Daniel Deronda

THE DIPTYCHThis novel was renewed my interest on how George Eliot wrote I am highly tempted to read about her and approach literary evaluations of her writing, but before I do so I want to read Adam Bede and Silas Marner and may be reread The Mill on the Floss.When I read Romola I considered GE s cosmopolitanism and breath of knowledge These elements are also present in Daniel Deronda but with an added edge With Middlemarch it was the role of the narrator and the clear presence of the author th [...]

I watched a TV adaptation recently of Andrea Levy s Small Island, a book I had read when it first came out but which I d or less forgotten The adaptation succeeded very well, and might even have been better than the book The characters were very credible and their words and actions explained their circumstances perfectly But there was a voiceover which I thought was unnecessary and quite intrusive since the faces of the actors were very expressive and the dialogues filled in any missing backgro [...]

I finished this book about a month ago and have been letting my thoughts first simmer and then actually almost get pushed onto the back burner as our summer holidays began Once I decided to look over my notes, I realized that a review might be quite overwhelming Further, the book did not necessarily endear itself to me over time as many typically do when I prepare to write down my impressions On the other hand, I most certainly acknowledge that this was an important book and quite a feat of wri [...]

Re read from June 07 to June 12, 2012 I had forgotten what a hard work reading Daniel Deronda was It has to be Eliot s most challenging and overwhelming novel, yet such a great pleasure to read and re read It s enormously ambitious novel, broad in its scope, space, time and history The setting itself is untypical of Eliot s previous novels It s no longer the idyllic, provincial villages of Adam Bede or Middlemarch, but Daniel Deronda is set at the heart of cosmopolitan aristocracy of contemporar [...]

While ostensibly the story of one Daniel Deronda, a young man of we learn unknown parentage, raised to be an educated Englishman of worth and standing, this novel is also the tale of Gwendolen Harleth, and how their lives intersect We are introduced to both early on and see them off and on over time as they face changes within their families, their sense of self, their future This is my third Eliot novel While I found some truly wonderful prose here, as I have found in the others I have read, I [...]

This last novel by George Eliot is a psychological investigation into the question of identity and role Identity concealed, identity as a role to be performed, identity as a prison This is also the only written in Eliot s own time, instead of some decades previous It asks difficult questions about the nature of class, race, and gender, and their understanding in contemporary society.Upon this, there is a dimension of secularism and religious mysticism The figure of Mordecai, infusing political i [...]

Now here s a book that combines two of my very favorite things classic British romance with YES Jewish themes Marian Evans a k a George Eliot even went to Frankfurt am Main to do research for the book in the times of no less than Rav Samson Rafael Hirsch I think I ve found a thesis topic if I ever get to graduate school Till then, though, I ll have to content myself with this review No major spoilers, but it is a pretty detailed plot summary, so if you want to be 100% safe, skip to the last two [...]

This was one of those long stories that in the end were worth a read I have previously read Middlemarch by George Eliot, but in many ways I find Daniel Deronda to be a different story that is interesting in many ways Our main character, Gwendolen, is quite a character She s selfish, attention seeking and frivolous, and in many ways she actually reminded me of Scarlett O Hara in Gone with the Wind I liked reading about her a lot especially because she does change throughout the narrative but some [...]

This ambitious novel melds the stories of two very different characters, so perhaps it s appropriate that the novel itself seems a hybrid of a little bit of a lot of what we expect from 19th century British novelists the sensational melodrama of Wilkie Collins the perfection of good characters a la Dickens, along with his humor and irony though Eliot s is subtle the satire of marriage customs and the problem of moneymaking for females who are trained to be helpless, reminiscent of the arguably [...]

3.5 stars rounded up to 4George Eliot s tome, Daniel Deronda, was her last novel and it is anything but an easy read Quite frequently when the narrative began to move and become quite interesting, Eliot would veer off into another direction and leave me champing at the bit to get back to the story Having recently read Middlemarch, I couldn t help feeling that these characters were all pale and colorless next to those I had just left behind The character, Daniel Deronda, was a particular puzzle t [...]

Daniel Deronda centres around several characters It relates to an intersection of Jewish and Gentile society in 19th century England With references to Kaballah, Jewish identity and the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel Gwendolen Harleth a spoiled but poised and spirited of a family of recently impoverished English gentry enters into a loveless marriage for money, with the cold Mr Grandcourt but soon sickens of his emotional sadism The novel centres around Gwendolen as much as it does aro [...]

This is one of my favorite books George Eliot probably has to be one of the best authors that I have ever read Her psychological insight into each character is so amazing and her analysis of human nature is quite profound Gwendolen Harleth, much as you despise her, is very vividly portrayed and there is an interesting reality in all of her words and actions She is a revealing character and, though most people do not have her outright selfishness, yet I think most could relate to some of her char [...]

Despite its wildly excessive length and several bone jarring plot twists, Daniel Deronda should please the majority of those who enjoyed Middlemarch It succeeds in three areas First, it tells how a frivolous, air headed young woman acquires moral depth and wisdom Second, it comments brilliantly on the institution of the nephew , i.e the young person raised by a male who denies being his father Third it contains a superb discussion on what was the very new idea at the time the novel was published [...]

I ve learned two things 1 Briefly, I am Gwendolyn 2 I can never listen to a George Eliot novel again I love her writing She s so eloquent, but she s so verbose that I just zone out.I m DNF at chapter 56 I ve decided I do not care what happens to any of these characters I probably should have read the book.2017 Reading Challenge a book mentioned in another book

Eliot is a master of characterization and uses this gift well in exploring two important themes in English society The first and most unique is that of antisemitism in late 19th Century English life, as well as the beginnings of Zionism The second theme is altruism vs egotism Too verbose at times, but otherwise a hugely ambitious and successful social novel 4 1 2 stars.

