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A review by katie_is_dreaming
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, Graham Handley
4.0
Rating 4/5
In her final novel, Eliot shows her keen understanding of human nature and the way people think. Her characterisation of the vain and selfish Gwendolen Harleth is probably one of the highlights of this book. Gwendolen is intensely unlikable at the beginning, but, through suffering, she becomes softer, seeing herself less as the centre of the world. The unpleasant Grandcourt is also a well drawn character. Daniel Deronda himself, Gwendolen's foil throughout the novel, is an interesting character too, though I think less intimately characterised than Gwendolen, who seems the main character despite the novel bearing Deronda's name.
She's certainly the main character through the early part of the book, which is quite slow moving. It's only the introduction of Mirah where the story really starts to develop. It is a long book. It wouldn't have hurt the story if it had been about 200 pages shorter. At times it felt like two different books also, with Daniel's immersion in his heritage almost making a separate story at times from his interactions with Gwendolen.
My rating is more for the scope of Eliot's vision than the execution. Her view of the world was wide and deep, and not for nothing was she called the Wise Woman. She is very wise, here: her observations of human nature are incisive. I think an opportunity was missed by not having Gwendolen interact more with Mirah, though. Making Daniel Gwendolen's moral superior seems rather condescending to me, having grown up with feminism. At the time of Eliot's writing, a man acting as a woman's moral superior may have seemed less condescending. I don't think the book dates particularly well because of that. If we'd had Mirah as Gwendolen's moral superior, it would have been a very different book, and perhaps Eliot may not have been able to include as wide a scope. I know Eliot had women helping each other in other novels (Dorothea Casaubon and Rosamond Lydgate in Middlemarch is one example), but I still would have preferred that than having Gwendolen look to a man for her salvation. I think it weakened her character quite a bit to have her so beseeching towards the end. I'd also like to have seen more of her journey, with her becoming that good woman she hoped to be.
I'd like to have seen more of some of the more minor characters too, especially the Klesmers.
Interesting ideas and scope, but Eliot's final novel wouldn't be her best for me.
In her final novel, Eliot shows her keen understanding of human nature and the way people think. Her characterisation of the vain and selfish Gwendolen Harleth is probably one of the highlights of this book. Gwendolen is intensely unlikable at the beginning, but, through suffering, she becomes softer, seeing herself less as the centre of the world. The unpleasant Grandcourt is also a well drawn character. Daniel Deronda himself, Gwendolen's foil throughout the novel, is an interesting character too, though I think less intimately characterised than Gwendolen, who seems the main character despite the novel bearing Deronda's name.
She's certainly the main character through the early part of the book, which is quite slow moving. It's only the introduction of Mirah where the story really starts to develop. It is a long book. It wouldn't have hurt the story if it had been about 200 pages shorter. At times it felt like two different books also, with Daniel's immersion in his heritage almost making a separate story at times from his interactions with Gwendolen.
My rating is more for the scope of Eliot's vision than the execution. Her view of the world was wide and deep, and not for nothing was she called the Wise Woman. She is very wise, here: her observations of human nature are incisive. I think an opportunity was missed by not having Gwendolen interact more with Mirah, though. Making Daniel Gwendolen's moral superior seems rather condescending to me, having grown up with feminism. At the time of Eliot's writing, a man acting as a woman's moral superior may have seemed less condescending. I don't think the book dates particularly well because of that. If we'd had Mirah as Gwendolen's moral superior, it would have been a very different book, and perhaps Eliot may not have been able to include as wide a scope. I know Eliot had women helping each other in other novels (Dorothea Casaubon and Rosamond Lydgate in Middlemarch is one example), but I still would have preferred that than having Gwendolen look to a man for her salvation. I think it weakened her character quite a bit to have her so beseeching towards the end. I'd also like to have seen more of her journey, with her becoming that good woman she hoped to be.
I'd like to have seen more of some of the more minor characters too, especially the Klesmers.
Interesting ideas and scope, but Eliot's final novel wouldn't be her best for me.