Ffs this was utterly amazing - I loved it so much better than Middlemarch! Each story has so much warmth and emotion that it’s impossible not to get anything out of them. There’s a lot of tragedy and Victorian style melodrama but it’s not overblown and really really hits. Actually need to stop reading these emotionally devastating novels because I’m going to spend all week crying at this rate

need a reread in the future since I only skim-read.

Three novellas make up this collection of scenes, and, unusually for my experience of Eliot, I loved only two. I could not get into the middle rather sentimental tale of a wealthy family's poor ward who falls tragically for the heir to the manor, with predictable consequences. The first story showcases Eliot's customary gift for the understanding of human natures and gives us plenty of rich characters in a short format, while presenting some very funny commentary on the ways of the Church of England. But it is the final story, "Janet's Repentance" that is the star of this work. It concerns the genuinely surprising subject (for Victorian fiction) of domestic violence, treated in an almost shockingly honest and modern way. Though Eliot skirts the resolution of this situation somewhat, the portrayal of trauma inflicted upon a victim of both emotional and physical abuse reads as startlingly accurate. As members of the small village go through various kinds of victim-blaming, Eliot's narrator stands wholly behind her heroine. This portrayal is entirely moving and captivating, as I have come to expect from Eliot's supreme understanding of human nature.

Very much enjoyed this clearly early work by Eliot, such an up close and personal look at the lives of clerics in the countryside, even when sometimes the three stories veer off into dramatic black and white situations and resolutions.
Sure, the author would later round out more and become more consistent in delivering high quality writing, but the impact of ideas and powerful emotions important in everyday life shine through clearly here - all the more forcefully at times.

Broken up into three short novellas. The beginning of each new story lost my interest, but by the end of each I was totally riveted. This was especially true of the last story about Janet Dempster, which was a hope filled story about overcoming domestic violence and substance abuse.

We only read "Amos Barton" for class.