(Thursday) It may take me a while to review this - I am en route to Scotland for a walking weekend and in any case I'm not sure anything I say can do it justice.

(Sunday) Daniel Deronda is Eliot's last novel, and I have wanted to read it ever since reading Sophie and the Sybil by Patricia Duncker a couple of years ago. In that book Duncker reimagined the circumstances that led Eliot to create the book, and Sophie has much in common with the wilful and impulsive Gwendolen Harleth, one of Eliot's two major characters.

The book is big, complex and surprisingly modern at times, telling the parallel but ultimately separate stories of Gwendolen and Daniel. Daniel has been brought up as the ward of an English gentleman, and the story is largely about his rediscovery of his Jewish roots.

I don't want to say too much more at this stage because the book is the subject of a group discussion at Reading the Chunksters for the next couple of months, and I don't want to preempt that discussion.

This was no Middlemarch, but I do think it's amazing that I can still enjoy a book by an author who has been dead a little over 120 years. There were a few really great one-liners in there which show what a comic genius Eliot could be. There were also some beautiful sentiments about relationships and the constraints put on women during Eliot's time (seen at times in Gwendolen's character, but mostly in Daniel's mother).

My criticism of the novel was that Eliot spent a lot of time developing Gwendolen Harleth as a character, but not so much time on Daniel Deronda or Mirah; the woman he eventually loves. Maybe it's that I've been reading too many 'guilty pleasure' books lately, but Daniel was a little too pious for me. I heard that Mr. Darcy (who is one of my favorite male characters ever) didn't have anything on Daniel Deronda, so I was really excited to read the book, but I didn't find that to be the case. I'll take Darcy and Elizabeth any day.

What was interesting about the novel was Eliot's use of flashback, and her extensive study of Jewish history before she wrote the novel. Not being Jewish myself, it was fascinating for me to read a bit of their history and beliefs.

I read Middlemarch by George Eliot a few years ago and I loved it! So I was excited to jump into another one of her novels and it did not disappoint! Eliot has a way of creating and developing characters and are super relatable, even today. Daniel, the main character, doesn’t know who his parents are, and seeks to find himself throughout the novel. Gwendolyn, the other main character, is stubborn, selfish, and only cares about being rich (well she cares about her mother, so I’ll give her that one). But she develops quite exceptionally throughout the novel and through her connection to Daniel, she becomes a better person and realizes a lot more about herself!
The book also represents Jewish people and their relationship to people of other religions in England at the time of publication (1800s). While some have negative perceptions, other characters show compassion towards the Jewish characters and it was so great to see such compassion from a book written back then!
I really enjoyed this book and recommend it if you enjoy classic literature such as the works Dickens and Austen!

Of note: for someone who's my favorite author, I haven't 5-starred a George Eliot book since the first one that I read. Tough crowd, I guess. But tough books, too. And while I'll possibly never love anything as much as The Mill on the Floss, this book did incredible things and opened up dozens of doors in my mind.

What made it most incredible to me was the thematic currents that kept coming in doubles. I started keeping a list too late to remember everything I felt was there, but so many things in the book silently depend on each other, and are left for comparison without being presented explicitly. It all looked intentional to me, because every reminder of something that had come before (usually on the other side of the novel) tightened the cord around it and made me gasp. It was an ideas book more than a feelings book, to me. Some of these repeating ideas:

* The subjection of marriage: Gwendolen wishes she didn't have to marry because she sees all women made inferior by it (but she fails to escape the same), Daniel's mother's speech is about her victory over same being the focal purpose of her life (but exemplifies the "monstrosity" of what that sacrifices).

* Legitimacy and the manipulation of inheritance: Grandcourt's and Gwendolen's responses to the claim of his children and his will, and Daniel being presumed to be Hugo's natural heir but having to cede his claim to Grandcourt. Daniel's mother removed him from his Jewish inheritance, but he becomes Mordecai's spiritual heir in the end.

* Acting/singing/performance and renown: Daniel's mother treasured her celebrated career above all, Mirah failed at the same one but remains beloved, Gwendolen relied on this kind of performance to appear perfect (though she is only valued for it artificially), and Daniel is unashamed of his own "mediocrity".

