first impressions: the mill on the floss

Last night, I started reading the Oxford edition of The Mill on the Floss on my Kindle.  (I went with the Oxford edition despite the million free versions available both online and for the Kindle in particular, I love the footnotes.  And the opportunity to read the introduction if I ever change my mind about never, ever reading scholarly introductions.  Fun fact, on my first day of college, a professor suggested we never do that for her class – and by “suggested” I mean to undersell the deep distrust of scholarly introductions that she instilled in me that day.  I haven’t looked back since.)

I am only two chapters in and already have some thoughts.

• I like Maggie.  Quite a lot, actually.  Granted, she’s not done much yet but ruin her curls and talk about the devil and witchcraft but that is more than enough to steal my heart.
• I’ve no idea how British education systems work/worked or, for that matter, will work in the future.  What’s the deal with sending a kid to a clergyman?  Do governesses only educate girls?  Do clergymen only educate boys?  (Based on my readings of Charlotte Bronte, the latter seems more likely than the former.)  I have the sense that this is a politically charged issue, but am not quite sure how.  I’ve got some reading ahead of me on this topic, I think.
• This version has a double space between paragraphs.  Makes for fast page turning, for whatever that is worth.
• I find Eliot’s style to be quite cozy.  She’s funny in ways that I think many find Austen to be (where others found Austen funny, I mostly just find her mean – I love Austen, just not when she’s being funny).  She seems more honest than forced.
• On the other hand, I still find her dialect-in-text style to be, honestly, not my favorite.  (Except it does amuse me that, in reading it, I will find myself hearing an American Southern accent – maybe not REALLY Southern, Tennessee or so but definitely, distinctly American.  I wonder if I’m completely alone in that experience.  Possibly, if not probably.)  I, again, don’t know anything about the politics of it but it makes me uneasy because it seems, in my cultural context, to be a way of making fun of people who speak outside the norm.  I might want to look into this one as well.
• I like Maggie.  I don’t know yet how I feel about anyone else.