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    Silas Marner
    Silas Marner
    Silas Marner
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Silas Marner

    Written by George Eliot

    Narrated by Freda Dowie

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Here is a tale straight from the fireside. We are compelled to follow the humble and mysterious figure of the linen weaver Silas Marner, on his journey from solitude and exile to the warmth and joy of family life. His path is a strange one; when he loses his hoard of hard-earned coins all seems to be lost, but in place of the golden guineas come the golden curls of a child – and from desolate misery comes triumphant joy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateNov 7, 1995
    ISBN9789629545291
    Author

    George Eliot

    George Eliot was the pseudonym for Mary Anne Evans, one of the leading writers of the Victorian era, who published seven major novels and several translations during her career. She started her career as a sub-editor for the left-wing journal The Westminster Review, contributing politically charged essays and reviews before turning her attention to novels. Among Eliot’s best-known works are Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda, in which she explores aspects of human psychology, focusing on the rural outsider and the politics of small-town life. Eliot died in 1880.

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    Reviews for Silas Marner

    4/5

    80 ratings68 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A complete surprise from start to finish - Eliot still rules!
    • 4/5
      A book you haven’t read since high school is on the list for the 2016 Reading Challenge.Synopsis: A young weaver, Silas Marner, is betrayed by his best friend and subsequently leaves his home to find a place to live near a small village. Although he is prosperous, he exists as a poverty stricken hermit with no real friends. One night he is robbed and although this puts him in a more sympathetic light with the townspeople, he goes into a deep depression. During one of catatonic episodes, a two year old girl toddles into his home and changes his life for the better. The mystery of her parentage and of the disappearance on Marner's money are eventually solved.Review: There are huge portions of this story that I'd forgotten since the days in Betty Swyers's classroom. Although the language of the 1800s tends toward verbosity, Silas Marner is much less dense that Middlemarch, one of Eliot's other books. The 'truth will out' and the relentless progression of time are two of the main themes of the story, although unlike many writers in this same time period, the happy ending adds a touch of pleasant finality to Eliot's tale.
    • 4/5
      A good book overall; though definitely not in the period of Eliot's ripe penmanship. The descriptions are beautiful, and the emotions are very real.
    • 5/5
      Set in the early 19th century, Eliot's narrative accurately features the lifestyle, values and traditions of the period. Ethics, religion and the industrial revolution all play a part in this beautiful story. I realize it is not to everyone's taste but I find the old-fashioned language is a delight, describing the actions and feelings of the characters so beautifully.
    • 4/5
      I had been put off George Eliot by my English teacher at school, who had a strong dislike of 'Middlemarch' that soon communicated itself to me. In a way this was a good thing, as I soon found myself enjoying 'Silas Marner' much more than I had expected, having expected to hate it. It is a convincing illustration of parochial English country life, with the short-sightedness and inherent distrust in all things 'foreign' typical of society at that time. Eliot is easier to read than I thought she would be, and she is also a fine storyteller. Maybe it's time to take another look at 'Middlemarch.'
    • 4/5
      It took me a little bit of time - and concentration - to settle into the story. I found Eliot's writing style to be a wordy and probably better suited for reading than listening to (especially if you are like me and tend to multi-task while listening to an audiobook!) Silas Marner is one of those classic tales that runs the gamit of tangible loss, disenfranchisement with society and seclusion of sorts until fate one day gently opens the door and presents a possible path towards a new beginning: A life of redemption and the re-discovery of what it means to love (and we don't mean a continuation of love of worldly possessions!) Eliot does a fantastic job playing sociologist, presenting 19th century England with its class structure (via the squire), rural/ small village life and the ever present role of religion and 'village values' in guiding the population through life. For me, the first 1/3 of the book was pretty much 'ho-hum'. The story started to make its mark on me during the Christmas festivities and that was when I settled in and really was able to enjoy this story for the tale it is.
    • 4/5