*Gwendolen empowers keys over the things she existentially fears: the strangely grotesque painting in the drawing room at Offendene that she locks up (until the key is stolen and it's exposed), and the dagger she keeps locked away behind a key she drops in the ocean to escape her murderous thoughts.

* Gwendolen's various gambles and the lesson of other people's losses.

Those are all five stars, right there.

I did a very elementary bit of critical reading after I finished. Mostly I was spurred to by the totally unsatisfactory Introduction, which is pretty much RIYL other George Eliot books. However, it did point me to a jaw-droppingly weird blip of literary history in which Henry James reviews the book via fictional dialogue in The Atlantic Monthly in 1876. It's frankly crazy. And though, mainly, those "characters" compliment the book, what "they" really seem to need to say is, WTF did she have to write about Jews for?, in the most acceptably impolite ways possible. (There's talk of noses, and dirtiness. A horrible, valuable picture of what Eliot's audience actually was.)

I was astonished to find, though, that apparently this is still what most critics feel about the book (at least, if I'm to believe the Introduction, which must be something of an endorsed opinion). Scholars still think this Jewish plot is uncomfortable, for one reason or another: because it's just plain weird, or because even the most conscientious Victorians were not 21st-century politically-correct so it doesn't seem very "right" now, or because they just like Gwendolen's plot better. There is, in fact, a whole argument that the book as is is a mistake, and Gwendolen's story standing alone would be a better novel.

WHAT ARE THEY, STUPID?!*

(* Would you like to read a whole article of speculation about Daniel's penis? What? It's not stupid, IT'S SCHOLARLY!)

But, so, in this novel there's Daniel's story and there's Gwendolen's story, and then there's their story together. Gwendolen is a selfish creature who gets punished enormously with a transformative, tormenting marriage. Daniel has neither a future nor history of his own, and rescues/reunites/becomes the savior (?) of a pair of Jewish siblings instead. He also, by accident, becomes Gwendolen's confidant as she searches for a moral compass for the first time in her life. He is it.

To begin with, this third portion of the story would be all but meaningless if Daniel's own portion didn't exist, and it is here that the book's most significant meaning comes from. Another author could have written this book, but instead of what happens here, Gwendolen would simply have fallen in love with Daniel once her marriage is unhappy, because that's what happens in novels. Here, Eliot does something completely unique (as always!) by instead giving them a strangely urgent ethical connection: the woman so horrified by submission becomes unable to do anything, anything at all, without asking Daniel's directions, worrying about Daniel's opinion, or repeating Daniel's advice like a mantra. Is this because she loves him? Maybe! But it doesn't matter at all. The sheer tonnage of her need for him is heaped only on her monumental effort to cope with doing harm, and she clings to him as a spiritual guide like a drowning person who almost drowns the person saving her.

People also seem to think that Deronda is not much of a character -- that he's too good, he's unflawed, a boring vessel for enlightenment. He does represent these things thematically, but as an individual, I guess these readers skipped the days where Daniel judges people ungenerously (and anti-semitically), keeps information from his friends, becomes super resentful of the way others think, and wishes dearly for Gwendolen to leave him alone. He is not always right when he does these things, but he is always understandable. We have sympathy for him the whole time, and in the large view he is indeed a marvelous person. That doesn't make a bad character at all, and most importantly, Eliot makes his marvelous nature the main currency of all the stories in the book. He does hold the novel together and (like Gwendolen) it is better for knowing him.

As far as Gwendolen is concerned, I often think it's a shame that as an upstanding (though comparatively sexually-liberated) Victorian, Eliot is unable to write about sex in her novels. I believe she often had it in mind, but with writing about it being so out of the question, who knows. Of the four novels I've read, though, three (and really I just don't remember Romola well enough to count it) have arcs that are supremely relevant to sexual circumstances between the characters. And it isn't like, Elizabeth and Darcy are super hot for each other, I bet they were happy to have sex. In Eliot it's serious heart-punches, like: these people ran away together in order to have sex but can't do it and this is their downfall; these people got married but he might not have any sex with her at all and this is their downfall; and in this book, Grandcourt makes such a project of total dominance in his marriage to Gwendolen, it must have been the ugliest wedding night ever and I almost want to cry thinking about it. (The this-century BBC movie hints at unwilling sex in this way, but it of course is not referenced in the text.) These sexual situations matter deeply, though existing barely even in subtext, and as soon as the Grandcourts' marriage became about power and breaking each other's will, it's what I thought of. It is a pretty unsexy sex plot, but I really think it is one. Gwendolen's misery is made apparent, but I think there is a whole other horror show here that we don't even see.

