Daniel Deronda

Give it a try!

After listening to Juliet Stevenson read Middlemarch, I was longing for something more from both Eliot and Stevenson. Happily, I found this novel. The story itself is not quite as tidy as Middlemarch, but that might make me like it all the more.

I hope miss Stevenson will find it in her heart to read "Mill on the Floss" next. For myself and countless others, she has provided a new window into the classics.

21 of 22 people found this review helpful

Juliet Stevenson is amazing

What did you love best about Daniel Deronda?

I love Middlemarch and this story has same wit and many of the same themes. Plus Juliet Stevenson is an amazing reader; I have listened to many books just because she reads them. I feel grateful that she does this work!

15 of 16 people found this review helpful

Good narration. Compelling characters.

Good narration. Compelling characters and interesting story, but painfully slow at times. I wanted to read it though so I am thankful for the audio version!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

An eternal classic.

As fresh and insightful about the human condition as ever. Two intertwined narratives about two young people searching for meaning and identity. Perfectly performed. A pleasure.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Thank God that's over.

George Eliot is wonderful, and Juliet Stevenson is superb, but this novel really is the most preachy, self-righteous thing that ever taxed my perseverance. And I know she meant it to be positive to Jews (read up on the terrible conditions of Jews in England in the 18th and 19th centuries) but George was a product of her time and so some of her observations, naturally, reek of anti-Semitism in and of themselves.

The reader Juliet Stevenson, Grandcourt's first conversation with Gwendolyn, and my love for Middlemarch were the only reasons I kept listening.

8 of 10 people found this review helpful

Stunningly absorbing

Magnificent writing, compelling richly psychologically sophisticated and fascinating treatment of Jews and Zionism. Reader has beautiful intonation for different characters

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Sweepingly Beautiful Story

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot surprised me at how much it moved me. Having just finished the audio book of Middlemarch which I liked very much, but which did not move me in the same way, I was slightly reluctant to begin Daniel Deronda. But the story is so utterly fascinating and so enriching and beautiful that it really did take me to places beyond those I experienced in Middlemarch. It's a very emotional journey of this man Daniel Deronda who finds himself and his heritage to be exactly what he would have wanted, in Judaism and Eliot tells it with such painful considerations to all those involved that you can't help but be utterly broken. And Gwendolyn the other side of this novel, so different from the good, decent, moral and caring Deronda and yet wanting to be. She is left to rebuild a broken life stunted by an evil husband who she seemingly lets die and is left with a meager inheritance to do some good with, as she says, in trying to be good in her new life.

Juliette Stevenson reads all the characters with richness and vigor and makes them as real as any I've heard on audiobooks. She elucidated the novel through her performance and I throughly enjoyed her.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Two barely connected plots, one much more original

Daniel Deronda, the hero of the book is an interesting character with an interesting history. Through this character, Eliot explores the position of Jews in England and Europe at the time the story takes place, as well as the long history of persecution. She depicts the common bigotry and anti-Semitism in that period. She is to be applauded for this - most 19th century literature, when relating to Jews, relates to them as negative stereotypes. Eliot has plenty of that type of expression, but it comes across as a depiction of how people behaved towards Jews and thought about them, but not what she (or her hero) considers to be the truth. I was impressed with her fairly accurate (considering the genre, the time, the fact that Eliot is not Jewish) depiction of Jewish customs, the synagogue, and some quotations from literature, and was curious and learned that she did study religions other than her own, which is quite commendable. There are those people who thought that this story should be separated from the Gwendolyn Harleth story, and I can truly see their point. The Gwendolyn Harleth story is nothing unusual - the angst of snobby upper-class women, whether they still have their fortune or have lost it, is material for many novels, and becomes wearying. How much compassion can I have for a woman - even in that time of limited options for women - who would rather sell herself to the devil than to take a position as a school teacher or governess? She knew exactly what she was dealing with - why would a two-timer or adulterer treat you any better? Why is this story so different from other novels, like Austen's or Eliot's own, where you find women of this type and the whole focus of the story on whom they will marry and finding an appropriate match, when "appropriate" means class and money? The worries about an heir to some great fortune are also so common in English novels of the period, as we see here, too. The material is not original enough, and it is not interesting when one has already read so many other such stories. By some contrivances, Eliot connects the two stories, and maybe that is the only way it could get an audience at all. After all, some people wanted the reverse - get rid of the "Jewish stuff" and just tell the story of Gwendolyn Harleth, Grandcourt, and whatever else you can throw into the story to give it a bit more meat. Until Deronda came on the scene, I was not very impressed with the book. Deronda, though, does need to learn how to say "no" sometimes. It is good to be empathetic and wish to help people, but one needs to know when some people are too needy, would walk all over you if they could, and you could never solve all of their problems. I suppose if he had a real job, he could have had better excuses as to why he could not pay visits to Gwendolyn and be manipulated by her. He could have said he's busy at the office and has work to do. But, as someone commented a few months ago in the NY Times Book Review back page about a Jane Austen book - that thee seems not to be anything about how anyone earned money - the same is true here. No one works for a living except the Meyrick women and Mordecai who is a watch-repairer and jeweler and the Cohen family who own a pawnshop. Deronda has "chambers" and it seems every once in a while might do something with his law training (I think that is his supposed field of study), but these people need to get a life. So Daniel does seem to find something that he will devote himself to, even if it has nothing to do with earning a living. His character made the novel stand out from all the other novels about this type of people in England. His character and story make the book a good one and worth listening to, read quite well by Juliet Stevenson.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

long but good book

story was a little bit weak at times but overall it was a good read I would recommend it

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Juliet Stevenson is the perfect narrator.

Daniel Deronda is not one of my favourite George Eliot books. She gets very bogged down with long tedious passages.

4 of 7 people found this review helpful