Middlemarch

I recently finished George Elliot's Middlemarch, and it completely blew me away.  So I find myself in the occasional position of loving something that's already been written about to death -- I would imagine that there isn't anything new to be said about Middlemarch at this point.  So a random scattering of random thoughts:

• In a way, Elliot pulls an anti-Dickens.  Ladislaw has, not one, but two claims for vast wealth show up suddenly and coincidentally.  This, of course, is the sort of thing Dickens is infamously fond of pulling out of a hat to resolve things at the last minute.  But Elliot has Ladislaw end up ineligible for one source of money and he refuses to take the second, defying the easy resolution.
• She (Elliot) also defied my expectation when Rosamund's brief epiphany doesn't end up leading her to become a better person.
• It's a very middle class novel, espousing the values of hard work at every turn; the most admirable characters are clearly Caleb, with his love of "business", and Dorothea, who wants to give away all of her inherited money.