GEORGE ELIOT’S PEOPLE

Press, 4 March 1978, Page 17

GEORGE ELIOT’S PEOPLE

Who’s Who in George Eliot. By Phyllis Hartnoil. Elm Tree Books. 183 pp. $9,170. The dust-jacket of this compendium of characters and animals claims that it “provides information” and at the same time “whets the appetite” of lapsed or potential readers of George Eliot’s novels. To this end it offers brief statements about the minor characters, occasionally offering a pertinent quotation from George Eliot herself. These, since they are factual and brief, are quite acceptable. However, when Phyllis Hartnell turns her attention to the majoi characters, she becomes more ambitious and endeavours to provide a brief description of the role of the character a.i well as a synopsis of the plot.

Any attempt to encapsulate in half a page or so a character as complex as, for example. Maggie Tulliver from “The Mill on the Floss” inevitably leads to some distortion; the information provided, however, is not even accurate. She suggests that Maggie is “in love” with Philip Wakem even before her father’s bankruptcy, but Maggie’s relationship with Philip is at all times equivocal and she is only 13 when her father loses his money. Even if there were no such inaccuracies, I would be at a loss to find a justification for a work of this kind unless it furnishes provender for a determined player of “20 Questions?’ —DIANA NEUTZE