Dashiell Hammett. Mouse Guard. David Petersen. The Wishing Tree. William Faulkner. Sand of the Soul. Voronica Whitney-Robinson. Doktor Glass. Thomas Brennan. Man in the Empty Suit. Sean Ferrell. The War in the Dark. Nick Setchfield.
The Complete Plays. John M. Grant Morrison. Arisa Natsumi Ando. Justice League: The Art of the Film. Abbie Bernstein. Oreimo: Kuroneko Volume 2. Tsukasa Fushimi. Osamu Takahashi. Say I Love You. Kanae Hazuki. The Prince and the Pauper. Archives of the Universe. Their words and actions filled the viewer in so well on the background to the story that the occasional narratorial voiceover seemed unnecessary. Soon afterwards, I watched the first episode of a three-part ad Recently I watched a TV adaptation of Andrea Levy's Small Island , a book I had read when it first came out but which I'd more or less forgotten.
Soon afterwards, I watched the first episode of a three-part adaptation of Daniel Deronda , and had the opposite reaction. Nothing made sense to me. I was convinced that a large part of Eliot's intentions for the story were missing, and while the actors were all fine in their way, the words they were given to say were simply not enough.
I tried to fill in the missing bits myself but couldn't. It was impossible to imagine the history and motivations that lay behind those characters and their actions, as impossible as trying to imagine the layers of messages underlying the movie title Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri until you've viewed that extraordinary film for yourself—which I've just done.
If there had been a book on which that film was based, I'm certain that it could never measure up to the movie. Every frame was a billboard in itself, and the message on each was astonishingly spare and incredibly eloquent.
George Eliot is very eloquent, but there is nothing spare about her writing. You cannot pare it down and fit it in movie frames yet it is very visual in spite of that. It belongs on the page—but offers the big screen experience to the mind's eye.
But you have to read all the words to see the pictures properly. I was very glad I abandoned the TV adaptation after that first episode and picked up the book instead. Right from the first page I realised that without the support of the text I could never have succeeded in fully understanding the complexities of motivation that lay behind the surface story, or indeed the scope of Eliot's project in the first place.
And when I reached the end of the book, I was certain that I didn't need to watch the rest of the TV adaptation—the book had been more vivid for me that any adaptation could be. I posted an update the day I finished the book, regretting that the reading experience was over, and a curious conversation erupted in the comments section of that update.
The conversation made me realise that there are readers who tackle books as if their task were to adapt them for the screen rather than simply read what is on the page. They would like to cut massive sections, delete certain characters, and make other characters act differently so that the story might move towards an ending they think is more fitting.
You could say that such an approach is a very 'creative' way of reading but you could also wonder where the writer's intentions for her work fit in that scenario. The writer's intentions are everything for me. I may probe them and question them but I would never disregard them. A writer's work is a sacred thing, a bit like other people's religious beliefs, not to be tampered with even when we don't revere them ourselves.
I mention religion because it is a major theme in this book. George Eliot became more and more interested in Judaism during the course of her life, at first in an effort to overcome her own prejudices towards the increasing Jewish population in mid-nineteenth century Britain, and then later because she had become genuinely interested in the common origin of Judaism and Christianity.
This book is essentially about that preoccupation, but because Eliot is very good at creating story lines, she has inserted the Jewish themed story into an intriguing frame story.
Readers seem to differ about which story is the more worthwhile part of the book, and many favour the frame story. However, I found that the two strands overlapped and echoed each other so well that I never even thought of separating or comparing them. Characters from both sections mirrored each other even if they seemed completely opposite, and the central redeemer-like figure of Daniel Deronda linked them all together perfectly.
The overall shape of the book worked very well for me and I'm left in awe of George Eliot's mind as well as her writing. The result of this unplanned reading adventure is that Daniel Deronda now marks the beginning of my George Eliot season. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of her books, and I may possibly reread Middlemarch as a fitting endnote.
