The World Before Her

The World Before Her
By Deborah Weisgall (288 pages)
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Bookish rating: 4

Set (mostly) in Venice in 1880, an aging Marian Evans (who wrote as George Eliot) is a newlywed after her unconventional earlier life. Her husband is 20 years younger . . . and kind of a douche.

In a parallel story 100 years later (so, 1980), Caroline--entirely fictional, unlike George Eliot/Marian--is married to her own douche canoe, only this time she is the one 20 years younger.

Both women have mixed, mostly meh feelings about their marriages, artistic progress (Marian: writing, Caroline: sculpture), and general discontent. At times, their ho-hum feelings toward their own lives reads a little . . . affected. A tad (and needlessly) theatrical or dramatic, which made me a little impatient at times. I type this while quite aware of the lens through which I was reading the novel--at the time, I was juggling a demanding full-time job, sick children, my own (two) stomach viruses, and a traveling husband. So, I often wanted to shout, OH GOOD LORD, WHO HAS THE TIME TO ANALYZE THE INTENTION BEHIND A HUSBAND BUYING A PIECE OF JEWELRY FOR 3 WEEKS AND THEN JUST SIT AROUND FEELING MELANCHOLY ABOUT IT?!

I finished the book during the final week in April that my life was not (total) chaos, and I was better able to appreciate the language and style (very lovely and effective) and the complexity of Marian and Caroline.

Recommended for George Eliot fans. Or literature fans.