      I picked up Silas Marner as a spring board to George Eliot’s work, AKA Mary Anne Evans, before bigger commitments such as Middlemarch. Yikes – Silas did not turn out to be a walk in the park. Some misleading facts: A) The book is maybe 50% about Silas. Lots of other key (and non-key) characters occupy pages and pages of the book. B) The synopsis of the book suggests the book revolves around Silas and the child Eppie. Well, the child shows up at Chapter 12, page 108 out of 183 pages. C) I wonder if whoever did the illustration for the cover read the book. She was a 2 year old, in rags, and certainly was not holding a note!! :P Now, re-calibrate yourself to a slow Victorian start, with background stories galore and even some unrelated non-story thrown-in, and ta-da, you will enjoy Silas Marner.Seriously, reading it was a bit of dental work, lots of poke and prod, before the pretty polishing touches. A devoted and dedicated man, deceived and framed by a devious friend, Silas leaves Lantern Yard to Raveloe. Embittered and humiliated, he keeps to himself, working non-stop, living miserly, skipping church and friends, finding joy only in the gold he has painstakingly horded, and yet to have this gold stolen. Dum dum dum. That was page 37, end of Chapter 4. Now fill the pages between Ch 5 through 11 with character stories and backdrops before we arrive at who really matters – Eppie. The story lights up when she arrives. An entire Chapter 6 at the Rainbow (pub) was lost on me. As soon as town folks spoke in “village language”, I was stumped. It wasn’t until I arrived at this passage from the Miss Gunns sisters that I realized I wasn’t processing my reading correctly, “…what a pity it was that these rich country people, who could buy such good clothes should be brought up in utter ignorance and vulgarity. She actually said ‘mate’ for ‘meat’, ‘appen’ for ‘perhaps’, and ‘oss for horse’, which, to young ladies living in good Lytherly society, who habitually said ‘orse, even in domestic privacy, and only said ‘appen on the right occasions, was necessarily shocking.” Doh! Of course, I needed to put on the decoder ring and play guess that word. morrow for tomorrow. gell = girl. allays = always. Got it. Two other main characters occupy the core of this book. 1. Godfrey Cass, the selfish wimp, who pines for Nancy Lammeter, hides the fact that he is married and is the biological father of Eppie for 16 years. His ‘punishment’ – a childless marriage to Nancy. “Dissatisfaction, seated musingly on a childless hearth, thinks with envy of the father whose return is greeted by young voices…” 2. Nancy Lammeter contributed to his laments by denying his request to adopt Eppie (without being told he is her father). Nancy “…had her unalterable little code, and had formed everyone one of her habits in strict accordance with that code.” This code dictated leaving things be as god defined (no adoption) and yet Godfrey is the rightful father and they can provide more physical comfort to Eppie. I had a slight urge to slap her for standing by Godfrey in persuading Eppie to leave Silas and join them. The cream of the book is undoubtedly the love and bond between Silas and Eppie. He dotted on her as lovingly as any father possibly can, and she was the sunshine of his life, representing the gold he lost. I thoroughly enjoyed these pages and wish there were more. “…where Silas Marner sat lulling the child. She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep - only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky - before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.” In return, Eppie loved Silas for all he has given her, declining Godfrey and Nancy with “And he’s took care of me and loved me from the first, and I’ll cleave to him as long as he lives, and nobody shall ever come between him and me.”Reading fiction can be quite a stab to the heart, when your own parental love (or spousal love) do not measure up to the ideals of fiction. This book easily pressed such a button.A few more quotes:On the Rich vs. the Poor:“The rich ate and drank freely, and accepted gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families, and the poor thought that the rich were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly life; besides, their feasting caused a multiplication of orts, which were the heirlooms of the poor.” On Men: :)“…viewing the stronger sex in the light of animals whom it had please Heaven to make naturally troublesome, like bulls and turkey-cocks.”On Women: :)Heroines are always somehow petite-ly dainty - “…while she was being lifted from the pillion by strong arms, which seemed to find her ridiculously small and light”Vs.“Mrs. Kimble was the Squire’s sister, as well as the doctor’s wife – a double dignity, with which her diameter was in direct proportion.” Lol.This book is themed much around karma. From Dolly, Eppie’s godmother:“Ah, it’s like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest – one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it’s little we can do arter all – the big things come and go wi’ no striving o’ our’n – they do, that they do; and I think you’re in the right on it to keep the little un, Master Marner, seeing as it’s been sent to you…”
    • 4/5
      Loved this story. Heartwarming. Examines the issues of parenting, real love, possessiveness and a good mystery to boot.
    • 4/5
      This is a story about a man who likes money very much.One day ,all of his money was stolen,but he got a girl instead of his money.I Iike this story in two points.Firstly this story told me the importance of family.And secondly I found more important thing than money.
    • 5/5
      Silas Marner is a reclusive weaver whose greatest pleasure in life is to count his gold in the evening. Then one night a rascally neighbour steals his gold and Marner is bereft. On the night of a ball at the squire's a woman carries her daughter through the cold to confront the squire's son who married and then abandoned her. She collapses from the cold and drugs and her young daughter manages to crawl into Marner's cottage. From then on his life is transformed as he raises the girl. Wonderful story of transformation and consequences.
    • 5/5
      Heart-warming, touching story of how a little girl redeems the sad life of her adoptive father.
    • 5/5
      One of the best books I've ever read. Eliot has a great insight into the human mind. Very touching.
    • 4/5