4.5 stars but I m rounding up This was not quite as good as Middlemarch but it was close Gwendolen is an absolutely fascinating character She drove me crazy at times but she was great.

This is probably one of the most frustrating books that I ve had to review since coming to GR I enjoyed it tremendously, in parts and parts of it left me rather bored and wanting to put the book down But for some reason, I couldn t and I persevered and I think I m glad I did view spoiler Spoilers abound, in one way or another, because it is impossible to speak of this novel without them Be warned, if you don t care to know what lies ahead hide spoiler.I say that only because while the Jewish Que [...]

So a couple of years ago on I dunno, PBS BBC I got hooked on a miniseries called Daniel Deronda, which was starring Hugh Dancy and Romola Garai the reason why I tuned in and based on a novel I had never heard of, by George Eliot, who I had heard of but never read anything by Hooked HOOKED, I TELL YOU One is not expecting a story by an English lady authoress to suddenly delve into the plight of the Jewish people in Victorian England One is not expecting mistresses and illegitimate children to be [...]

I don t know why I had never read George Eliot s Daniel Deronda before, having read nearly all her other novels This is a marvelous work, its great length permitting intricacy of plot and detailed examination of character Published in 1876, it was Eliot s last novel and her only novel taking place in contemporary Victorian society It was also arguably one of her most controversial works The plot is two fold, one plot line involving traditional English class society and focusing on the life and f [...]

Utterly conventional in its romantic elements and unconvincing in its foray into Zionist politics The strange doubling of unlikely family discoveries and terminal illnesses at first seems rife with emotional implications but upon reflection seems like a failure of imagination on the author s part, an obsessive repetition of themes Mirah discovers her long lost brother Mordecai only when he s at death s door Deronda reunites with his long lost mother only when she s about to die but what do thei [...]

Daniel Deronda is not an easy book to read If Middlemarch is a masterpiece of 19th century realism, Deronda is something else altogether Like its predecessor, the narrative follows two main protagonists Deronda, a young Englishman of uncertain parentage, and Gwendolen Harleth, a pretty, at times vain and spoiled daughter of a well off family The two meet by chance at the gambling hall of a swanky European watering place, where Gwendolen is doing her best to live in fashionable dissipation The ge [...]

I have just finished a leisurely eight week group read of George Eliot s last completed novel, Daniel Deronda, with my Anglophiles Anonymous group on Shelfari I very much enjoyed the experience of reading and discussing the book, section by section, each week I am convinced that I got so much out of it this way than if I d read it by myself Without the incentive of the group read, I am also quite sure that this is a novel that I probably would not have even acquired, much less read.The novel, f [...]

SPOILER ALERT After closing the page on this long novel, it lingers on in my mind and I ve been trying to digest it well enough so that I may do it justice in my review It is a complex and elegantly written novel, almost prophetic in its day 1876 just at the cusp of the Zionist movement The first chapter failed to engage me and I nearly aborted the read because of it, but that chapter would later fit like a puzzle piece into the big scheme of things I am so glad I kept reading, because this is t [...]

I wrote my senior thesis on this novel, lo some quarter century ago Listening to it on audiobook via my beloved Juliet Stevenson had a Flowers for Algernon quality I know I once had very deep thoughts about the intersection of colonialism and feminism in this last and not least of Eliot s novels I caught echoes of that this time around, and certainly Deronda s status as the chosen proto Zionist and a few choice passages on the comfortable status of the assimilated Jews in Germany have the same t [...]

This is not a quick or easy read.There are parts that I should have reread, but this is hard to do when reading an eBook, so I missed some things.After reading Middlemarch I was disappointed in this book Though Gwendolen was an unlikable spoiled girl at the outset, I thought she was a interesting character than the character Daniel himself This was a serious flaw for me that a novel called Daniel Deronda the eponymous character himself was upstaged by another character in terms of holding my in [...]

I found this book to be a fascinating portrayal of the Industrial Age in England and the emergence of the Zionist movement A thought provoking novel that provides a clear insight into an unusual era.

Another novel it feels absurd to rate with stars.What an exhilarating and delicious experience The novel wasn t new to me, but it s been over 20 years since I last read it How wonderful to be reintroduced to the complexities of Gwendolyn Harleth, the delicately tuned sadism of Henleigh Grandcourt, the benevolent conventionality of Sir Hugo Mallinger, the yearnings of Daniel Deronda George Eliot allows everyone his or her humanity even Grandcourt I revere her for creating some of he most nuanced [...]

This was no Middlemarch, but I do think it s amazing that I can still enjoy a book by an author who has been dead a little over 120 years There were a few really great one liners in there which show what a comic genius Eliot could be There were also some beautiful sentiments about relationships and the constraints put on women during Eliot s time seen at times in Gwendolen s character, but mostly in Daniel s mother.My criticism of the novel was that Eliot spent a lot of time developing Gwendolen [...]

Discussion is being held at the Victorians group This is the story of Daniel Deronda and his search for his true identify In this book Eliot show her best of style of writing in the first two chapters, in a flashback point of view, Deronda met Gwendolyn at a Casino but she is forced to go home due to financial duties with her family Apparently, a romantic relationship is established between these characters However, as the plot develops, one learns the true story of Daniel Deronda and his search [...]

Not my normal story at all I do tend to light reading, thriller, adventure, but at times I do try to explore challenging stories This was definitely one of those It s a true classic, well written and intelligent The story focusses on two main characters, Gwendolen Harleth, a selfish, young lady who thinks the world revolves around her and Daniel Deronda, a gentlemen, searching for himself This search has many aspects, the simple one being trying to ascertain who his parents are as he has grown [...]