The subject of Jewish people does stand out in the book. What other book is like this? It's a truly unusual choice for a novel at this time. And, I've been trying to read some things to indicate the range of opinions about Jews that George Eliot put forward herself at various times. It was not always good (1848). Though by the time she wrote this, she was reaching for something good (1876). And this reach is what makes it a George Eliot novel: this is her one big cosmopolitan work that depicts the world she lived in as an adult, the learned upper class that led cranky, fractured lives in the country and in town and abroad. How did she choose to write about this? By turning her "gentle" characters upside-down inside prejudice, regret, and subjection. It makes the novel big like the world, and it stuns you into paying attention.

While I looked up sources for Eliot's views on Judaism, I also looked for some criticism of the book that touched on Benjamin Disraeli, and only found a little. But the connection was pointed out to me and now seems really important, though I only know a few things about him: he was Prime Minister when the book was published, he was born in a Jewish family but raised Anglican, and he was a novelist as well. Did he and George Eliot know each other? Were they friends or rivals? What did she think of his politics, and did she model Daniel's ambitions to greatly serve the world after him? The novel was (intentionally or not?) seen as inspiration/propaganda for Zionists of both the Christian and Jewish kind, and this troublesome, impenetrable essay (?) in Impressions of Theophrastus Such (Eliot's final book which I don't quite understand what it is?) is on the subject of cultural homelands. There are streets in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa named after her! BECAUSE OF DANIEL DERONDA. THAT'S CRAZY! And, in my opinion, is proof that this theme is not meaningless.

There are some troubles. There is some racism, try though she does. Mirah is overcompensation for this, though once she stops getting rescued she finally sounds like a real person and not a simply-sweet Dickens character. I never really loved Gwendolen, although her development is strong and passionate and unflawed except maybe that I didn't really believe she was harboring murderous wishes, and was put off when she confessed to having them. That was also a little melodramatic, I guess, since the end events are strong enough. They always are. (And jiminy cricket do not get in one of George Eliot's little boats 3/4 through the book! Crazy shit ensues, every time! Oh, but I love it.)

I also think there's a loose end in not hearing Mrs. Glasher's response to the end events. If I were an editor I might have suggested that she and Gwendolen needed to connect one more time. It might not have made things any better for Gwendolen, but a change in the situation undeniably occurred. How did it leave them?

Weirdly, at the end I actually wished that this book had a sequel. Then I read a little more about it (this great review in particular) and learned that this HAPPENED. This 1878 version of fanfiction was published as a sequel to "remedy" its "chief defect," which apparently means the Jews. So, instead of editing an abridged version to accomplish this, we just have a ret-conning follow-up novel. … I am so perplexed, I think I am actually going to read it someday. (The reviewer also mentions a Jewish adaptation by the contemporary children's author Marcus Lehman, which may be this one? But I haven't found a lot to confirm it.)

Anyway, perhaps I wish that this book was simply 1200 pages long instead of 600. I might not have minded, because in the end Daniel and Gwendolen go to such places finally that their lives are wholly beginning again. I think that ending is unlike any of Eliot's others, and I wish she could have had all of time to tell us what she thought.

Oh dear, I was supposed to be rereading this over a couple of months with a book group... but it's so darn gripping even on a second read that I've ended up rushing ahead and finishing it due to the proverbial 'couldn't put it down'...

My original review is below but on this reread I was struck by the extent to which Eliot seems to be setting up sections that duplicate well-known literary scenarios: the section where Grandcourt leases the 'great house' and sets off marital expectations and plans in local families is so Pride & Prejudice, and there's a Sense & Sensibility feel a little later when Gwen's mother and aunt lose all their money, and they have to downsize to a cottage - albeit one with four bedrooms.... But Eliot sets up these comparisons only to knock them down: a far harsher social reality is given rein in this book, and we have a portrait of one of the scariest marriages, surely, in literature.

