victorian novels and vancouver spring

So the theme of the week (being performed with varying amounts of gusto) is waiting.

- Variation one: Vancouver spring
Everyone, without exception, has been saying this is the coldest, wettest, latest, most miserable spring in ages. And we keep saying it, over and over, because summer keeps not arriving. The momentous occasion of a few weeks ago is sadly becoming a distant memory.
But we wait. Summer IS coming (and is apparently going to be a scorcher when it comes). Wait, wait wait.

- Variation two: Victorian novels
I just finished reading North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell, for Mapping Gender, one of the courses I'm auditing this spring. I wonder sometimes if the reading energy of my youth has been permanently damaged by my now five years of post-secondary education--I now find it more difficult to really sink my teeth into a novel and become completely absorbed. Especially when said novel is Victorian, and thus contains a) at least a few descriptions that cause me to roll my eyes and b) a plot that moves at the speed of molasses.
Of course, that's what I would have said three days ago, when I was stuck around the halfway point of North and South. I was starting to see major themes developed and kicked around, the tension between the two main characters was building, and I just couldn't seem to plow forward. It took a moment of stepping back, realizing that I was perhaps more engaged with the characters than I would like to admit--and then charging forward with the leap of faith that if I read the book straight through to the end, it would somehow be good.
The amazing thing--it was. I had forgotten that the slow development of plot at the beginning of the book means that once you move past halfway, things began to happen with a kind of tragic inevitability--you KNOW what's going to happen (mostly) and yet you can't stop reading because you can't wait to see it happen before your very eyes. There's something very satisfying as the whole tale sweeps together loose ends in a way that is both painful (people die, hearts are broken) and joyful (redemption occurs! relationships are made!).
So note to self: Victorian novels require waiting. Sometimes even waiting past the midway point. But you read through the beginning, even savor it, waiting for the great conclusion that you know is coming. Perhaps this philosophy will finally get me past the first 300 pages of Middlemarch until the end.