Daniel Deronda

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Summary: Daniel Deronda - A Search For Meaning And a Spiritual Center
Review: "Daniel Deronda" is George Eliot's last and, perhaps, most ambitious novel. It has great literary merit, but I do not think it is her best work. The novel contrasts the lax moral attitudes of the British aristocracy with the focused dedication of the Jewish Zionists. Given the typical anti-Semitic sentiments in Victorian England, and the little known world of the Jews and the Zionist Movement, Ms. Eliot's made a brave and idealistic effort by writing this book.

Ms. Elliot describes the lives of British Jews, a society-within-a-society, of which most of her contemporaries were oblivious, through her hero Daniel Deronda. Through her heroine, Gwendolyn Harleth, who marries for money and power rather than love, Eliot explores a side of human relations that leads only to despair.

Daniel sees Gwendolyn, for the first time, at a roulette table. He is fascinated by her classical, blonde English beauty, and vivacious, self-assured manner. When Ms. Harleth is forced to sell her necklace to pay gambling debts, Deronda, a disapproving observer, buys back the jewelry, anonymously, and returns it to her. This is not the last time the deeply spiritual and altruistic Deronda will feel a need to rescue Gwendolyn.

Daniel was adopted by an English gentleman at an early age. He has received affection, a good education, and to some extent, position, from his guardian. However, Deronda has never been told the story of his true parentage, and sorely feels this lack of roots and his own identity. Not content to play the gentleman, he always appears to be searching for a purpose in life.

Daniel's and Gwendolyn's lives intersect throughout the novel. They feel a strong mutual attraction initially, but Gwendolyn, with incredible passivity, decides to marry someone she knows is a scoundrel, for his wealth. The decision will haunt her as her life becomes a nightmare with the sadistic Mr. Harcourt, her husband.

At about the same time, Daniel inadvertently saves a young woman from suicide. He finds young Mirah Lapidoth, near drowning, by the river and takes her to a friend's home to recover. There she is made welcome and asked to stay. She is a Jewess, abducted from her mother years before, by her father, who wanted to use the child's talent as a singer to earn money. When young Mirah forced her voice beyond its limits, and lost her ability to sing, her father abandoned her. She has never been able to reunite with her mother and brother, and was alone and destitute, until Daniel found her. Daniel, in his search for Mirah's family, meets the Cohens, a Jewish shop owner and his kin. Deronda feels an immediate affinity with them and visits often. He also comes to know a Jewish philosopher and Zionist, Mordecai, and they forge a strong bond of friendship.

Daniel finally does discover his identity, and has a very poignant and strange meeting with his mother. He had been actively taking steps to make a meaningful existence for himself, and with the new information about his parents and heritage, he leaves England with a wife, for a new homeland and future.

One of the novel's most moving scenes is when Daniel and Gwendolyn meet for the last time. Gwendolyn has grown from a self-centered young woman to a mature, thoughtful adult, who has suffered and grown strong.

The author is one of my favorites and her writing is exceptional. This particular novel, however, became occasionally tedious with Ms. Eliot's monologues, and the book's length. Her characters are fascinating, original as always, and well drawn. The contrast between the lives of the British aristocracy, the emerging middle class, and the Jewish community gives the reader an extraordinary glimpse into three totally different worlds in Victorian England. A fine book and a wonderful reading experience.

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Summary: Another monument to Eliot's brilliance
Review: "Daniel Deronda," the culmination of George Eliot's distinguished career, is a tale of two cultures which explores the themes of concealed heritage, bigotry, and marriages of convenience in a manner never done before or since. Like its predecessor "Middlemarch," it is a long novel of perfectly structured complexity and impressive intellectual exposition, built upon a cast of characters so sharply and meticulously defined that the plot is propelled solely by the power of their presence. This is the novel that Henry James wanted to write, and even he could never match Eliot's passion and linguistic effortlessness.

The forward story in "Daniel Deronda" is that of Gwendolen Harleth, a coquettish, conceited, superficial girl -- in company she often affects a sophistication that is never quite convincing -- who could be called the heroine even though she lacks most heroic attributes. She is from an upper class family, but when misfortune strikes and she is faced with poverty, she consents to marry a man named Mallinger Grandcourt, heir to a large estate, rather than reduce herself to taking a job as a governess, and despite having received a warning from a mysterious lady about Grandcourt's having fathered illegitimate children.

The secondary story is that of Daniel Deronda, the title character, a young man who first sees Gwendolen in a casino in Leubronn at the beginning of the novel. Daniel, who happens to be the ward of Mallinger Grandcourt's uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger, is inquisitive about his obscure parentage and unsure of his place in the world. One portentous day, he rescues a girl from drowning herself -- this is Mirah Lapidoth, a Jewish girl who has run away from her father in Prague and come to London to look for her long-lost mother and brother. Daniel decides to help her by playing detective, which eventually leads him to befriend a family of Jewish shopkeepers named Cohen, whom he supposes to be related to Mirah, and a deeply religious man named Mordecai.

