Claire Black: ‘Virginia Woolf and Zadie Smith got it right when they said the novel is for grown-ups’

I’M NOT a member of a book club. I’ve never yearned to be. It’s a little bit surprising actually, because from what I can tell they are largely about drinking wine and talking, with a bit of book thrown in, and that pretty much describes my life. Still, it’s never been for me.

Maybe it’s because I don’t really like the thought of reading the same book at the same time as anyone else. Or at least anyone else I know. Reading is a solitary activity and I like it that way. Books, unlike music that makes you want to dance or following the Question Time hashtag on Twitter, are not an entertainment that is improved by collective appreciation.

And then there was Middlemarch.

I had noticed Eliot’s Study of Provincial Life was on both my holiday reading shortlist and R’s considerably longer list, but I thought by the time the extra sunscreen, swimmers and beach towel were squeezed into the case, the 872-page masterpiece would’ve been squeezed out. But no. I had failed to take account of R’s Kindle, which has a battery-life of several millennia and on which she can take several million books anywhere she wants.

So there we were – the sun was shining, the loungers were positioned (full sun for her, full shade for me) and the books were matching. What to do? We decided the only thing was to read. I’d do it the old-fashioned way, with pages that wrinkled when I dripped beer on them (always classy) and R would do it e-style.

I was relieved at the decision, because I’ve always felt slightly ashamed of not having read Middlemarch.

As it transpires, though, inadvertently I made the right decision. Virginia Woolf (and Zadie Smith for that matter), got it right when they said the novel is for “grown-ups”. It really is. Back in 1992, I wouldn’t have understood Dorothea Brooke’s transformation through experience because, frankly, I didn’t have very much of my own. And as for Lydgate and Rosamund, I’m not going to give the plot away, but they would’ve baffled me.

“Oh my God,” I say, squinting in the bright sun, moved by some plot twist or other.

“What?” R squeals, being 100 pages behind by dint of starting a day after me. “No, don’t tell me.” Pause. “Is it Casaubon? No. Don’t tell me.”

A week later we’re standing in Highgate Cemetery in North London. I am a convert to shared reading and as a mark of respect a pilgrimage to Eliot’s grave seems only right. R thinks the grave is somewhere near Karl Marx and I’m too shocked from the fact that I’ve just seen Jeremy Beadle’s final resting place to argue. Minutes later, we’re there. An understated obilisk stands above a messy and untended plot. We decide to send an email to someone about that when we get home. But still, we’re glad we’ve been. As we walk away, we see another two women looking confused with the map in their hand.

“Are you looking for George Eliot?” I ask, trying to be helpful.

“No, we’re after Max Wall,” she says earnestly.

I don’t have an answer to that.