So much for the to-read stack I selected at the beginning of January. Abandoned indefinitely! Eliot's frame story concerns a fiercely independent-minded young woman who, in spite of the general expectation, is in no hurry to marry anyone. Nevertheless, like HJ's Isabel Archer, Gwendolyn Harleth finds herself enslaved by a cold-hearted husband who is only interested in crushing her independent spirit.
Eliot's main story also reminded me of another Henry James plot line. They are both orphans who desperately need to discover more about their parents, and they both become deeply involved in movements they had no previous associations with.
Slim connections, perhaps, but I love finding such links. View all 93 comments. I am highly tempted to read more 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.
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 that attracted me.
In DD the voice of the writer is also clear but in less authorial fashion and, one suspects, speaking more often through her characters.
What struck me most, and want to select for my review this time, is the structure of the novel. It is clearly divided in two. Clearly a diptych. Already MM seemed to me to consist of two parallel stories joined somewhat seamlessly in the middle. The study of provincial evolved around two foci, the doctor Lydgate and the illuminated Dorothea.
Both idealists. The twists and turnings of the plot, however, managed to link the two stories creating a middle path in Middlemarch were these two different versions of dreamers confronted each other and helped each other in correcting their reflections. With almost separated frames the novel reads like a double portrait, or a diptych with two facing and complementary donors searching for an object of adoration that is however missing — for the Self is never in the other.
The two subjects pursue their mirroring images and transverse their separating frames by engaging in dialogs and verbal encounters. The twists and turns of the plot this time do not fuse their separated worlds. Only their minds bridge the gap. Generally I do not discuss characters in my reviews, but I can't avoid it this time. In this novel, the two protagonists, the sitters in the double portrait, baffled me. Gwendolen Gwen , potentially a highly irritating young woman, fascinated me because I thought she was such a modern character.
But even if these contemporary women have had a better chance to explore and exploit their abilities in their chosen fields of excellence than GE has allowed Gwen, she did not get on my nerves. I was enthralled by her modernity. Daniel, in spite of having claimed the title of the novel, remained for me an equivocal figure.
It is almost as if in my diptych Daniel—with his messianic role turned around, for he is the Christian leading onto the Jewish— is a donor who through a process of transubstantiation has become the object of adoration. And in that transformation, the novel dims and blurs its cast of characters and becomes more and more an exploration of ideas, spirituality and politics, with a defence of Judaism and a daring proposal of Zionism.
In all this Daniel emerges as an ethereal saviour but poor Gwen succumbs and loses her leading edge. And that is what made me wonder about how GE wrote her books and planned her work in her mind. Did she spend half of her day doing intellectual research on the subjects that captivated her and did she then transcribe her reading into her novel in the afternoons?
What was her true objective, to expand her erudition, or to mould it into something else? I will have to put aside my curiosity for a while and continue reading her work, but with her intelligent writing and formidable abilities she certainly makes me ponder about the process of writing, that elusive act - creativity. How is it born and how does it live? And how did Rothko paint the above diptych? View all 30 comments. Jun 06, Candi rated it liked it Shelves: kindle-book-i-own , spring-cleaning-challenge , classics-shelf.
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. Furthermore, the book did not necessarily endear itself to me more 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 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.
On the other hand, I most certainly acknowledge that this was an important book and quite a feat of writing on the part of George Eliot. I applaud her efforts at setting on paper her ideas regarding feminism, the British aristocracy, and racial identity, in particular that of Judaism.
What I had the most trouble with was the often cumbersome reflections of the main characters which detracted from the flow of the narrative. The interactions between the characters were to me the most stimulating portions to absorb as a reader. The characterizations were well done — some characters being more interesting, even if not likable, than others.
