Hugh Dancy as Daniel Deronda - BBC 2002 |
I decided my more-
than- 500-pages tome for this summer
would be Daniel
Deronda and I successfully got through
its 675 pages + notes +
introduction slowly but enjoying every bit . Long didactic passages
about Zionism included? Yes, I found them interesting if not exciting.
My first meeting
with George Eliot’s last novel was
actually 10 years ago with its 2002 BBC adaptation , which soon became one of
my best favourites , when I hadn’t even read a page from the book and only just heard about it.
BBC drama was
stunning and I found the story so original and brave that I promised myself I would read the book
sooner or later. I’ve kept the promise
though it wasn’t sooner. You know, how is it that we usually complain? Too many books, too little time. That’s
it. Now, let’s start my musings giving some order to my
thoughts , focusing on few important themes and, especially, let’s
introduce the book properly.
Book blurb (Penguin edition)
As
Daniel Deronda opens, Gwendolen Harleth is poised at the
roulette-table, prepared to throw away her family fortune. She is observed by
Daniel Deronda, a young man groomed in the finest tradition of the English
upper-classes. And while Gwendolen loses everything and becomes trapped in an
oppressive marriage, Deronda's fortunes take a different turn. After a dramatic
encounter with the young Jewish woman Mirah, he becomes involved in a search
for her lost family and finds himself drawn into ever-deeper sympathies with
Jewish aspirations and identity. 'I meant everything in the book to be related
to everything else', wrote George Eliot of her last and most ambitious novel,
and in weaving her plot strands together she created a bold and richly textured
picture of British society and the Jewish experience within it.
My review
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) |
When Daniel
Deronda came out it was as a serial
of eight instalments from February to September
1876 and its author, George Eliot, was a successful bestselling author. As early instalments appeared, sales exceeded
those of Middlemarch and reviews were
promising. However, the novel was so different from her previous works to
perplex not only many readers, but also John Blackwood, Eliot's publisher, and even
Eliot’s supportive lover George Henry Lewes . When Book III was out reviews
became more critical. What was so disturbing for readers and critics?
My
Wordsworth Classics edition includes a long, accurate, very informative study by Dr Carole Jones , which introduces Daniel
Deronda as “ Eliot’s most heterogeneous and nearly – contemporary work” in
which, Dr Jones adds, the author “examines
estreme moral issues, such as race, religion and imperialism, alongside more
controversial analyses of social decay and gender inequality. Radically, the
novel’s devastating critique of a degenerate English society was achieved by way
of an audacious comparison with Judaism.”
Romola Garai as Gwendolen Harleth |
That was in
fact George Eliot’s provocation, that was what shocked many of her
readers. Many fell for George Eliot ‘s provocation and Daniel
Deronda became her most controversial work and still is, in fact. Both in
her writing and in her life, Mary Ann Evans (true name of George Eliot) loved being unconventional and in contrast to the
Victorian norms (she worked in the public sphere, supporting herself as an
editor, then as a writer, with great success , she even moved in with a married man , defying
her Christian upbringing and the strict social conventions of her time). But in
her last novel she ventured into dangerous
territory by leading her main character, young aristocrat Daniel, to explore
and embrace his newly discovered identity, religion, and culture as a Jew and
finally marry his little Jewish protegée, Mirah.
Social and
cultural criticism as well as deep
psychological insight (psychological
realism) are Eliot’s best talents. Though not at their best, both are definitely
relevant to the complex narration here. What I
most appreciate in her work is just her
skill at depicting complex human personalities and make the readers sympathetic
toward them.
Daniel rescuing Mirah (Jodhi May) |
In this book,
the reader follows Daniel Deronda’s and
Gwendolyn Harleth’s intertwining lives
in search for personal and vocational fulfilment and sincere relationships. She is beautiful but
spoiled and selfish, he is selfless but restless and alienated. Set largely in the degenerate aristocratic
society of the 1860s, Daniel Deronda
proposes two champions of goodness, the eponymous hero and his “little Jewess”, Mirah, the
girl he rescues and protects and who will become Gwendolyn’s antagonist in the quest for Daniel’s heart.
Daniel and Mirah
- especially the latter – have been criticized at times as boring characters or
as types opposed to Gwendolyn’s lively and round personality. I like them both
instead and I’m convinced their
complexity lies just in their being pure selfless creatures living a corrupt
selfish world, trying to cope with and to bravely accept their portion
of human sufferings.
Gwendolen and her husband, Grandcourt (Hugh Bonneville) |
You may have
read or heard that a century after the book's publication, the eminent
Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis proposed to cut out of it an
alternative novel to be titled Gwendolen
Harleth : "as
for the bad part of Daniel Deronda," he said, "there is nothing to do but cut it away. The "bad part" – the eloquent
speechifying of Mordecai, the Zionist visionary – is high oratory, not
novelistic art”.
We can agree
with Leavis’s literary reasons , but in
doing so we risk agreeing “to
eviscerate the morally serious, historically judicious and passionately just George Eliot “ as
writer Cynthia Ozick stated.
Love her or hate
her. That is what happens with George Eliot: either you totally come to admire
her commitment or you simply must leave her work be. To try to re-write it or suggest improvements is totally unfair and un just. You may always
read Dickens or Gaskell (I love them both deeply with all their differences).
If you like
Victorian literature and its historical context,
my recommendation is give the book a chance and watch the TV series - in whichever order you prefer. I’m sure you’ll find a way, your own way, to sympathize with Eliot’s characters because
they are all extremely touching human beings.
As for the cultural
and political debate about Zionism and its relationship to the present, I’ll leave it to scholars and
fans interested in those aspects. I prefer to re-watch the
miniseries and concentrate on the human aspects of the story and on how
faithful the script was to the novel. That’s something I’ll really enjoy doing.
I read this one lately too. I liked it better than Middlemarch, but I admit that I did skim some parts and I think you probably know which ones. I definitely enjoyed it more because I had seen the BBC version recently before. The Beeb gets me to read so much "good literature" by filming it to perfection. Now I have to read some Ford Madox Ford. Parade's End has whet my appetite yet again!
ReplyDeleteWell, @Jenny, I agree with you that we must thank BBC for the wonderful gifts of filming great classic books. As for Ford Madox Ford, I'm still pondering about Parade's End. I love the location and the wonderful photography but I can't sympathize much with the protagonist/s. Do I like it or don't? I'll go on watching it and let you know ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by and commenting :-)
I think it is really important to put on screen these timeless classics as Daniel Deronda. I am going to read it thoroughly without skimming some parts this time. I like Victorian novels because they make me better understand the life in this era.
ReplyDelete@Aurora
ReplyDeleteI hope you can enjoy it even more this time. Thanks for visiting and sharing with us.
I realize there are so many wonderful BBC adaptations that I still haven't watched, and they are all waiting for me! I must confess that I have never read any Eliot yet: what do you suggest I start with? Do you recommend Daniel Deronda for "a starter" or do you suggest something more widely known like Middlemarch?
ReplyDeleteSilvana
@Vava
ReplyDeleteDaniel Deronda, as I wrote, is not considered her best achievement by literary criticism but I've always considered it a very original, brave story in Victorian literature since I first heard about it.
Read the synopsis of both books and let your instinct/taste decide. I'd never recommend one more than the other. They are different but both worth reading.
Thanks for passing by and commenting,Vava!