Silas Marner
by George Eliot, John O'Connor, Mary Anne Evans, Hugh Thomson, Julius Frese · first published 1800
6mentions
2recommended by
6HN commenters
2011–2025first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
Eliot's touching novel of a miser and a little child combines the charm of a fairy tale with the humor and pathos of realistic fiction. The gentle linen weaver, Silas Marner, exiles himself to the town of Raveloe after being falsely accused of a heinous theft. There he begins to find redemption and spiritual rebirth through his unselfish love for an abandoned child he discovers in his isolated cottage.
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…his proof of the Incompleteness Theorems, you won't learn all too much about logic or mathematics, but it sure paints an interesting picture of the people involved at the start of the 20th century. "Silas Marner" by George Eliot. Has redefined humor for me. "Reinforcement Learning and Stochastic Optimization" by Warren B. Powell. I'm still not entirely sure what to think of his claims about unifying many scientific…
on “Ask HN: What are you reading these days?” ↗Silas Marner by George Elliot. Changed the way I parent my children.
on “Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?” ↗…it. I remember more about Where the Red Fern Grows, but not much (a kid gets mail order dogs to hunt with and (spoilers) the dogs die ... because the dogs always die). The only thing I remember about Silas Marner is that he buried his money and it was stolen (not a spoiler, that's like chapter 1). Something to know about English classes in particular (but also History and other liberal arts/non-science classes)…
on “Pandemic homeschoolers who are not going back” ↗…tasteful commercial distractions! There are two solutions here. The reader could be extensively and thoroughly tracked, so we know enough about him to show him an ad for that off-Broadway adaption of Silas Marner he's been jonesing for. But that approach is currently under attack from all parties - and besides, when people are tracked, the ads best suited for them are often less sophisticated than they'd anticipate.…
on “The New Yorker looking at better ads” ↗It might also be epilepsy. (That “falling unconscious in a church” reminded me of Silas Marner chapter 2… but then again, the author wasn't a doctor.)
on “Little kids burn so much energy, they’re like a different species, study finds” ↗…fourth George Eliot novel this year, Adam Bede, which was her first published novel. I started with Middlemarch and proceeded to read Silas Mariner, Romola, and Daniel Deronda. The 1985 film adaptation of Silas Marner is very good and faithful to the novel. The 1970 Daniel Deronda film is similarly faithful and well-acted but the 2002 version is neither.
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