Motifs of women singing and acting tie the two main stories together in interesting ways, inviting us to compare and contrast Gwen and Mirah (and, later, Daniel's mother), and the ending is left somewhat open, albeit in a satisfying way.

I can get anxious rereading a beloved book in case it doesn't stand up so well a second time - no problem here, this is still both a wonderful read and a radical departure for the Victorian novel.
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Although academically Middlemarch is always regarded as Eliot's masterpiece, I've always thought this novel deserves the title. The characters are nuanced and it's important that Gwendolen starts off as being a conventional spoilt beauty because that makes her growth and change all the more compelling and significant.

As a woman writing in 19th century England, Eliot bravely highlights the impacts of poverty and the implications for women who are forced to prostitute themselves effectively in the marriage market, since a career is out of the question. This is the dark underside of Jane Austen and an important antidote to that sunny view of male/female relationships and the economic reality behind them.

The other brave element in this book is the theme of Jewishness which was glossed over in most of the literature of this period. It is the clash and interraction of the two related prejudices of gender and race/religion that give this book its resonance and importance and its relevance to today.

I've learned two things:

1. Briefly, I am Gwendolyn

2. I can never listen to a George Eliot novel again. I love her writing. She's so eloquent, but she's so verbose that I just zone out.

I'm DNF at chapter 56. I've decided I do not care what happens to any of these characters. I probably should have read the book.

2017 Reading Challenge: a book mentioned in another book

2/22/19

Ebook reread
Nope it wasn't the audio version. This really is the worst Eliot novel I've read. So many pages for so little plot. So let down

As I said in an update, I'm very much of the same opinion as the critics who stated that this book ought to have been titled Gwendolen Harleth and done without Daniel's personal part of the story. Gwendolen was an incredibly well-written character and her development over the course of the story was super compelling, as was Eliot's depiction of an emotionally abusive relationship. Her relationship with Daniel was also really interesting as she built up his influence in her head and came to rely so much on the scant conversations they had.

This opinion might just be because I found a lot of the religious and philosophical musings in the Daniel/Mordecai part of the book to be extremely difficult to understand and wade through. Eliot's language was also more convoluted than I'm used to, even having read a lot of Victorians, and sometimes I frankly just did not understand what she was saying. I am sure that smarter people have a lot to say about the book's Zionism, but readers should definitely note that it is present.

Mirah and the Meyricks were excessively saccharine in the way that only female characters in Victorian lit can be - this was even more annoying than usual because of its contrast to how real and complex Gwendolen was. Daniel's mother was also extremely interesting.

I'm glad I read this but parts of it were a huge struggle. Maybe I'm just not as smart as I used to be.

(4.5/5)

Reseña completa:
https://youtu.be/f2OYlhDqKOc

A pesar de la sencillez de la trama, y los pocos personajes que intervienen, la autora crea un mundo complejo en el que se mueven, desarrollan, y crecen estos personajes. Puede que no conectes con los personajes a primera vista, que no te caiga bien alguno de ellos por como actúan, piensan, pero es muy interesante descubrir hacia donde van sus vidas.

Como siempre George Eliot en sus novelas deja perlas de sabiduría, y además es una mujer muy adelantada a su época y lo refleja con reflexiones muy feministas en voz de los personajes femeninos de la novela, sobre el trabajo, el matrimonio, la independencia económica, el divorcio, la fuerza interior de la que hay que servirse para seguir adelante, habla mucho de la religión, el mundo del arte, de la música pero lo hace de una manera que no esperas, del éxito en la vida, del sentido moral y ético, de la justica de lo que es bueno o no, de la doble moral victoriana.

Es una gran novela, larga pero muy gratificante terminarla, a ratos es densa, exigente, son muy interesante los temas que trata, el gran corazón que tiene Daniel Deronda, muy emocional, sensible y libre, no tiene nada a lo que esté atado y esa libertad le hace ser fiel a sus sentimientos, la asombrosa evolución de Gwendolyn, y como se apoyan y buscan consejo el uno en el otro. Es un libro para releer porque en una primera lectura no le vas a sacar todo el provecho que tiene, es triste, melancólico, existe dolor pero también es poético, esperanzador, es un libro que se queda conmigo para siempre y pasa a formar parte de mis libros favoritos de George Eliot.

