In Love With George Eliot
Kathy O'Shaughnessy
Scribe, £16.99
Review by Dani Garavelli
THERE is a temptation when considering George Eliot's scandalous relationship with George Henry Lewes, and the national adulation she received despite it, to cast her as a great Victorian rebel, defying the mores which prevented most women from achieving their potential.
The opposite, of course, is true. Eliot wanted nothing more than a traditional marriage to Lewes, who was unable to divorce his wife, and, in the course of a monogamous 25-year union, she secured it in all but name.
As for the fame, she relished it, but she wasn't always sisterly; her refusal to become the poster girl for the fledgling suffragette/suffragist movement was a source of irritation for her more radical friends.
It was her slightly po-faced morality rather than her breach of conventions that did for her in the end. After her death in 1880, the woman who once had the British literati at her feet, was scorned as humourless and old-fashioned.
In her debut novel, In Love with George Eliot, Kathy O'Shaughnessy, takes all these conflicting elements to draw a layered, tender portrait of a clever but emotionally-needy woman who fluctuates between an unnerving belief in her own talent to a terror of being misunderstood.
Initially isolated by her relationship with Lewes, O'Shaughnessy's Eliot is hungry for friendship and at war with her own forthright personality. She seems to suffer from a sort of emotional Tourette's. She steals her old friend Sara's thunder by revealing herself as the author of the celebrated Adam Bede at exactly the moment Sara is presenting her own work, which she goes on to dismiss. Yet, the next day she wakes up petrified she has lost Sara's affection forever.
This is the pattern of Eliot's encounters. She says too much; she says too little. She overshares; she undershares. Then, in a panic, she pens earnest little missives clarifying her sentiments; trying to reset the friendship.
Always desperate for displays of affection, she allows – perhaps even incites – literary reviewer Edith Simcox's romantic feelings for her, only to recoil when Simcox tries to kiss her. According to O'Shaughnessy's vision, Eliot is self-aware enough to know she is doing and why, but unable to stop. "I have a painful susceptibility to encourage a certain approach in others," O'Shaughnessy writes. "As I person I need – 'these things' – she gestured vaguely. What she really meant was love."
The book is based on letters to and from the writer, and on Simcox's obsessive chronicling of their relationship. What makes it a "novel", rather than a fictionalised biography, is a second, contemporary story: a love triangle involving three academics organising an Eliot conference. This format allows Eliot to be seen both up close and from distance and provides a platform for an airing of competing perspectives on the writer, particularly her refusal to be co-opted as a figurehead for those campaigning for sexual equality.
Like Eliot's masterpiece Middlemarch, In Love with George Eliot is principally an exploration of matrimony: Eliot's successful, but unofficial marriage to Lewes, her official but less successful marriage to John Cross, 20 years her junior, whom she wed after Lewes' death, and the one between two modern academics.
O'Shaughnessy is not the first to note the irony that Eliot, who wrote about disastrous marriages with such insight and was forced to "live in sin", found, in Lewes, the ideal husband – a man willing to sacrifice his own literary ambitions to her superior talent. Her portrayal of their relationship is uplifting. She depicts Lewes as a man in intellectual harmony with his wife and their union as a partnership of equals. A great promoter of her ability, he appears to have managed her fits of melancholy, hiding bad reviews and sending the jealous, sniping Herbert Spencer on his way.
It is less clear what purpose the modern love story serves, but it matters little. There is enough pleasure to be had from immersing oneself in Eliot's world and gaining an appreciation of this clever, mercurial, yet vulnerable woman.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here