      I choose to read this book by George Eliot because I was interested in her life story and was curious to see if I would like her writing. This was a small book and seemed like a good start. I did enjoy this story. The old writing is hard at times but I found the story still timely.
    • 3/5
      Dickenesque plot, lots of sentiment and melodrama. It contained a lot of social commentary that made it preachy and outdated. More relevant as a historical document; though I would think that the author's class background would make her "insights" into working class values and mores less valid.
    • 4/5
      I would have great difficulty justifying to my seventeen-year-old grandson why he should read George Eliot’s Victorian novel “Silas Marner,” a part of which he might be assigned to read in a summer high school English class. Elliot’s verbosity and frequent ultra complex sentence structure were not meant for today’s broad-based reading public and certainly not for most high school juniors.Example: “A dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.”However, Eliot provides a heart-tugging story, compelling characters, and insightful commentaries about people true 200 years ago as they are today.At times Eliot is both perceptive and eloquent. Examples:“The yoke a man creates for himself by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature …”“I suppose it is the way with all men and women who reach middle age without the clear perception that life never can be thoroughly joyous: under the vague dulness of the gray hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, and finds it in the privation of an untried good.”“Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.”The story is about the loss of trust in man and God and its rebirth. Silas Marner, a young man totally immersed in the beliefs of an unspecified strict religious sect burrowed away in a large 18th Century industrial city, is accused by sect leaders of stealing chapel money. They ex-communicate him. Silas’s love-interest rejects him and marries, instead, his closest friend, the actual thief. Silas leaves the religious community and settles far away in the “rich central plain” of England near the community of Raveloe, “never reached by the vibrations of the coach-horn, or of public opinion.” He begins a bleak life weaving fabric to be used for dress-making. The community views him with suspicion. He is an outsider. He is a near-sighted, peculiar-looking man given occasionally to cataleptic fits. Disillusioned by his former peers’ cruelty and God’s refusal to protect him, he shuns human contact.Silas’s life becomes one of incessant weaving and hoarding of gold coins. 15 years pass. One stormy winter night, while he is away delivering dress fabric to a client, Silas’s hoard of coins is stolen. Members of the community cannot determine who is the thief. On New Year’s Eve a two-year-old child crawls into Silas’s cottage to escape a freezing mist. Her mother lies dying unseen just off the path to his opened door. Silas, suffering a cataleptic fit, does not see her enter and notices her lying near the warming hearth only after he recovers. Because nobody in the village claims her, he takes ownership of her and proceeds to raise her. She changes his life.“The gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer and longer, deafened and blinded more and more to all things except the monotony of his loom and the repetition of his web: but Eppie called him away from his weaving, and made him think all its pauses a holiday, reawakening his senses with her fresh life, even to the old winter-flies that came crawling forth in the early spring sunshine, and warming him into joy because she had joy.”Other characters have varying importance. The author displays here especially her acute perception of human strengths and weaknesses. Godfrey Cass, eldest son of the Squire of the community, is a significant character. Cass is a weak-willed man with a strong conscience. He has made a major mistake in his life and strives to conceal it in order to win the hand of a desirable, respectable young woman. His subsequent aspirations ultimately interfere with Silas’s rebirth. I enjoyed additionally the theme of the novel, expressed inarticulately by the selfless, illiterate community do-giver, Dolly Winthrop, who has become Silas’s advisor and confidant. “’… there’s trouble i’ the world, and there’s things as we can never make out the rights on. And all as we’ve got to do is to trusten, Master Marner—to do the right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten. For if us as knows so little can see a bit o’ good and rights, we may be sure as there’s a good and a rights bigger nor what we can know—I feel it i’ my own inside as it must be so.’”
    • 4/5
      A memorable story and a good read. While some of the plot turns seem somewhat "too convenient", the overall effect adds to the book's Biblical and mythological overtones. The wrongs Marner endures and the evilness of the Cass brothers have you really pulling for him at the end. Eliot's descriptions of rural life and its people are what she's known for, but my favorite passage of Silas Marner was:"She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep - only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky - before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway".
    • 4/5
      Silas Marner is a strong and lovely little tale, with a blessed departure from all the tedious and repetitive society conversationsand obsessions which overruled the intriguing characters and stories of both MIDDLEMARCH and The Mill on the Floss.A happy ending was totally unexpected and welcome.
    • 4/5
      Being horribly wronged is compensated by the creation of new lives as father and child. A wonderful story that stays with you.
    • 4/5
      One of the only books I read for school that I actually liked.