This is not a quick or easy read.

There are parts that I should have reread, but this is hard to do when reading an eBook, so I missed some things.

After reading Middlemarch I was disappointed in this book.

Though Gwendolen was an unlikable spoiled girl at the outset, I thought she was a more interesting character than the character Daniel himself. This was a serious flaw for me that a novel called
"Daniel Deronda" the eponymous character himself was upstaged by another character in terms of holding my interest. Daniel himself and was boring.

Though George Eliotwanted to present Jewish characters in a sympathetic way, I thought her portrayals of the Cohen's was riddled with stereotypes.

George Eliot despite her intentions, couldn't rise above stereotypes.

Destined to live in the shadow of Middlemarch for all eternity, Daniel Deronda has been cursed with the unfortunate problem of having to forge a path of its own while locked in the sphere of Jupiter’s gravity. Don’t be fooled by its obscurity, however; it is, by any definition, still an absolutely formidable novel — one that is, at the very least, Saturn scaled. It may, in fact, be the more ambitious of Eliot’s two late-period masterpieces.

As is the case with Middlemarch, each and every one of Deronda’s paragraphs is a work of art: a miniature essay of rigorous thinking, structured with beginning, middle and end. It is a book with sentences that feel as though they were carved from marble and polished into a sculpted high-renaissance masterpiece. The writing astounds me. Eliot was from a different planet. All the superlatives. Honestly, if I had given her a pound every time I mumbled “f**king hell” in amazement to myself while reading this book she’d have quickly become financially stable enough to sack off her whole novel-writing lark and then been at comfortable liberty to spend the rest of her life driving gold-plated convertible Lamborghinis really slowly up and down the seafront in Dubai while decorating her living room in the tasteful styles of Mar-a-Lago. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about from Chapter 69:

n  “There comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other neglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives — where the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war, and grey fathers know nothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls forgot all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the shattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. Then it is as if the Invisible Power that had been the object of lip-worship and lip-resignation became visible, according to the imagery of the Hebrew poet, making the flames his chariot, and riding on the wings of the wind, till the mountains smoke and the plains shudder under the rolling fiery visitation. Often the good cause seems to lie prostrate under the thunder of unrelenting force, the martyrs live reviled, they die, and no angel is seen holding forth the crown and the palm branch. Then it is that the submission of the soul to the Highest is tested, and even in the eyes of frivolity life looks out from the scene of human struggle with the awful face of duty, and a religion shows itself which is something else than a private consolation.”n

Brain explode, right? This is madness. The whole 850-page book is like this.

Unfortunately, in Daniel Deronda these incredible writing efforts are sometimes directed just slightly off target, like a shiny new skyscraper constructed just in time to rise out of the city and meet the economic stagnation of the great recession. And, as is generally agreed, not all of this book works. It is glacially paced, for one thing: in the time it took me to read it the Elizabethan era came to an end, three Prime Ministers have come and gone, I’ve been to Mordor and back, and the seasons have blended from high Summer into the stirrings of winter. Likewise, I wouldn’t say that the representation of Jewish people is offensive given that it is intended to flatter (it’s certainly a world away from Fagin and other 19th-century fare), but even so, Eliot’s portrayal still feels slightly reductive and somewhat basic to someone of my North London roots. I’d also argue that when a book is this purist in its ambitions to represent detailed realism it must be held to a higher standard when it comes to narrative coincidences and it does bother me that every time a character travels outside Britain, they immediately run into someone from their immediate social group by pure chance.

Daniel Deronda is weakened by flaws like these, but it isn’t ruined by them, and these slight misjudgements are a small price to pay for what is, in truth, a book with some amazing and unique qualities. Come the ending, I felt quite moved by the whole thing — there is an unignorable emotional force to Eliot’s lone voice of calm and reason, speaking resolutely and independently against the seas of 19th-century antisemitism. Perhaps, had more books like this been written while we had the chance the horrors of what would later come to pass might not have been.