Eliot intertwines this Judaic element with that of Gwendolen's unhappy marriage, as Daniel maintains a steady companionship with her while he spends time immersing himself in Jewish culture, learning about a past he never knew he had. The event by which Gwendolen's situation resolves itself is foreshadowed by a particularly eerie symbol: In her family's house, there is a painting she dreads, apparently conceived by a morbid ancestor, depicting a figure running away in fright from an upturned dead face. As a plot device it may seem unrealistically gothic, but Eliot's treatment of her material is too somber and mature ever to succumb to the absurd.

This novel, while not as consistently great as "Middlemarch," confirms my opinion that Eliot is the most accomplished, intelligent, and original of the Victorian novelists, boldly ahead of her time. She is undeniably one of the greatest psychological portraitists in literature; better than most other authors, she understands the way people think and why they do what they do, which is probably why her sense of tragedy feels authentic rather than merely sentimental. Whether "Daniel Deronda" is read to get a unique insight on Jewish life in London in the nineteenth century or just to bask in the opulence of Eliot's prose, the effort will be richly rewarded.

Rating:
Summary: Another monument to Eliot's brilliance
Review: "Daniel Deronda," the culmination of George Eliot's distinguished career, is a tale of two cultures which explores the themes of concealed heritage, bigotry, and marriages of convenience in a manner never done before or since. Like its predecessor "Middlemarch," it is a long novel of perfectly structured complexity and impressive intellectual exposition, built upon a cast of characters so sharply and meticulously defined that the plot is propelled solely by the power of their presence. This is the novel that Henry James wanted to write, and even he could never match Eliot's passion and linguistic effortlessness.

The forward story in "Daniel Deronda" is that of Gwendolen Harleth, a coquettish, conceited, superficial girl -- in company she often affects a sophistication that is never quite convincing -- who could be called the heroine even though she lacks most heroic attributes. She is from an upper class family, but when misfortune strikes and she is faced with poverty, she consents to marry a man named Mallinger Grandcourt, heir to a large estate, rather than reduce herself to taking a job as a governess, and despite having received a warning from a mysterious lady about Grandcourt's having fathered illegitimate children.

The secondary story is that of Daniel Deronda, the title character, a young man who first sees Gwendolen in a casino in Leubronn at the beginning of the novel. Daniel, who happens to be the ward of Mallinger Grandcourt's uncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger, is inquisitive about his obscure parentage and unsure of his place in the world. One portentous day, he rescues a girl from drowning herself -- this is Mirah Lapidoth, a Jewish girl who has run away from her father in Prague and come to London to look for her long-lost mother and brother. Daniel decides to help her by playing detective, which eventually leads him to befriend a family of Jewish shopkeepers named Cohen, whom he supposes to be related to Mirah, and a deeply religious man named Mordecai.

Eliot intertwines this Judaic element with that of Gwendolen's unhappy marriage, as Daniel maintains a steady companionship with her while he spends time immersing himself in Jewish culture, learning about a past he never knew he had. The event by which Gwendolen's situation resolves itself is foreshadowed by a particularly eerie symbol: In her family's house, there is a painting she dreads, apparently conceived by a morbid ancestor, depicting a figure running away in fright from an upturned dead face. As a plot device it may seem unrealistically gothic, but Eliot's treatment of her material is too somber and mature ever to succumb to the absurd.

This novel, while not as consistently great as "Middlemarch," confirms my opinion that Eliot is the most accomplished, intelligent, and original of the Victorian novelists, boldly ahead of her time. She is undeniably one of the greatest psychological portraitists in literature; better than most other authors, she understands the way people think and why they do what they do, which is probably why her sense of tragedy feels authentic rather than merely sentimental. Whether "Daniel Deronda" is read to get a unique insight on Jewish life in London in the nineteenth century or just to bask in the opulence of Eliot's prose, the effort will be richly rewarded.

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Summary: a historic masterpiece
Review: Daniel Deronda is a brave piece of literature. It attempts to chronicle the budding Zionist movement and anti-semitic attitudes of Victorian society, and combine it with a more traditional George Eliot soul-searching story of a young woman (a gentile who has a complex relationship with Daniel Deronda, the young Englishman who discovers he is a Jew). While many people have quibbled about various details of the story, with some justification, the overall impact is one of awe. It's amazing how an accomplished writer defies popular criticism and explores a subject matter which was, at the time, politically incorrect.

Strictly speaking, Daniel Deronda isn't quite the same level of immaculate fiction as Middlemarch. So I think George Eliot fans will be somewhat disappointed. But on the positive side, the book is much more accessible (ie, easier to read). And the subject matter makes it required reading for everyone interested in modern Judaism/Zionism. It's fascinating to compare how Jews were perceived during the mid-1800s relative to today (..in western Europe).

Finally, the Penguin Classic edition of Daniel Deronda has both great Notes and Introductory sections (which, oddly, is supposed to be read AFTER reading the book).

