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emeraldgarnet 's review for:
Daniel Deronda
by George Eliot
Daniel Deronda shows classic Victorian morality as Deronda is unfathomably good and gets a happy ending while Grandcourt is malicious and, in deus ex machina style, ends up drowning. Gwendolen is somewhere in the middle morality-wise. She behaves poorly and is manipulative though later shows remorse, ultimately living at the end of the book but not getting what she wants.
I did not like the faffing around on country estates of the early chapters. I found it dull and slow. Additionally, by about two thirds of the way through, I felt that the story would do better without so much focus on Gwendolen. I found her a tedious character regardless of her position at the end of the novel and was more interested in learning more about the novel's political background. Perhaps, however, Eliot felt the need to include Gwendolen as a palatable 'doorway' to this political element which at the time was still an uncommon subject for English authors.
The novel was mostly serious in tone but there were some funny moments. For instance, when the narrator observes procrastination by saying, "What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which it is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to” (Part 4, Chapter 5).
I did not like the faffing around on country estates of the early chapters. I found it dull and slow. Additionally, by about two thirds of the way through, I felt that the story would do better without so much focus on Gwendolen. I found her a tedious character regardless of her position at the end of the novel and was more interested in learning more about the novel's political background. Perhaps, however, Eliot felt the need to include Gwendolen as a palatable 'doorway' to this political element which at the time was still an uncommon subject for English authors.
The novel was mostly serious in tone but there were some funny moments. For instance, when the narrator observes procrastination by saying, "What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which it is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to” (Part 4, Chapter 5).