Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Weaver and the Waif
Silas Marner by George Eliot is a classic novel that was first published in 1861. There are a couple of things right off the bat that may be misleading. First off, author George Eliot is not a man. Eliot is the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Mary Ann Evans is an English novelist, who besides Silas Marner, wrote several classics including Adam Bede, Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, and The Mill on the Floss, among others. Secondly, Silas is not a big albino who likes to beat himself. Wrong book. That’s in The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. This Silas is a weaver wrongly accused of theft. Disgraced and dumped by his fiancée he leaves town to make a small life for himself in the countryside. Being the early nineteenth century he has nothing to get his mind off his problems—no Pinterest, no Netflix, no video games. So, he sets about weaving and weaving and weaving and hauling in loads of gold for his work. Then one day someone steals all his gold. Everything he’s worked for is gone in sixty seconds. He’s devastated.
He has nothing—until one winter night a two-year-old girl toddles into his life—literally. Her mother, an opium addict, died in the snow and the little girl roams right into Silas’ home (and heart). He takes the little girl in and raises her as his own. Luckily, there are worse fates than having a two-year-old in your life. In truth, they’re little packages straight from Heaven. When they put their tiny arms around your neck or give you a kiss, it’s like getting a 100-proof shot of pure happiness. Then with sweet, little, sing-song voices you might hear an excited little “Hook, Hook!” when she wants you to look at something. Even in anger, a two-year-old can make you smile when, for example, she’s yelling at the “woops” (wolves) or dogs to “Top it! Dat’s enup!” (Okay, you got me. I’m talking about my beautiful granddaughters.)
At the end of the day, having little Eppie in Silas’s life is worth all the gold in the world. She’s his salvation and makes his life worth living again. She completes him. She’s the yin to his yang. Years later some interesting developments come to light and we get some answers to questions like “What happened to Eppie’s father?” and “Where did thief who stole Silas’ gold run off to?”
Happy reading!
Annette
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