is concerned with world issues, and maybe finds a partner but usually while she is building her career or becoming involved in social causes.

That being said, I like George Eliot better. One of my all-time favorite novels by her is undoubtedly her greatest work, her Magnum Opus, Middlemarch. Contrasted with other books written by women at the time, Middlemarch isn't overly concerned with romance. Romance is in it sure, but that isn't the main focus. The focus instead is on unhappy marriages, socioeconomic struggles, academic research, political reform and how various characters of different roles of society get along with each other.

To begin with, let's talk about Middlemarch's author herself, George Eliot (1819-1880).

George Eliot, born Mary Anne Evans, was the fifth child of Robert and Christina Evans. Robert was the manager of an estate. It was at the estate's vast library where Evans, a voracious reader, studied Classics and various languages which would have been forbidden for a girl in her time period. Evans had little formal education and was mostly self-taught by this reading.

While Evans was raised in an Anglican household, beginning in her late teens she made friends with various agnostic freethinkers. She began to question her religion putting herself at odds with her father. She also had arguments with her brothers who received the formal education that she had been deprived of because of her gender. Her animosity towards her brothers may have been the inspiration for her novel, The Mill on the Floss which concerns the rivalry between the cruel, Tom Tulliver and his bookish sister, Maggie.

After her father died, Evans visited Geneva and embarked on a writing career in which she chose the name George Eliot. She chose the pseudonym because of her concerns that she would not be taken seriously as a female author and she wanted to maintain anonymity. Eliot produced several essays, translations, various short stories and poems, and 7 novels. Her novels concerned themselves with social issues, religion, class conflicts, Antisemitism, and gender roles things women normally did not write about at the time.

Besides her writing career, Eliot's personal life was a rebellious one as well. She embarked on an over 20 affair with George Henry Lewes, a married editor. Despite his unhappy marriage and his closeness to Eliot, Lewes did not divorce his wife. Nonetheless, he and Eliot were together until his death in 1870 making the two the subject of much scandal and innuendo.

After Lewes's death, Eliot married the much younger, John Cross. However Cross was deeply troubled and attempted to jump from their hotel to the Grand Canal in Rome while on their honeymoon. He survived but the two returned to England where Eliot died of throat infection and kidney disease in 1870.

Eliot’s life is one of a woman who struggled to find her place in the world and rebelled against the constraints of society’s standards towards women. She was able to take charge of her life and be her own person which is what makes Middlemarch so fascinating.

While Eliot was a rebel to the end, her characters try to be. They try to be more than what 19th century rural England expects from them. The most iconoclastic characters are the two leads: Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate.

Dorothea in particular has an uphill battle becoming her own person. She is one of two sisters who are adopted by their uncle Arthur Brooke. Instead of looking forward to marriage and gushing over pretty jewelry as her sister, Celia does, Dorothea is a well-read intellectual woman who dreams of a life of meaning.
She  wants a life of study and active service to the poor. She designs cottages on her uncle's estate so the poor workers can have better equipped, safer, affordable, and comfortable homes. She reads great works and longs to have someone with which to discuss them.

Dorothea feels stifled by the society around her and is often ridiculed for her plainness and her ambitions. Even her sister is confused by her. Celia mocks her cottage plans as “fads” and wonders why she turned down a proposal from the wealthy but conventional Sir James Chettam. Dorothea is an outsider “a cygnet among the ducklings” Eliot tells us.

Eliot compares her protagonist to Saint Theresa “foundress of nothing, who's loving heartbeats and long after an unattainable goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances instead of hindering in some long-recognizable deed.” In other words, Dorothea is someone who longs to do something greater than what she is brought up to do.

If she lived in modern day, Dorothea would be great as a college professor, or an architect who designs houses for lower income families, or the director of a non profit organization that assists people with housing and education. But alas it is the 19th century and she is only raised to be someone's wife. She is stifled in her role as nothing more than a decorative set piece in a man's life.

So Dorothea becomes engaged to Edward Casaubon, an elderly clergyman who is forever researching The Key to All Mythologies. The marriage is unwise to all but Dorothea. Dorothea hopes to become a helpmate to Casaubon by studying various languages, taking notes, researching and maybe publishing their knowledge to the world. She isn't drawn to him physically so much as she is mentally. She believes that he understands her and longs to be his pupil, secretary, and oh yes wife.

