Take a photo of a barcode or cover
thelizabeth 's review for:
Daniel Deronda
by George Eliot
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 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.
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:
Spoiler
* 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
Spoiler
that I didn't really believe she was harboring murderous wishes, and was put off when she confessed to having themI 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.