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59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another monument to Eliot's brilliance, February 12, 2004
"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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56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a historic masterpiece, May 15, 2000
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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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A stunning gamble by an eminent Victorian., January 5, 2000
This novel, originally published in 1876, was Eliot's last. It has remained controversial ever since, and some critics delete it from her first-rank work. It is an ideological novel, and its plot is forced at times (too many coincidences, for one thing). The central character appears to be Gwendolen Harleth at the start (note the echo of her last name with "harlot"), who pawns a necklace at a gaming table only to have it returned by a disapproving observer--the eponymous Deronda. While offended, Gwendolen is also fascinated by Daniel and finally takes him on as her conscience as the novel continues, at great length, weaving a multitude of characters and issues into a fabric with an echo-chamber effect (in the sense that various elements of the book echo each other in odd and unpredictable ways throughout the novel, such as the continuing ways that people gamble with their own fates and the lives of others). This is a novel of sensibility, a link between Austen's method and Woolf's. But it is also a romantic treatment of Zionism (well before it was a popular issue, especially in Victorian England), with all the Jewish leads ennobled and idealized. In this sense it reads differently than MIDDLEMARCH, which was strictly realistic except at the very end. It's closer to SILAS MARNER, a morality tale with symbolic characters. Gwendolen is one of the saddest and most beautiful figures in any novel. She wants so deeply to be the center of attention, and finally can't even be the title character of the novel she's in. There are so many marvellous moments in this book, it repays the time it takes to read it many times over. I do not think Eliot arrived at a satisfying structure for the book, though; her need to promote Zionism prevented it. The Oxford paperback edition is the one I read, and I can recommend it highly -- its notes are superb. But the print is very small, so if that bothers you use another edition.
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