What is a girl to do in this situation? Degrade oneself by taking a position or, perhaps worse yet, accept an offer of marriage? Gwendolen was perhaps the most interesting and multi-layered character of this book. When Gwendolen Harleth meets the saintlike figure of Daniel Deronda, their lives become connected as she attempts to better herself to become deserving of his friendship and esteem. But while Gwendolen fights her demons, Deronda struggles with his own identity crisis - one which stems from an unknown parentage as well as from a strong spiritual link to an impassioned Jewish nationalist, Mordecai.
Deronda "had not the Jewish consciousness, but he had a yearning, grown the stronger for the denial which had been his grievance, after the obligation of avowed filial and social ties.
Through Deronda, however, these feelings are changed as he develops a relationship with both Mirah, to whom he is also a savior, as well as Mordecai. Deronda learns the true and principled nature of the Jewish people and their desire to achieve a national identity.
Looking toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the peoples of the East and the West…" Several more players are introduced into the plot, too many for me to delve into detail here.
I will say that Mr. Grandcourt and Mr. Lush make my list for the most strikingly malodorous individuals — in a very amusing sort of way. They provided a nice counterbalance to the gushing wholesomeness of Deronda and Mirah. This was my fourth George Eliot novel. While I did like it - once I plowed through the more laborious portions of it- I have to say that it is my least favorite so far. Both Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss were much more readable and engaging and I would recommend either of these — especially for a first time Eliot reader.
I am glad that I read this one, and happy to add it to my list of more difficult tomes I have completed. View all 23 comments. It's enormously ambitious novel, broad in its scope, space, time and history. The politics are no longer local, but global as Eliot scrutinises the exploits of British Empire. The stakes are much higher; the individual identities are threatened and lost. The conflict is personal, yet also very social. Gwendolen Harleth has to be Eliot's most remarkable and fascinating creation.
In fact, I am in love with Gwendolen. The main reason I re-read this novel because I missed her. I missed being in her mind, to follow her cognitions, her mental anguish, her witty repartees, sheer snobbery, ambition and heedless narcissism. She is of course not the first vain or shallow female character ever created by Eliot.
But in Daniel Deronda , Gwendolen is put at the centre of the stage and her narcissism is taken to extremes, that there is a scene where she is moved to kiss her own reflection in the mirror. Like countless other women, she suffers from the restrictions Victorian society imposed on any respectable woman. She is a dreamer and sees marriage not as a loving union, but as a way to achieve status and power. Yet contrary to her expectations, the marriage turns out to be an abusive one.
Gwendolen fails to realise that Grandcourt also has an iron will of his own. The irony is that her decision to marry the incredibly wealthy Grandcourt was to some extent influenced by her selfless concern towards her bankrupt family. So, her partly selfless act becomes the bane of her life. A painful psychological struggle for power ensues between them and Gwendolen is quickly crushed by him. His secret becomes her guilt, a yoke around her neck which continually gnaws at her conscience.
I liked Deronda even if I found him to be rigid and morally superior. He is the only person who sees Gwendolen for what she is behind her mask of superficial pride and cheerfulness. Naturally, Gwendolen is drawn to Deronda to help her make her life more bearable. He becomes her redeemer, in the same way as he redeems her necklace which she pawns after gambling. Her letter to him contains the most moving and tear-inducing lines of the whole novel.
But, Deronda is the man with his own set of troubles. Unsure of his true identity, he struggles to find a stable niche in society. He is the medium which Eliot uses to explore the plight of London's scorned Jewish community and the emergence of Zionism, for which this novel is perhaps most famous for.
Daniel Deronda is highly symbolic novel. All those literary references to mythology, science, philosophy, religion and mysticism, which slightly irritated me at first reading, fit perfectly in the thematic framework of the novel.
The characters themselves are symbols. Grandcourt symbolises the corruption and vulgarity of English aristocracy, given to reckless materialism and hedonism.
Overall, Daniel Deronda is a terribly exhausting but an equally rewarding read. If you are new to Eliot, I wouldn't recommend reading this first as it might put you off Eliot forever, but her earlier works such as The Mill on the Floss.
