Daniel Deronda

[sawyl]

I've finally finished reading George Eliot's mighty Daniel Deronda, a book which, if not quite as long as Middlemarch, makes up for it in the vastness of its ambition and scope. The writing and characterisation are both superb, as might be expected, and I found myself enjoying it far more than I expected. I don't feel up to comment on it in depth — I suspect I could spend a lifetime doing so — so I'm just going to make a few throw away comments.

Reading the early sections of the book, which feature Gwendolen Harleth's conquest of provincial society through a combination of wit, will and beauty, I thought that the book would probably turn out to be a period piece — interesting, but not particular relevant. Instead, I noticed a sly line in early feminism, most obvious when Gwendolen was effectively forced to prostitute herself into an appalling marriage to keep her family comfortable. While it could be argued that she doesn't have to marry because she could equally have taken a position as a governess, this miss the point that because men and women have such different roles in society, she has been brought up — and spoilt — to believe that she is the centre of the world and that she can get anything she wants simply by wanting it and without having to work for it.

I was also struck by the proto-Zionist plot and the touching relationship between Deronda and Mordecai. Despite being wise and educated and compassionate, Deronda is directionless and unable to settle to a career until the chance meeting with Mordecai, which causes him to see through the poor, consumptive exterior to the powerful mind behind it. Once set on his course by his new mentor, Deronda's whole life begins to change, preparing him for the moment when he learns the truth about his heritage. And when he does, it gives him the strength to throw off the rather conventional life that Sir Hugo keeps trying to press upon him, and instead to travel east and pursue the Zionist dream.

I found the book to be more philosophical and more concerned with self-identity than I'd expected. Both Deronda and Gwendolen struggle with their own natures. Deronda, having come to believe himself to be Sir Hugo's illegitimate son, come to terms with his pain in a way that makes hims more compassionate, more moral than he might have been otherwise. Gwen, meanwhile, struggles with the question of what it means to be good and what it means to lead a righteous life when all one's choices have been removed — something she discusses with Deronda at every possible snatched opportunity. But when she has her great crisis and unburdens herself to Daniel, he tells her contra Kant, that it is not our intention that are important — I suspect, from his general attitude to life, that Deronda might be a unknowing virtue ethicist...