    • 5/5
      Silas Marner is a weaver who has cut himself off from the world because of a severe wrong done to him. He becomes a hermit and a miser who only cares about his gold. When his gold is stolen from him, he is devastated. However, losing the money actually wakes him up a bit because he has to converse with his neighbors about his loss, whereas before he would only talk "business".Soon a little girl comes into his life that opens up his heart and soul. Their love for each other as two "castaways" is truly heartwarming. Highly recommended classic.
    • 2/5
      A hundred years later, still an assigned reading in many high schools. This copy has the names of students of "M. H. S." in 1923 and 1925.: Mary Elizabeth Blew and Surer Colson, who were juniors in 1925 and 1923, respectively.
    • 2/5
      Combines wordiness with sappiness.
    • 4/5
      Silas Marner by George Eliot was originally published in 1861 and I think this book has withstood the march of time remarkably. Silas Marner is a weaver who comes to the village of Raveloe as an outsider never quite fitting in. He spends much of his time alone with his only comfort being the gold that he has saved and now hoards. When his money is stolen he is left anxious and confused. But he rescues an orphan child whose mother perished in a snowbank, and, with the help of the villagers he raises this child with care and love. Eppie, the child grows into a beautiful young woman but when the local quarry’s water levels go down, a body is revealed and alongside the body is Silas’ gold. This body is that of the local squire’s never-do-well brother who not only stole the gold but was also blackmailing his older brother who had entered into a marriage with a barmaid. The woman who perished in the snowbank was that lower class wife and the squire has known that Eppie is his daughter all this time. When he finally reveals this to his wife and they decide to claim Eppie for their own, they realize that they have left it too late as Eppie will have no parent but Silas.With his gold restored to him, and Eppie entering into a happy marriage, the book ends with Silas realizing that money is best used to improve life rather to to be hoarded and worshipped. While the squire sadly realizes that he has lost his chance at fatherhood by ignoring his daughter when she needed him. Overall an interesting morality tale that I thoroughly enjoyed. I read this book through installments from Daily Lit and the story certainly held my attention through all 70 segments.
    • 5/5
      This is a great story and a good introduction to George Eliot. She really captures the characters of the English countryside. She can capture their accent on the written page.
    • 4/5
      Surely this was required reading in high school? Yet I never read it.Silas Marner was a man wronged by his nearest and dearest friends. He left his home and country (in my imagination, Yorkshire) to settle afar. There he set up his weaving, but spoke to no one more than needed. Slowly, he amassed a fortune.In losing his fortune (I won't tell you how), he gained back his humanity. In truth, he restored a several lives, though he would perhaps never understand that.Greed, envy, sloth, avarice, hubris,... None of these baser emotions are the provenance of the 21st c., as are not love, humility, and generosity. Timeless story. I am glad to finally have read it!
    • 4/5
      This short classic novel reads almost like a fairy tale. Silas Marner is a miser who weaves during the day and counts his gold every night. He is a bitter recluse and lives alone in the world. All this changes when his gold and stolen. What seems at first to be misfortune, changes Marner's life when he finds a young orphan child in his home, who he adopts and loves. Beautiful story about love, fate, and redemption.
    • 4/5
      I liked this for lots of reasons that didn't relate to the plot or the execution of the plot: namely, for historical details about weaving (that one person in a village would have a loom set up in their house and would take in spun flax from the rest of the villagers and would turn it into cloth for them), about relative isolation of villages (that Silas Marner could seem like a complete otherworldly alien, not merely because of his profession, but because he came from over the hill and far away, and that you could have Dissenter villages, such as the one SM grew up in), for portrayal of drug addiction back in the 19th century (Godfrey's first wife), and for portrayal of a single, working parent--and a father at that--bringing up a child. That last part I found fascinating, though in terms of percentage of the story, it occupied a very small portion. Silas Marner must find a way to keep his adopted daughter Eppie out of harm's way while he's weaving. He ties her to the loom at one point; at another point he puts her in something like a high chair or a playpen. He also has to deal with disciplining her; he can't bring himself to mete out corporal punishment, and the thing he hits on as a replacement, on the recommendation of his solicitous neighbor, Eppie turns into a game. These details struck me as so realistic and charming! As did this portrait of toddler Eppie, who's wandered off one day:
      The meadow was searched in vain; and he got over the stile into the next field, looking with dying hope towards a small pond which was now reduced to its summer shallowness, so as to leave a wide margin of good adhesive mud. Here, however, sat Eppie, discoursing cheerfully to her own small boot, which she was using as a bucket to convey the water into a deep hoof-mark, while her little naked foot was planted comfortably on a cushion of olive-green mud. A red-headed calf was observing her with alarmed doubt through the opposite hedge.

