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    Silas Marner
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    Silas Marner
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    Silas Marner
    Audiobook7 hours

    Silas Marner

    Written by George Eliot

    Narrated by Gordon Griffin

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    This classic novel takes place in Lantern Yard, a slum street in an unnamed city in Northern England, during the early 19th century. There, Silas Marner, a weaver and a member of a small Calvinist congregation, is falsely accused of stealing the congregation's funds while watching over their very ill deacon. Two pieces of evidence are against Silas: his possession of a pocket knife and the bag that formerly contained the money. Although there is also strong evidence that Silas' best friend, William Dane, has framed him (since Silas had lent his pocket knife to William shortly before the crime was committed), Silas is exiled by the community of Lantern Yard and moves to the village of Raveloe, where he lives as a recluse, caring only for work and money. Bitter and unhappy, Silas' circumstances begin to change though when an orphaned child is left in his care...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateSep 12, 2017
    ISBN9781520079561
    Author

    George Eliot

    George Eliot (1819-80) was born Mary Ann Evans into the family of a Warwickshire land agent and did not escape provincial life until she was 30. But she was brilliantly self-educated and able at once to shine in London literary circles. It was, however, her novels of English rural life that brought her fame, starting with Adam Bede, published under her new pen name in 1859, and reaching a zenith with Middlemarch in 1871. Eliot was a devoutly moral woman but lived for 25 years with a man who already had a wife. It is indicative of the respect and love that she inspired in her most devoted readers that Queen Victoria was one of them.

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    Reviews for Silas Marner

    4/5

    38 ratings66 reviews

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    • 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.
    • 2/5
      Combines wordiness with sappiness.
    • 3/5
      Re-read 9/20/17. Still meh. Reads more like a church parable than a story with interesting characters. Compelling to read but unsatisfying in the end. One too many bows put on the mysteries. Maybe I should give it two stars instead of three.
    • 2/5
      Simplistic.
    • 4/5
      Still wonderful, a grownup child's story.
    • 4/5
      Classic 1861 novel about a socially outcast weaver who adopts a child, and the country squire's son who keeps her true parentage secret. Like many novels of this time period, it's pretty wordy for the amount of actual story, but it's a pleasant read, with a warm message about what really makes a family. And George Eliot's writing displays a very keen eye for the details of human nature.
    • 5/5
      In Silas Marner, George Eliot has crafted a heartwarming fable woven with incisive commentary on religion, community and the true meaning of wealth. The title character starts out as a faithful member of a religious commune, poised to marry the love of his life. He soon finds himself framed for theft and is exiled from the community. Betrayed, disillusioned and heartbroken, Marner settles on the edge of a faraway village. He becomes a hermit, finding solace in counting his precious stash of gold coins each night. He interacts with the outside world only as required to sell the cloth he weaves and accumulate more gold. But fate intervenes in Marner's life once (well, twice) more. He is forced to engage with the village community, and the rest of the story follows his resulting growth and redemption.Though the material is more simple than that of her larger works, Silas Marner still showcases Eliot's masterful (but admittedly dense) literary style, signature social commentary and humanist beliefs. Her keen observation of human nature helps her writing speak to readers hundreds of years and thousands of miles distant. I heartily recommend Silas Marner to all lovers of literature. Due to the book's modest length, it is especially suited to someone looking for a taste of Eliot's work but who may not have the time or patience to take on Middlemarch. Or the world-weary intellectual looking for an uplifting, fairytale-like story to restore their faith in humanity.
    • 3/5
      Read half. Just too laborious at the wrong time. Don't want to pick it back up now, nearly two years later.
    • 4/5
      I've been going through the classics lately and don't have much good to say from them. This is the first so far that I can say that I liked. I think it's my modern perspective looking at it to think this, but I think it could have been much shorter. The first half, at least, of the book seemed to be too drawn out and didn't seem to connect things till much later in the story. I see all the connections now but I don't see that it was needed to put so much detail in it. I also like the fact that Eppie didn't want to have money. Most of the characters I have run into so far in older books, namely (and clichely) Pride and Prejudice, have wanted almost nothing but money and material wealth. But Eppie loved Silas and her way of life and didn't want to change. That made me appreciate the book much more.
    • 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
      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
    • 4/5
      I read this in high school, but somewhat haphazardly. I appreciated it more when I was in the process of reading all Eliot's books, which I eventually did--even Scenes from Clerical Life, which I managed to find, in two volumes, at a Library used books sale in 2012--acquried on the last day of the sale, when the books were free!
    • 4/5

      This is a book which countless teenagers have been forced to read as part of the school syllabus. For some reason I didn't have to read it when I was at school. I'm glad that's the case, because I've a feeling this would not have appealed to me very much when I was a teenager.

