Silas Marner, by George Eliot

Poor Silas.  He can't get a break.  After falsely being accused of a crime, he relocates to another village, where he focuses on working and earning money, living an isolated, antisocial existence.  He loves his money.  In fact, that's all he loves.  Then someone robs him, taking every last coin.

George Eliot, pen name of Mary Anne Evans, wrote several novels capturing life in 19th century England. Silas Marner, first published in 1861, remains a timeless, moving story of one man's struggle and redemption in the face of adversity.  When Silas was a young man, one of his closest friends betrayed him by framing him for a crime and stealing his girl.  As if being betrayed by his friend wasn't enough, he was also betrayed by the church; the drawing of lots declared his guilt.

Moving to a new town, he earns his living as a weaver, and lives a miserly existence.  He had no other purpose in life but to earn and save money.  "His life had reduced itself to the mere functions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of  an end towards which the functions tended."  His only pleasure, all he looked forward to, was taking the money out every night, counting it, stacking it, sorting it, and handling it.  Until one night, it was gone.

And as suddenly as the money disappeared from his home, a little girl appeared.  Silas found the mother frozen by the road near his home.  Without hesitation, Silas took on the task of raising her as his own, finding the fulfillment he had been missing all those years: "Now something had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to the earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money."

As the mystery of the missing money and the unknown parentage of Eppie, Silas's adopted daughter, come together, the story comes together in a clash of class and family that, while perhaps bordering on melodrama, is nevertheless moving and satisfying.  When Godfrey, Eppie's biological father and a nobleman, comes to Silas and Eppie, the reader takes heart in Silas and Eppie's love for one another.  On a personal note, I found the  thoughts of Nancy, Godfrey's wife, on adoption were interesting.  After they lost a baby and weren't able to conceive again, she had resisted Godfrey's wishes to adopt a child.  "To adopt a child, because children of your own had been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in spite of Providence: the adopted child, she was convinced, would never turn out well, and would be a curse to those who had willingly and rebelliously sought what it was clear that, for some high reason, they were better off without."  I wonder how widespread this attitude was then, or even today.  Certainly Silas's adoption of Eppie contradicts Nancy's view; Eliot clearly strikes a positive note for adoption here.

As you might expect from a novel of the mid-19th century, many passages seem overly wordy and unnecessary.  But even the dialogue and action that seems irrelevant to the story, like the men chatting in the pub, and the girls chatting as they're getting dressed for a formal dinner, add to the ambience by giving a realistic portrayal of the culture and language of the time.

Eliot, decidedly not a believer, has little good to say about the church in Silas Marner.  But Christians can don't have to try very hard to resonate with the moral lesson of the novel.  The joy and rewards of life can be measured not by how much we save of what we earn, but by how much we give ourselves away in the service of others.  James says pure religion is looking after orphans; Silas certainly embraced that call.

Years ago I saw Steve Martin's adaptation of Silas Marner, A Simple Twist of Fate.  As I recall, even though that story took place in modern times, it was pretty faithful to this story.  I'll have to watch it again sometime.  Eliot's story is timeless and moving, and though it's a bit of a slog at times for the 21st century  reader, it's certainly worth your time.