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Summary: A stirring novel about the true nobility of the outsider.
Review: Daniel Deronda is a moving account of the parallel yet different personal sagas experienced by two extraordinary characters: Daniel Deronda (the perfect "sensitive" man, way before his time) and the superb and brilliantly realized Gwendolyn Harleth. They are both insiders - one a well-bred but recently impoverished beautiful girl, the other a dazzlingly handsome and intelligent man whose birth is shrouded in mystery. As with numerous George Eliot novels, the hero and heroine would seem destined to marry, but don't. Yet they both achieve something greater: a realization of the inner state of unconditional love that Eliot considered the highest ideal of humanity.

Rating:
Summary: A stirring novel about the true nobility of the outsider.
Review: Daniel Deronda is a moving account of the parallel yet different personal sagas experienced by two extraordinary characters: Daniel Deronda (the perfect "sensitive" man, way before his time) and the superb and brilliantly realized Gwendolyn Harleth. They are both insiders - one a well-bred but recently impoverished beautiful girl, the other a dazzlingly handsome and intelligent man whose birth is shrouded in mystery. As with numerous George Eliot novels, the hero and heroine would seem destined to marry, but don't. Yet they both achieve something greater: a realization of the inner state of unconditional love that Eliot considered the highest ideal of humanity.

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Summary: Jewish Issues brilliantly handeled
Review: Daniel Deronda is about the way English society in the 1860's viewed the Jewish world as something venal, distorting of Christian truths, and superstitious, and therfore not worthy of mature consideration. Eliot's novel is about the richness of the Judaic heritage that could have reformed so much of what was and is wanting in the Christian dispensation, wanting before, and even more so after, the Reformation. The Holocaust is a case in point.

Through the characters of the gentile Gwendolyn Harleth and the Jew, Daniel Deronda, Eliot etches a strong contrast between a woman merely surviving in a culture that is morally and spiritually dead, and a man who has been brought up rich, English, and gentile without purpose or inner peace, but who eventually finds his Jewish roots and a reason for being in the world through the teachers of Jewish Wisdom literature and Jewish mysticism, who have not forgotten the need for discourse about human nature and the God who created it. The sad, empty world of Gwendolyn is expertly detailed by Eliot at every turn, and the aftermath of Gwendolyn's final meeting with Deronda is one of the great tragic conclusions in all of English fiction, as she must return to a cruel world with duty as her guide and a memory of Deronda as her hope; and he, to Isreal, with Mirah, without love, but with the ideal of fellow-feeling for the whole enterprise of Zionism. The Jews, like the Greeks, understand that the nature of life at its core is suffering and denial. The Christain English world wants the shallowness of romance and the discourse of power through colonialism and genocide. Eliot sharply critiques Christian/English preoccupations about power, and Christian preconceptions about Judaism, most especially here in this novel, and gives us many questions to ponder. A great book, and one Henry James copied forever in so many subtle and not so subtle ways. He never seemed to have grasped the essence of Daniel Deronda.

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Summary: Eliot's best work
Review: George Eliot is my favorite author and this is my favorite of her books. It was her most controversial since to the arrogant 19th century English mind the jews were not a "worthy" subject for literature. A debate has raged since its publication as to whether the Gwendolyn or the Daniel parts of the story are the better. As the introduction to the Penguin edition points out, to the English, the Gwendolyn parts of the story were the important literature and that Daniel sections were forgettable. While to the Jewish readers, the Daniel thread was realistic and meaningful; the Gwendolyn thread was superfluous. In fact, at the turn of the century an edition was published in Hebrew without the Gwendolyn sections, which were seen as irrelevant to the story. To me the two intertwining threads are both strong, poignant and critical to the story. As always Eliot's characterizations are complex and three dimensional; her insights into life, psychology, and philosophy profound. There is no better writer in the English language.

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Summary: The Hidden World of the English Jews
Review: George Eliot's final novel is both riveting and problematic. Many critics have called it "two books in one" -- some have even said that the two strands of the book should have been *separated*. One plotline follows Gwendolen Harleth, a spoiled and beautiful girl fallen on hard financial times, and what happens when she marries a soulless aristocrat...the other plotline concerns the title character, Daniel, who is drawn into the revelation of his true Jewish ancestry. George Eliot is a Novelist of the Mind...she dissects the motivations and psyches of her characters, setting them against the society they inhabit and examining interaction both with that society and with the other people it encompasses. This is a stirring novel, with sharply-etched characterizations : not a melodrama or a potboiler, yet still with the drive of a thriller.

Rating:
Summary: The Hidden World of the English Jews
Review: George Eliot's final novel is both riveting and problematic. Many critics have called it "two books in one" -- some have even said that the two strands of the book should have been *separated*. One plotline follows Gwendolen Harleth, a spoiled and beautiful girl fallen on hard financial times, and what happens when she marries a soulless aristocrat...the other plotline concerns the title character, Daniel, who is drawn into the revelation of his true Jewish ancestry. George Eliot is a Novelist of the Mind...she dissects the motivations and psyches of her characters, setting them against the society they inhabit and examining interaction both with that society and with the other people it encompasses. This is a stirring novel, with sharply-etched characterizations : not a melodrama or a potboiler, yet still with the drive of a thriller.