      As has been the case when I've read other novels by George Eliot, it took a while for me to become fully engaged with the narrative. But once the links between the various characters became clear, listening to the audiobook (beautifully narrated by Nadia May) became a joy. Essentially a story about the redemption which can come through love, the novel has something of the fairytale about it. Eliot might be criticised for sentimentality, but this is ultimately a feel-good story with an important moral. Added to this are Eliot's deft characterisation, elegant prose and the sure manner in which she evokes Victorian village life. Overall, listening to this was a most enjoyable experience.

    • 4/5
      Still considered as a stranger in the village in which he has lived and worked as a weaver for the last fifteen years, Silas is further treated with suspicion and dislike for his solitary life, as well as the well-founded rumour that his greatest pleasure is counting his gold coins every night. When a thief finds his way to the treasure, Silas' world seemingly falls apart, until one winter night, when a small child appears by his fireside, seemingly out of nowhere. Silas at first mistakes the toddler's golden hair for his lost fortune in gold, but instantly becomes attached and decides to keep and raise her as his daughter, and he comes to see that she has taken the place of the gold and brought many greater riches to his life. A beautiful and poignant story of redemption, this short novel (around 200 pages) is also an astute social commentary by the author of Middlemarch, which I intend to tackle in future eventually.
    • 4/5
      A complete surprise from start to finish - Eliot still rules!
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • 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
      The introduction writer was correct - this novel is rather like Thomas Hardy but *not annoying*. Possibly because the characters are actually likable and understandable in their motivations.

      Generally a fun, moving little tale. I found Dunsie a cartoonish villain and the disposal of Eppie's mom rather heartless, but I loved the themes of chance and choice that thread through these characters lives - they can't control their lives, but whenever they give up their moral agency, bad stuff happens.

      I also loved the narratorial voice at the beginning. It was like George Eliot was telling me a bedtime story.
    • 2/5
      It took me three years to finally finish this book. I found it one rainy day when I was 7, decided it was good enough to pass the time....and hit a brick wall. I would pick it up periodically but still I found myself unable to read it. Finally at the age of ten, I managed to finish it. Imagine my relief at finally being able to rid myself of the torment of having an unfinished book. So the story is bland enough, and the personal emotions attached to this book great enough that I absolutely cannot remember the plot. I do think that at the time I thought it mediocre at best.
    • 3/5
      That was fine. Good. Nice. Pleasant. I really liked a lot of the writing, which was often witty and perceptive, surprisingly modern-sounding and good enough to keep me interested throughout what is, I guess, a fairly slim book (just under 200 pages in large print, although the print wasn't as enormous as some large print can be) but the overall plot was fairly pedestrian. As a result, this only gets 3 stars and goes on my pile of books to get rid of, as I won't be needing to read it again. I might, however, pick up other George Eliot books, should they cross my path, on the basis of the quality of the writing.
    • 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 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.
    • 3/5
      I don't like my chances of being able to say anything new about something that has been around since 1861. The story is a simple one, and the themes are both eternal and easily discerned : redemption, the emptiness of money compared to love and the hypocrisy of those vested with wealth, prestige and power. For me, the novel sagged after the first few chapters, but picked up again, and then some, shortly after the half way mark. Even in a more leisurely age, Eliot must have had a purpose in introducing villagers that seem to spend a lot of time sitting around looking jolly, and taking many pages to do so. A couple of prominent characters, the pristine Eppie and her consort Aaron are less than interesting, but Silas and the tortured Godfrey Cass more than make up for it. The last couple of chapters really tugged at the heart, but it was honestly a bit of a slog to get there.
    • 4/5
      This book was a real-life Book Circle read that, well, got mixed reviews. Some people thought the writing was brilliant and others found it dated; some people thought it was too short, others too long for the short story they felt it truly was and not the novel it's pretending to be.I think it's a lovely book. I think Silas is about as honestly drawn and cannily observed a character as fiction offers. I think the village of Raveloe is as real as my own village of Hempstead. It's a delight to read about real people, presented without editorial snark, in a book from the 19th century.And therein the book's real achievement. When it was published in 1861, it was a revolutionary tract! The hoi polloi were not to be represented in Art, and novels were then most definitely considered Art, unless they were romanticized, made into prettier or uglier or in some way extreme examples of a Point of View. Simple, honest, direct portrayal of people that novel-readers employed but never conversed with?! Shocking!A book of great importance, then, for its groundbreaking treatment of The People. But also...and this is the reason it helped wreak the revolution whose Robespierres and Dantons were Hemingway and Company...it is a simple story of a man's journey down an ever-widening path that leads to enlightenment, told without A Message or A Moral, in prose that remains graceful 150 years later.If you read it in high school, don't blame IT for the hatred your English teacher left you feeling...blame the teacher. It's not fairly presented in English courses. Read it as an adult, and judge it for itself. Maybe it'll be to your personal taste, maybe not, but I think a grown-up read of a book this seminal to all the others we read today, never thinking about how improbable their existence is, isn't too much to ask.
    • 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
      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
      One of the best books I've ever read. Eliot has a great insight into the human mind. Very touching.
    • 5/5
      Heart-warming, touching story of how a little girl redeems the sad life of her adoptive father.
    • 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.'