drlove2018 's review for:

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

5.0

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I hemmed and hawed between four and five stars on this one, in large part because it is SO LONG, but Eliot deserves the full admiral. Her language is just so delicious. I love her quirks, too, like writing her own epigraphs and throwing German, French, Italian and Latin into the text indiscriminately and without translation. Austenite though I am, I have to admit that Gwendolen Harleth has layers of complexity that one is not likely to find in an Austen heroine, partly because she is not exactly a heroine. As a deeply flawed character, we care about her in a way that Austen's ladies are frequently too perfect to permit, though I would argue that Anne Elliot from Persuasion would be an exception. Having conquered DD, I'm actually excited to finally read Middlemarch at some point (I know, blasphemy - I'll get to it, I swear!).