View all 11 comments. 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 rea 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.
While I found some truly wonderful prose here, as I have found in the others I have read, I was left with the impression that Eliot attempted more than she could comfortably accomplish. Her character descriptions are typically excellent, some quite amusing.
She is able to skewer her people both lovingly and not. As an example of the first perhaps there is this description of Gwendolen. And happening to be seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between her two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the back of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her portrait.
It is possible to have a strong self-love without self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one's own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care; but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had a naive delight in her fortunate self It was not possible for a human aspect to be freer from grimace or solicitous wrigglings; also it was perhaps not possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less animated Here it felt as if Eliot's concern for the politics and history of her story overwhelmed the narrative.
That never really gelled with the basic story of the characters. The polemics overshadowed several chapters and a few of the characters, seeming to reduce them to ciphers. But Eliot is still a powerful writer and, often, a clever and beautiful writer. I didn't find her writing about the "cause" too strident. Some of it I found very appealing. But as a whole I don't think it succeeded in bringing the story of Daniel Deronda fully to life. View all 10 comments. Observing her is the title character, Daniel Deronda.
She feels he is judging her negatively, which disconcerts her, so she begins to lose. Within the next few scenes, he takes a mysterious action which really unnerves her. And that is the last we see of him until Chapter As a character, though, she is more of an anti-heroine than heroine. She wants admirers, especially male admirers, but then scorns them without caring about how many hearts she breaks. Enter Mr. They marry. Then the novel shifts back to Daniel Deronda, a young gentleman with no clear direction.
He was a serious scholar at Cambridge and proved himself to be exceptionally kind to his friends, but he lives in the shadow of not knowing who his parents are.
Rumor has it that he is the illegitimate son of Sir Hugo Mallinger, the nobleman who raised him. Daniel also believes the rumors, but loves Sir Hugo too much to confront him about it. When Daniel finds her, she is nineteen years old, has escaped her captors, and is in desperate search of her family.
Jews, especially baalei teshuva , will appreciate if not love Chapter How in the world did George Eliot know? The rest of the novel alternates between scenes of Gwendolen in her souring marriage and scenes with the Jewish characters, which notably includes a visionary named Mordecai who is preaching religious Zionism.
Daniel, the "knight errant," weaves his way through all of their lives. Comic relief from Daniel's friend, Hans Meyrick. Naturally, I am partial to the Jewish sections, but from a literary point of view, the portrayal of Gwendolen is the most masterful part of the novel.
No character goes through as dramatic a transformation as she. I must reiterate that George Eliot does not reach Jane Austen in terms of prose style. At times the text is so heavy and full of extraneous detail that I suspected that like Dickens, she was paid by the word. But while Dickens was making it big with Fagin, Eliot was taking on anti-Semitism, not just by creating positive Jewish characters, but by letting her Christian characters work through their prejudices in the course of the novel.
That makes her a heroine in my eyes. The scholarly introduction to my copy of the novel included some very interesting literary history. The British critics of the time panned the book for its Jewish themes. One suggested that Eliot should have left the Jews out and just called the book Gwendolen. An anonymous sequel by that title appeared a few years later, doing more or less that by killing off the Jewish characters and continuing the story of Gwendolen and Deronda.
The Jews loved the book, though some said that the romantic themes detracted from the main point of the novel, which was Zionism. And in parallel to the anonymous sequel, the German Jewish novelist Marcus Lehman adapted the book to include only the Jewish themes. I think the whole thing is pretty funny. Personally, I loved both parts of the book — the British and the Jewish. View all 19 comments. This was one of those long stories that in the end were worth a read.
Our main character, Gwendolen, is quite a character. I liked reading about her a lot - especially because she does change throughout the narrat This was one of those long stories that in the end were worth a read.
I liked reading about her a lot - especially because she does change throughout the narrative - but some people might find her too repulsive to take an interest in.
