Felix Holt: The Radical

By Mайкл Гиммельфарб (Mike Gimelfarb) (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Granted Felix Holt is not considered to be one of George Eliot's best novels. It has an extraordinarily convoluted plot, turning on the most arcane of laws of inheritance and entail on the one hand, some rather startling coincidences on the other hand, and prickly protagonists with whom it is hard to quite fall in love. Still it is the last major novel of Eliot's that I had not read, so I was looking forward to diving in.

Eliot never met a difficult subject that she didn't face head on -- child murder, alcoholism, domestic abuse, the status of Jews in England, suicide, and in this case, political reform and riots. Don't ever think you're "escaping" the modern world by delving into Eliot's Victorian novels.

Felix Holt is set in England after the Reform Bill of 1832 expanded the franchise to more voters. The radical of the title is an idealistic man who believes in workers' rights and education as the path to creating a more equitable society. He eschews anything that smacks of aristocratic or even middle-class pretensions. His refusal to wear the cravat of the "gentleman," even though he is educated and possesses the qualities that could help him rise in station, is a symbol of his dedication to bettering the world, not just leaping at the opportunities that could selfishly propel him to a comfortable life. He meets the beautiful and extremely status-conscious Esther Lyon, the daughter of a dissenting preacher, who desperately wants to escape the barrenness of her provincial life. Their relationship is very much a foreshadowing of Gwendolyn Harleth and Daniel Deronda in Eliot's final novel (Daniel Deronda). Felix's idealism and unselfishness has the uncomfortable effect on Esther of making her aware of her own pettiness and snobbery, chipping away at her supposed superiority.

The plot unwinds in rural England, where politics in the parliamentary election following the Reform Bill take a nasty turn. Electioneering tactics involve inciting a mob mentality to intimidate voters by "buying" their favor with free drinks at the local pub. The candidates are shady or glibly opportunistic -- even the so-called Tory-turned-Radical, Harold Transome, who arrives with his newfound wealth from the east. Remind you of anything?

Here is part of a speech by Felix, who is trying to talk sense to people during the election about all the promises being made:

How can political freedom make us better, any more than  religion we don't believe in, if people laugh and wink when they see men abuse and defile it? And while public opinion is what is is -- while men have no better beliefs abut public duty -- while corruption is not felt to be a damning disgrace -- while men are not ashamed in parliament and out of it to make public questions which concern the welfare of millions, a mere screen for their own petty private ends -- I say, no fresh scheme of voting will much mend out condition. [Felix Holt: The Radical, Chapter XXX]

And this from the same chapter:

But there are two sorts of power. There's a power to do mischief -- to undo what has been done with great expense and labour, to waste and destroy, to be cruel to the weak, to lie and quarrel, and to talk poisonous nonsense....Ignorant power comes in the end to do the same thing as wicked power, it makes misery.