Some Old-fashioned Book

Why did I never read "The Mill on the Floss" as a child? It's exactly the sort of thing that I loved so much then (and continue to love now). George Eliot has fantastic recollection of what it is to be a child--thinking, dreaming, being out in the world, dealing with grownups.

And little Maggie is perfect--attractive but human. It's an odd feeling, to be reading such a book for the first time now. The other books like that, Anne of Green Gables and the Louisa May Alcott books, I read first as a girl. And identified with characters first as a child. When I got older, those child-identifications were all still there, driven in to me by long associations. They were joined by outside grownup perceptions, but the child-idenitifications were always there first. This time, it's more even. I'm having a hard time telling if I *am* Maggie or merely very fond of her, in the way that I am fond of other sweet small nine-year-olds of my acquaintance. A bit of both, perhaps. Rather vertiginous.

Anyway, I'm reading a novel for class! Tis hasn't happened to me for a while--it's been all poetry as far as te eye can see. I've a close reading paper due Friday, and I think I'm going to try to work on "Mill". I don't know hat I've ever done a real, full, scholastic close reading of prose before. Should be interesting.