Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Reading Classic Novels with an Eye on Settings

Now that the eye doctor told me the macula in my eyes have started weakening, I am reading as much as I can. Shouldn’t that be the other way around that I should not read as much? Not for me. Tell me not to do something. I’ll do it. Oh well, que sera, sera.

On the subject of reading, for every two or three modern-day books, a good chunk of them e-books by indie writers, I decided to read one classic either one I had read decades ago or one I haven’t read.

As the understanding of good writing evolves like any other living concept, huge differences exist between the now-a-day and much older writing. For one thing, not one publisher would accept the oldies without making major adjustments in the presentation of the stories even if he loved the characters and the plot. Today’s *accepted* writing grabs the reader from the start and doesn’t bore him to death with ornate paragraphs and descriptions.

Still, sometimes, the poetry in the older type of fiction excites me. An example is the novel I just started to read: The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot –a.k.a MaryAnn Evans—first published in 1860. The novel begins with a detailed and beautifully described setting. I have to say I love to write settings, although I think they are more for writers than readers because settings secure the writer’s pen and provide a place to let the story happen. To not bore the readers, today’s writer inserts into the action--in small doses--the background of the story, be it the past of the characters or the time and place surrounding their story. What I usually do is to write the setting for myself and introduce it as I go along.

I admire the intro with the background in The Mill on the Floss because the author put action in his descriptions. It isn’t just, this is situated here that stands there by the…etc. If one has to introduce an unusual setting that the reader has to know about before the story starts like that of an imaginary world, this is a method to emulate.

Here are the first two paragraphs from The Mill on the Floss. It still has a two or three more that continue with the description. The book is free in Gutenberg.org and for Kindle, Nook, etc.

“A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships–laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal–are borne along to the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last year's golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.

And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at,–perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above.”