Another reviewer warns, “Unless you're a middle-of-the-way antisemite looking for someone to convince you that maybe Jews aren't as bad as you thought, and you happen to love female writers, this book won't do much for you.” Being neither Jewish nor alive during the Victorian era, I find it difficult to wrap my head around Eliot’s portrayal of Jewish characters, but this description isn’t way off. I can’t decide if this is extremely unfair-if anything, Daniel could stand to follow his dick more-or extremely apt. Hot Goodreads Take: “Unfortunately, gets off lightly, as most fuckboys do,” one reviewer sighs. If Daniel had a stronger attitude towards Gwendolyn than reluctant altruism and faint sexual desire, that would go a long way. I don’t want Gwendolyn’s and Daniel’s stories to get divorced I want them to go to marriage counseling and become more organically intertwined. Yet the story of how he learns about his past and finds a family with Mirah and Mordecai is really a beautiful one. Daniel is a frustrating character: too good in some respects (you know he’s never going to get in over his head with Gwendolyn or put a foot wrong with Mirah) and not very good at all in others (he’s a cold fish, with a slow-to-recede horror of Jews who aren’t artistic like Mirah or intellectual like his new friend Mordecai). The story of Gwendolyn-reckless and selfish by nature, shocked into conscientiousness, and then compelled to act against her conscience for mostly selfless reasons, with dire results-is the more vivid and psychologically sophisticated of the two. In short, a lot of people throughout the years have wanted Daniel and Gwendolyn to get a narrative divorce. An opinion that used to be more common, but seems relatively rare now, is that Daniel’s story is great and noble, but Gwendolyn’s is tawdry in comparison. Thoughts: A common opinion on Daniel Deronda is that Gwendolyn’s story is one of the most impressive achievements in Victorian literature, but Daniel’s story is boring and preachy.

Daniel deronda review