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Anne 's Reviews> Daniel Deronda
Daniel Deronda
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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 and tangential at times, but otherwise a hugely ambitious and successful social novel.
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Reading Progress
December 6, 2009
– Shelved
April 22, 2011
– Shelved as:
1001-books
September 11, 2011
– Shelved as:
jewish
September 30, 2011
–
Started Reading
October 1, 2011
–
5.0%
October 4, 2011
–
15.0%
October 11, 2011
–
30.0%
October 17, 2011
–
35.0%
October 18, 2011
–
43.0%
October 18, 2011
–
50.0%
October 21, 2011
–
55.0%
October 29, 2011
–
70.0%
October 31, 2011
–
80.0%
November 2, 2011
–
95.0%
November 3, 2011
–
100.0%
November 3, 2011
– Shelved as:
classics
November 3, 2011
–
Finished Reading
July 25, 2022
– Shelved as:
2011
Comments Showing 1-24 of 24 (24 new)
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Anne
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rated it4stars
Oct 15, 2011 10:05PM
Well, yes and no. I'm 1/3 through. I'm not captivated by it (yet?), but I like it. I'll let you know how I feel about it when I'm done. I'm reading it with the Victorians group. Discussion starts today. I chose to read it mostly because the title character (and another) is Jewish. That's highly unusual Victorian novel. So far, Deronda doesn't even know that he is Jewish. To be fair, the novel only starts talking about his young life at the 20% mark. He's introduced briefly at the beginning and then another character takes over for a long time while he's offstage, so to speak. (That's a lot more info than you needed when a simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed. Ha.)
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I think you have to at least read some of it to get the flavor of the writing. It's really not a must-read (so far), but I'll fill you in if anything happens. So far, zilch.
Despite your tepid recommendation Anne, I think I may give this one a try at some point. I'm intrigued by the Jewish angle in Victorian fiction.
Holy smokes -- it's 800+ pages long?!!!! I reserved the audio version instead of the book. Listening counts sa reading it, right?
Wendy, do the audio. The language is very flowery and certain characters do like to go on and on.
Gaeta1 wrote: "So you gave it 5 stars after a somewhat lukewarm start. What changed your mind? (I read it is college and the narrative was too fractured for me--at least back then)."Gaeta, this book is a very hard for me to rate. I've been going from 3-5 while reading it. 3 in terms of my level of enjoyment and the fact that the language is so flowery and the character and the narrator can go on and on and on. It gets annoying. If I were rating a modern novel it would get a 3 for that. But considering that it's a Victorian novel, one just has to expect that kind of thing (tho not always, thank god) and to be patient. I find the fault in myself and not the novel. I think she is brilliant at characterization. Most of all, she was very brave taking on the issue English anti-semitism and making her title character a Jew. There are other Jews as well; a lot of erudite talk on Jewish topics (not sure if erudite is the word, but I can't think of a better one at the moment). There were secondary themes of importance which she handled well, I thought. So, I gave the book 5 stars.
Wendy wrote: "Despite your tepid recommendation Anne, I think I may give this one a try at some point. I'm intrigued by the Jewish angle in Victorian fiction."I think it's worthwhile for that reason alone. That's why I read it. It is long, so audio is a good choice.
Anne your review goes straight to the heart of this novel. I know it's not her best book but I love DD. Did you see the BBC production? I loved that too.
Thank you, Cynthia. I did see the BBC production. Thankfully I'd forgotten it so I wasn't "watching the movie" while reading the book. Now I want to see the movie again.
This is one I really know nothing about. I have a couple of Eliot's ahead of it on my read/re-read plan. Maybe someday.
Thanks for the "like" Sue. This book is a commitment and not her best, but I was really interested in the Jewish angle.
I see that and it is interesting that she took that on at that time. Do you have any idea how that was accepted by critics in her day.
I did read something about it. I think the book was received very negatively by the public. Not sure about the critics. I'll see if I can find the article I read.
She was brave but I guess I knew that to some degree.
Thanks Anne. Very interesting.
Isn't it? She was a woman ahead of her time.
I'm watching the movie now. It's excellent.
I read this long time ago; only small pieces are coming back to me. Im glad you enjoyed this classic.
I've been thinking about reading this. Did you listen to it?
Lisa wrote: "I've been thinking about reading this. Did you listen to it?"Lisa, I'm so sorry to intrude, but I can't tell if you were asking me or Anne. On the off chance you were, I read it. It's not a short book, you may want to listen to it.
Lisa wrote: "I've been thinking about reading this. Did you listen to it?"No, I read it on a kindle.
Stacey B wrote: "I read this long time ago; only small pieces are coming back to me. Im glad you enjoyed this classic."I actually read this in 2011. I can only recall small pieces of the book as well. I remember the TV series/movie better.