As it happens, I recently read about how, while writing Deronda, Eliot took some inspiration from Wagner’s opera The Flying Dutchman, in which The Dutchman is a sailor made homeless by a curse that prevents him from setting foot on dry land (save for one short trip once every seven years). In the Dutchman’s metaphorical curse Eliot saw the destabilising, lonely plight of the eternally stateless Jewish people; the Jewish characters in Deronda come and go in a similar manner to Wagner’s Dutchman, doomed to eternal wandering. Eliot was fascinated by Wagner’s art and even met him in 1877 (a year after Deronda was published). Despite earning his place as quite possibly the most important artist of the 19th century, Wagner was, of course, one of the most notable antisemites in history (among so many other things). I like to think that with Deronda Eliot was playing him at his own games; I take her book as a gentle but firm correction to his ideology. It’s a work directly influenced by his style but also a rebuff against his racist flaws. It ingeniously uses his own miraculous art against him. I wonder if he ever read it? — I like to imagine so, but I doubt it.

It saddens me that Deronda only has 24,685 Goodreads ratings where Middlemarch has 150,590. Middlemarch truly is a masterpiece, and even though I believe both these figures should be higher I think it is particularly unfair that Deronda should be saddled with the fate of becoming the neglected book we see today. Eliot leaves writers like Jane Austen in the dust every single time without fail; yet, Pride & Prejudice still sits there on its pedestal chilling out with 3,746,957 votes…

This behemoth of a novel has two main strands which can be identified by the names of the two main female characters and their corresponding social environments; (1) Gwendolen Harleth and the world of English aristocracy, and (2) Mirah Lapidoth and the world of English Jewry. The title character Daniel Deronda who connected these two strands was raised among the English aristocracy, but he is adopted and of unknown birth origin. Thus Daniel Deronda is free of inherited aristocratic expectations (a.k.a. "of no consequence”). This freedom combined which Daniel’s natural ability to be empathetic and understanding leads him into filling a Moses/Savior role for the two women Gwendolen and Mirah.

As the story advances it slowly becomes apparent to the reader that both of Daniel’s relationships with these two women has romantic potential. But Gwendolyn is trapped in an unhappy marriage and Mirah is a loyal Jewess, so it would appear that romantic potential is walled off from either of these two women. But then as the two plot lines finally creep to their conclusions certain events happen which open up romantic possibilities with both women. As the book nears its end the reader is led to wonder which woman will get the man.

So what was George Eliot trying to say by combining these two plot narratives into the same novel? One very obvious message is that the Jews are worthy of acceptance and respect. The story includes a variety of examples of Jewish individuals, some are good and some not so honorable, some are comfortable being identified as Jewish and some wish to loose that identity, and there are examples of individuals scattered within these extremes. Daniel becomes increasingly interested in things Jewish as the story culminates to a point when he learns that his biological birth origin is Jewish.

Another apparent message contained in the other plot strand is that English aristocracy and wealth do not necessarily lead to good and desirable ends. Gwendolyn marries for money and ends up in a nuptial relationship from hell. I think George Eliot combined the two plots because it increased the impact of both when intertwined. The Jewish community is more easily seen as acceptably human when contrasted with highly regarded English social customs that are less than perfect.

The following link goes to eight excellent lectures by professor Ruth Wisse about this novel.
https://tikvahfund.org/course/daniel-...

This was one of those long stories that in the end were worth a read. I have previously read “Middlemarch” by George Eliot, but in many ways I find “Daniel Deronda” to be a different story that is interesting in many ways.
Our main character, Gwendolen, is quite a character. She’s selfish, attention-seeking and frivolous, and in many ways she actually reminded me of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone with the Wind”. I liked reading about her a lot - especially because she does change throughout the narrative - but some people might find her too repulsive to take an interest in.
The other main character is Daniel Deronda who is, in many ways, the opposite of Gwendolen. It’s very interesting to see the way his life is parallelled to Gwendolen’s; especially because his life is in many ways different from hers. He’s considerate, caring, and he develops a fondness for Jews and wants to explore their religion and way of living in spite of them being anhorred by most white Christians in the current English society.
This is an epic tale that takes devotion to get through, but while it took me some effort to read it because of its many reflections on life (oftentimes directed directly to the reader which I wasn’t that fond of), all in all I find this work to be accomplished, entertaining and very interesting! It’s definitely worth a read, and I’m happy that I got to be acquainted with Gwendolen, Daniel and the magnificent set of characters.