A phenomenal read, so ambitious it hurts. Eliot is a true master and was way ahead of her time. Daniel Deronda might be a too perfect character, always seeming to do the right and just thing, but the people around him are what make this book worth reading. Eliot's exploration of Jewishness and anti-Semitism is striking, and her prose is otherworldly.

As I said in an update, I'm very much of the same opinion as the critics who stated that this book ought to have been titled Gwendolen Harleth and done without Daniel's personal part of the story. Gwendolen was an incredibly well-written character and her development over the course of the story was super compelling, as was Eliot's depiction of an emotionally abusive relationship. Her relationship with Daniel was also really interesting as she built up his influence in her head and came to rely so much on the scant conversations they had.

This opinion might just be because I found a lot of the religious and philosophical musings in the Daniel/Mordecai part of the book to be extremely difficult to understand and wade through. Eliot's language was also more convoluted than I'm used to, even having read a lot of Victorians, and sometimes I frankly just did not understand what she was saying. I am sure that smarter people have a lot to say about the book's Zionism, but readers should definitely note that it is present.

Mirah and the Meyricks were excessively saccharine in the way that only female characters in Victorian lit can be - this was even more annoying than usual because of its contrast to how real and complex Gwendolen was. Daniel's mother was also extremely interesting.

I'm glad I read this but parts of it were a huge struggle. Maybe I'm just not as smart as I used to be.

Complicated and unexpected, definitely a masterpiece. I love listening to audiobooks as I work on projects and chores and this one was no exception.

Gwendolen is such a complex, realistic, well written character and you find yourself feeling a full range of emotions as you experience her story - disgust at her selfishness, admiration at her unwillingness to marry just to become known as "Mrs X" and her desire to live her own life, and finally sadness for how she is unable to fulfill her dreams. I often found myself comparing her to Lily in House of Mirth, which I also love. I know Middlemarch is Eliot's masterpiece, but I enjoyed this much more.

What can I say about a classic like Daniel Deronda? This is not a book I'd have considered picking up for a fun read, so I'm very thankful to have experienced it as a collective read with my book group. It's very much worth the effort -- and it feels like a major accomplishment to have reached the end.

I write this review because I notice I hadn't previously written one when I gave it the 5 star rating.

I consider this the Queen of all novels, of all fiction.
After first reading it a few years ago, I haven't been able to let it out of my mind.
It's insanely beautiful. Gwendolen Harleth manages to steal the focus from Daniel Deronda himself. Whilst Deronda's tale is deep, wonderful and as relavant now and the year it was written, it is a tale to move the mind, whereas Gwendolen's story really moves the heart and soul. The turmoil she goes through, the writing of her character and her thoughts are so so moving, and at no time more so that when she and Deronda are together. Every time they meet, the scenes are riveting. Her story and her journey are timeless.

An overwhelming read, for many reasons, only one of which is that it involved two distinct storylines in a single enormous novel. Eliot deftly merges the two storylines throughout, and while I still think this would have worked better as two separate books, the effect is that few readers will fail to find an element or chapter that is personally resonant or in some other way emotionally stirring.

If the book were “Gwendolen” I think I would have liked it more.

“She has the charm and those who feared her were also fond of her. The fear and fondness being perhaps both heightened by what may be called the iridescence of her character”
Book I, Chapter IV

If Rex and Gwen and ended up together, I think I would’ve liked the book more.
“It was all morning to then within and without”
Book 1, Chapter V

Creation of Mr. Grandcourt - 10/10
700 pages of mostly drudgery was almost worth it just for the Grandcourt and Gwendolen showdowns
“It was not possible for a human aspect to be freer from grimace or solicitous wriggling. Also it was not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less animated [buuuuurn]….
The correct Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity, assenting se weekly, and seeking to be in a state of internal drill, suggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with some violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt’s bearing has no rigidity, it inclined rather to be flaccid.”
[is this another burn orrr…?]

Wisdom mic drop incoming
“Attempts at description are stupidly: who can all at once describe a human being? Even when he is presented to us we only begin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by innumerable impressions under differing circumstances. We recognize the alphabet; we are not sure if the language.”
Okay, touché Master Eliot. Flexing her literary powers here. But also a bit ironic because in the 700 pages of this book, the descriptions of people that you can’t really know from mere descriptions, were NOT one of the things that tired me. In fact, I wished she had spent more time describing people and their behaviors under differing circumstances, and less time talking about Zionism and whatever else it is she talked about for 90% of the book that I have successfully already forgotten about because it was so boring.
But this musing piece is A+, reminds me of Tolstoy, reminds me why I read this book in the first place, Eliot is still a G.O.A.T even if this book isn’t.