The other main character is Daniel Deronda who is, in many ways, the opposite of Gwendolen. View 1 comment. Jun 14, Amalia Gkavea rated it really liked it Shelves: classics , 19th-century , british-literature. Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down. Once upon a time, I was on a long train journey, and one of my compartment's neighbors, watching me reading for a lengthy period in a frozen silence, asked me which word in human's vocabulary was the most valuable.
My reply was spontaneously uttered, "Love". The man was surprised. He said he had expected me to answer "soul" or "God".
I just laughed and replied, "Love is enough as Love is God. But, maybe not anymore. Anyway, at that time I certainly felt that while rai Once upon a time, I was on a long train journey, and one of my compartment's neighbors, watching me reading for a lengthy period in a frozen silence, asked me which word in human's vocabulary was the most valuable.
Anyway, at that time I certainly felt that while raising on the ray of love, one can enter the enlightened kingdom of everything that God has created. In a way, but again depending on the key of interpretation, it is better to say that love is God than to say that truth is God, because the harmony, the beauty, the vitality, the joy and the bliss that are part of love are not part of truth. Truth is to be known, heard, voiced; love is to be felt, experienced, as well as known.
The growth and perfection of love lead to the ultimate merger with God, whatever that means for each of us. We like it or not, the greatest poverty of all is the absence of love. The man who has not developed the capacity to love lives in a private hell of his own. A human can be seen as a wonderful and unique plant, a plant that is capable of producing both nectar and poison.
If a man lives by hate he reaps a harvest of poison; if he lives by love he gathers blossoms laden with nectar. I guess each one has a similar experience.
Like it or not, one cannot avoid it. If I mould my life and live it with the well-being of everything in mind, that is love. But Love results from the awareness that you are not separate, not different from anything else in existence. I am in you; you are in me. This love is religious and it is the truest one. I replied that love is God.
That is to me the ultimate truth. But, love also exists within the family unit. This is the first step on the journey to love, and the ultimate can never happen if the beginning has been absent. Love is responsible for the existence of the family and when the family unit moves apart and its members spread out into society, love increases and grows.
When a man's family has finally grown to incorporate all of mankind, his love becomes one with God. Without love a human being is just an individual, an ego. He has no family; he has no link with other people. This is gradual death. Life, on the other hand, is interrelation. Love surpasses the duality of the ego. This alone is truth.
The man who thirsts for truth must first develop his capacity to love—to the point where the difference between the lover and the beloved disappears and only love remains. When the light of love is freed from the duality of lover and the beloved, when it is freed from the haze of seer and seen, when only the light of pure love shines brightly, that is freedom and liberation.
I wondered what I could say about love! Love is so difficult to describe. Love is just there. You could probably see it in my eyes if you came up and looked into them. I wonder if you can feel it as my arms spread in an embrace. What is love? If love is not felt in my eyes, in my arms, in my silence, then it can never be realized from my words. This is a fancy which you have got into your head during an idle week or two: you must set to work at something and dismiss it.
There is every reason against it. An engagement at your age would be totally rash and unjustifiable; and moreover, alliances between first cousins are undesirable.
Make up your mind to a brief disappointment. Life is full of them. We have all got to be broken in; and this is a mild beginning for you. He had no taste for a woman who was all tenderness to him, full of petitioning solicitude and willing obedience.
He meant to be master of a woman who would have liked to master him, and who perhaps would have been capable of mastering another man. Why should a gentleman whose other relations in life are carried on without the luxury of sympathetic feeling, be supposed to require that kind of condiment in domestic life? Buy from…. View all retailers.
Also by George Eliot. Related titles. To Kill A Mockingbird. Pride and Prejudice. Brave New World. The Great Gatsby: Popular Penguins. Crime and Punishment. Little Women. The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Secret Garden. Anna Karenina. Of Mice and Men.
Jane Eyre. The Power of the Dog.
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