Silas Marner

"Eliot’s description of what happens to Silas Marner’s soul and heart is not an overly romanticised view of what happens to a lot of men when they fall in love with a child – although generally the child they fall in love with is their own. Marner is accused of a crime that he does not commit and he’s ostracised from a community. He saves a little bit of money from his job so that he can keep a life going, but he’s pretty constricted. I think that’s the way a lot of women feel about their men. “When men become fathers, they live longer…It’s not just the children who are changed by fathering. Fathers are changed as well.” Through a series of Edwardian twists and turns, he winds up taking in a child he finds wandering in the woods whose mother has died. He takes the child in because it’s winter and it’s the human thing to do. The child begins to affect him and really humanise him. There are a lot of other twists and turns, but those aren’t the parts of the book that interest me. I think it’s an interesting message. A child can evoke nurturing behaviour from men to whom they are not biologically related as long as the needs of the child are valued by the man. George Eliot is a hell of a writer and I’m a big fan of the way liberal arts help us sharpen our philosophies. I assign Silas Mariner to my psychology students at Yale and other places. They wrinkle up their noses until they read it. Then they come back and say, “Oh, I get it.” Fiction can often tell more truths than nonfiction. Yes. When men become fathers, a lot of things about them change. First of all, they live longer. I joke with men when I tell them that. It won’t feel like that when you’re doing it because being a father is pretty tough, but longevity goes up and suicide rates go down. Job changes slow and women will often report an increase in the man’s emotional availability. ‘My child really softened him up’ is something you often hear. So it’s not just the children who are changed by fathering. Fathers are changed as well. I think Wordsworth said it nicely."

"Silas Marner was probably on the 1945 high school curriculum because it was short and not about sex. I hated it — didn’t have a clue what it was about. Eliot (real name Mary Ann Evans) writes with a dry, adult humor and depth of experience of pain I could only appreciate when I finally finished growing up."

"In its brevity and stillness it's almost a painting rather than a book. A profound meditation on impoverishment and love."