      As for the story itself, and its execution. . . It bewildered me slightly. George Eliot spent an awful lot of time (from my perspective) on things like SM's early years in his first village, and his being falsely accused of a crime there--I understand why *some* time needs to be spent on that, but it felt like a lot to me--and on things like the pub scene, which seems to be there just to establish local color, or on the ladies talking together prior to the squire's ball. These were all interesting in their own right, but for me, they also bogged down the forward motion of the story. I liked the time spent in Godfrey's head. He was such a weak-willed guy, so capable of lying to himself and taking the easy way out, and George Eliot showed that perfectly. I wasn't as persuaded by her portrait of SM in his gold-hoarding days. I could accept what she was telling me about SM, but I didn't believe it viscerally. (Whereas, his transformation and his desire to parent Eppie--all that I did believe.)

      In the end, I thought this was a very engaging story, but not in the ways that GE probably intended me to find it engaging, and it failed (somewhat) in engaging me in the ways I think she intended it to be engaging. But still, I liked it very much. For psychological portraits, and for an interesting glimpse into history--and for the surprising single-male-parent angle--I think it's an excellent story.
    • 4/5
      A short and appealing novel about the life and misfortunes of the title character, betrayed by his best friend and fiancee and finding new life elsewhere where he meets new challenges and joys. This has interesting things to say about the influence of religion over people's lives and how different people find fulfillment in different things in life. Early on there are also some good humourous scenes between two brothers, whose actions both before and during the action of the novel affect Silas's life in different ways. 4/5
    • 3/5
      My first George Eliot, author number 2 in mission 'let's try some Victorian fiction after all.' Author number 1 was Trollope. It's hard to imagine two more different experiences than this and my first Trollope, The Warden.

      Eliot really should have been born in the 20th century. She might have been one of the greatest sociologists of all time: great imagination, great ability to sum up the social changes of modernity, great ability to see ancient parables in modern settings. All good. I'm ambivalent, though, about her prose. It manages to be convoluted (whereas Trollope, for instance, is straightforward) and not particularly attractive (whereas Austen before her and James after her might have been complicated, but generally very pleasant to read). That's fine for 200 pages, but I'm worried that it'll make Middlemarch a bit of a slog. Nonetheless, I'm willing to try on the basis of Silas.

      I also see that many people were forced to read this in high school. One day teachers will realize that it's better to teach long, clearly written books to teenagers than to pick short books by 'classic' authors. I hope that day is before my kids hit high school.
    • 5/5
      This book was excellent! I loved the way the fairytale and social realist strains came together and mixed and wove and you weren't ever quite sure which world you were in. Silas Marner is expelled from the society of his fellows because their religion makes unsound claims for unsavoury reasons. He becomes a Rumpelstiltskin, a mountain gnome with his gold. The world intrudes again, and he is left bereft and thrown back on the people, but luckily this time back in the village, where their suspicion of this eldritch figure with his inhuman clack-clack-clackery is trumped by their need to help. The collective in all its complex glory, building up as it tears down--not only Silas, but the gentry--Godfrey, who loses his title, his child; Dunsey, who loses his life. Eliot's sensitive, sad but equanamitous observations on that which buds within us and before we even know it's there is half-grown. The absolutely exquisite balancing of fates that makes Godfrey and Nancy neither better nor worse than they should be but still so sympathetic; similarly, Silas's failure to go back to Lantern Yard and receive revenge or revelation, and how it doesn't matter at all because the best narrative arcs bend towards happiness, and youcantalwaysgetwhatyouwantbutifyoutrysometimesyou mightfindyougetwhatyouneed (or YCAGWYWBIYTSYMFYGWYN). Silas Marner literally ends with the words "I think nobody could be happier than we are" and sells it. Reminds me of Thomas Hardy at his most sunny (least cloudy?). (Weirdly, it was also the inspiration for Black Snake Moan, in which Samuel L. Jackson keeps Christina Ricci chained up in the basement so she won't have sex wth boys.)