We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)
7: Snow Line
Make no mistake: Adam Bede is not a book for the faint of heart, memory, or vocabulary. Confusing dialects? Convoluted, metaphor-rich digressions? Minor characters who, inexplicably, get described for pages and pages? It's all here, and it's all Standard Operating Procedure in Adam Bede.
But, weirdly, remembering the difference between Mr. Casson and Mr. Cranage may be the least of your difficulties. Eliot gets inside her character's thoughts—sometimes in excruciating detail—and her narrator has a professorial air that takes some getting used to. But there are silver linings upon silver linings. Those characters' thoughts are often thoughts we can relate to. And that professorial narrator can have a refreshing no-nonsense personality.
This climb is long and tough. But the view from the top is worth it.