What Dorothea gets instead is a man who is cruel and abusive. Casaubon hides his research and does very little with it never wanting it to be published or read by the masses that he feels are beneath him including his wife. He verbally abuses Dorothea when she suggests studying under him and mocks her desires to learn and help others. Far from her intellectual savior, instead Casaubon is as close minded as the rest of the society that Dorothea longed to escape from.

Finding no acceptance from her husband, Dorothea finds friendship in Casaubon's cousin, Will Ladislaw, a free thinking artist. While Will is just as brilliant as Dorothea, she isn't just looking for a fellow intellect though that is a bonus. She becomes aware that she is a woman with emotion, desires, and longings. She and Will become enamored with each other.

While Casaubon is usually unemotional, he manages to choke out enough jealousy that he alters his will out of spite by leaving the estate to Dorothea but if she marries Will, she forfeits the estate entirely.

Ironically, it is only after Casaubon's death that Dorothea becomes the woman that she aspired to become by designing cottages and donating money to various causes. However, she can't ignore her feelings for Will and has a tough decision to make.


Another Middlemarch outsider struck with an unhappy marriage is Tertius Lydgate, a young doctor who arrives to shake things up in the village. While he is seeking a typical marriage with a pretty wealthy bride, he longs to do some good by treating the poor, building a hospital, and conducting scientific research.
Many of his views are held under suspicion by a public that is so reactionary that they question anything that is new. Like Dorothea, Tertius wants to become a different person but is hampered by societal restrictions.

These restrictions are caused by his choice of a wife in the beautiful superficial Rosamond Vincy. Their courtship in which Tertius becomes romantically involved with Rosamond despite objections from her family seems almost like a commentary on Austen's work in which contrivances keep the couple apart until the end in which the couple has a fairy tale wedding. Middlemarch however goes beyond the wedding to show that married life is not what they expected and instead of a cutesy in love couple, Tertius and Rosamond are stuck with opposing views and financial struggles.

Like Dorothea, Tertius thought that he was getting the perfect spouse. He wanted a wife to run his home, connect him to Middlemarch society, and provide the seed money for his medical practice. What he got instead was a Narcissist who spends money on furniture, clothing, jewelry and just about anything else she can put her pretty little hands on.

Rosamond is a lot like Dora Spenlow David Copperfield's first wife, a spoiled childlike fool who is completely unprepared for the realities of adulthood and marriage. Like children do, she wants everything in front of her and is not used to being rejected. Her spoiled attitude and tantrums put her at odds with her husband who resorts to gambling and doing business with shady characters to pay off the debts that Rosamond puts him through.

Above all like Dorothea who wanted intellectual satisfaction, but got emotional desolation in her marriage to Casaubon, Tertius has to compromise his values. Instead of helping poor people, he has to treat and charge wealthy people to keep up with Rosamond's spending sprees.

There are several other subplots throughout the book that all carry the themes of aspirations that are dashed by reality. There is Rosamond's feckless brother Fred, an immature wastrel who realizes too late that superficial charm and idiocy can only go so far as he pursues the poor virtuous Mary Garth. Mary works for a dying cantankerous old man, Featherstone whose greedy relatives gather around him waiting for him to die so they can inherit his money. Sir James Chettam's pursuit of Dorothea is ended by her marriage to Casaubon so he settles for Celia almost as a rebound. Casaubon's research into the Key to All Mythologies is hampered by his xenophobic desire to tie everything to Christian doctrine so he ignores any research that doesn't fit his narrow view. Not to mention his discoveries of current findings are prematurely ended because he can't understand German, the language in which the findings are written, and he is too proud to get assistance. Then there is Dorothea and Celia’s Uncle Arthur who is running for Parliament on a Reform platform that gets shouted down and insulted by his constituency.

All of the characters in Middlemarch have dreams and aspirations to be something more or greater than what they are. While some succeed, most are dashed or altered. The characters compromise values, integrity, finances, and their ideals to settle into lives that were far from what they wanted or expected.

Even when characters get married, there is much tongue clicking and questioning about whether it's the right thing or not. This leaves the ending as somewhat ambiguous when the Reader learns that Tertius and Dorothea become shells of the people they wanted to be for the sake of the conventions that they longed to change or fight against but instead have to settle.

While her characters especially Dorothea could be mirrors of Eliot, the contrast between Eliot and her protagonist cannot be ignored. Dorothea might have been Eliot if she wasn't a writer and didn't have a way to express her creative desires. If Eliot didn't have the courage to live her life according to her principles and not other people's standards, she might have become Dorothea trying to find outlets through her marriages but ending up unfulfilled and dissatisfied. Dorothea Brooke went one way and her author, George Eliot thankfully went another.