Gwendolen is an interesting hero but she’s surrounded by boring men. If she were a 20 or 21st century gal, she would have slayed and not even bothered to give any of the characters in this book the time of day.
“I do not pretend to genius. I only supposed I might have a little talent.”

Klesmer is a prune.

Mrs Glasher is pretty legit too. Would this book be better if there were like no screen time for the male characters? Probably.
“These diamonds, which were once given with ardent love to Lydia Glasher, she passes on to you. You have broken your word to her, that you might possess what was hers. Perhaps you think of being happy, as she once was, and of having beautiful children such as hers, who will thrust hers aside. God is too just for that. The man you have married has a withered heart. His best young love was mine. You could not take that from me when you took the rest. It is dead; but I am the grave in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. You had your warning. You have chosen to injure me and my children. You will have your punishment. I desire it with all my soul.
You took him with your eyes open. The willing wrong you have done me will be your curse.”
Dang. I would’ve screamed and gone into hysterics too. A friend of mine has been getting into Shintoism recently, and after each lost board game or disparaging comment, yells out “I curse you” and it’s enough to make me jump. But still less potent than Mrs Glasher’s curse!


Mrs Meyrick was cliche and too sentimental - but good for Mother’s Day quotes
“A mother hears something like a childish lisp in her children’s talk to the very last. Their words are not just what everybody else says, though they may be spelt the same. If I were to live until my son got old, I should still see the boy in him. A mother’s love, I often say, is like a tree that has got all the wood in it from the very first it made.”
Book IV, Chapter XXXII

Daniel - didn’t understand him not even by the end. Who is this guy? What’s his angle? Is he kind of lame??? Is he a saint? No one knows
“Much of our lives is spent in marring our own influence and turning others’ belief of us into a widely concluding unbeliever which they call knowledge of the world, while it is really disappointment in you and me.”

So what to make of it? This was difficult to read and I think of myself proudly as a George Eliot fan. I watched the BBC early 2000s version of this as a kid and was in love with Gwendolen and Daniel Deronda, terrified of Grandcourt, and confused why Daniel married boring Mirah at the end. But reading this was a very different and less rewarding experience in some ways. I’m not entirely sure why that is. I don’t think I fully understood what Eliot wanted to say about Daniel Deronda. But the ambiguity about his true feelings for Gwendolen added a little unexpected spice to the end of a drudgingly boring 700 page-too-long book. So what can I do, end with another quote.

“In the checkered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled. One tends the green cluster and another treads the wine press. In each of our lives harvest and springtime are continually one, until Death himself gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields.”

This novel had all of the worst characteristics of 19th-century literature. I suspect, also, that there’s good reason that I couldn’t get through either Cranford or Romola, and maybe Middlemarch was just a fluke. (Though perhaps if I revisited Middlemarch now, I’d classify it with Eliot’s others.)

Daniel Deronda is preachy, over-long, dull, lacking action, and peopled with characters who are entirely too virtuous. On the other hand, the few villainous characters—consequently, the only ones who are at all interesting—are not gifted with much of a history.

I do give Eliot credit for placing two difficult, rather unlikeable characters in a relationship at the center of the novel. And I shouldn’t blame her for not being modern enough to treat with sympathy a woman who’s being abused by her husband. (Then again, didn’t Ann Bronte do so nearly three decades earlier?)

Deronda himself is unpleasant company and hardly has an ounce of personality. One wonders that his lively, somewhat debauched painter friend has any time for him. And Mirah? Dear god, I’m so bored by saintly women who’ve borne challenges but somehow remained naive, childlike, and incredibly attractive. All that gasping and marveling and gratitude for their masculine saviors. Yawn. (Also, it’s quite unlikely that anyone who spent time on the stage in that era would be so... sheltered.)

And that leaves Gwendolen. It’s a strange, pasted-together plot that places these two main characters together, her and Deronda. I think that’s my primary complaint, and maybe the lesson of the novel, which was underscored rather too obviously in other areas.

She’s certainly a type: real, spoiled, needy, approval-seeking. But she doesn’t deserve to be flogged for the one unselfish, practical action that she takes early in the novel. I won’t say more about her fate—it’d be a spoiler.

A very slow read.