Classics Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

My hoopla had Jill Tanner, who I enjoy. Though I do bump her to 1.25 speed with NO noticeable difference.

Tanner's version is the one I'm listening to, also. I found samples elsewhere of the other Hoopla versions, and settled in on hers.

It's a shame that Hoopla doesn't provide their own samples, but I guess beggars can't be choosers, and it is, after all, free.

And, yes, I also have her bumped up to 1.25, but that's the speed at which I listen to most audiobooks.

[CharlieBird]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

It’s got lengthy, descriptive passages and sometimes the phrasing isn’t very natural.

Yes, totally agree. You certainly can't accuse Eliot of lack character delination.

Hoopla is new source for me to investigate. Spent a good deal of last year re-reading and culling books in the Calibre library. I cancelled my Audible account because the books were accumulating way to fast and I do occasionally borrow a book from a public library in Florida.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by CharlieBird

Yes, totally agree. You certainly can't accuse Eliot of lack character delination.

Hoopla is new source for me to investigate. Spent a good deal of last year re-reading and culling books in the Calibre library. I cancelled my Audible account because the books were accumulating way to fast and I do occasionally borrow a book from a public library in Florida.

Hoopla works through your local library, so check with them.

I like it better than Overdrive because the selection seems better and the loan period is three weeks rather than two.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Hoopla works through your local library, so check with them.

I like it better than Overdrive because the selection seems better and the loan period is three weeks rather than two.

Brief PSA: Two libraries that offer reasonably priced nonresident cards and access to Hoopla are the Houston Public Library ($40/yr; 2 Hoopla checkouts/mo) and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library ($45/yr, or $35/yr over age 62; 6 Hoopla checkouts/mo). I just signed up for the Charlotte Mecklenburg card yesterday, expressly for Hoopla access.

[fantasyfan]

I am using the Nadia May reading of the Penguin Edition. She is reasonably quick—with a book this long one would want her to be. I find her excellent in creating various characters.
There is a LibriVox recording too.

[BelleZora]

I'm going to jump the gun by a day because I am going out of town without my computer tomorrow and will not return home until the 27th.

The first 35% was laborious for me, and I feared an 800-page slog. Now, at 40%, I am settling into the story. Selfish and spoiled Gwendolyn is an interesting character. I look forward to learning about Daniel Deronda's parentage. The storyline featuring Mirah is interesting and I hope it is more fully developed.

[poohbear_nc]

I'm at 48% - no spoilers.

Disclosure - this is my first reading of DD, and I'm having mixed responses to it. It's one of the most oddly structured novel I've encountered written and set in Victorian England. The intermixing of the 2 story lines (Gwendolyn and Daniel) feels forced so far; subsequent events may change this observation. The early Gwendolyn narrative reads much like a Trollope romance. The early Daniel narrative seems much more forced and labored, and slightly Dickensian. The Gwendolyn sections tell a story of her life; the Daniel sections are more of an explanation of how his character was formed.

The long interjected descriptive or explanatory prose sections outside the 2 narratives bring the book's flow to a crashing halt -- I can't imagine listening to a narrator droning through these sections, although Juliet Stevenson's voice could deal well with them.

[pdurrant]

I finished it back on the 9th. I didn't feel the stories of the two characters went well together at all. It seems to be two narratives, just lightly intertwined at certain points and at that, mostly in Gwendolyn's mind.

There did seem to be a lot of meandering philosophical passages. IMO, there are a couple of 100-page novels struggling to escape from this 800-page behemoth.

Perhaps we need a Gwendolyn discussion and a Daniel discussion. (And a racism discussion!!)

[sun surfer]

I'm starting reading today. I'm still deciding on how. I wanted to try with the ebook, but with a few no-audio-available books from the lit club I'm still finishing up and with so many others doing audio I think I'm leaning towards the audio, though with the ebook on hand.

If anyone is still deciding on an audiobook, there are only four unabridged recordings for Daniel Deronda at Audible. I've already listened to audiobooks by Juliet Stevenson and Nadia May and know they're both top notch in my own estimation, and even comparing them here they are somewhat similar, perhaps Stevenson's voice a bit lower and slower. May's reading sample has a bit more bright and brassy high notes while Stevenson's has a bit of a deeper, quieter quality.

Jill Tanner is a narrator I don't think I've listened to before, but she sounds really somewhat similar to Stevenson and May as well, perhaps somewhere between the other two with her vocal timbre. To me she also sounds top notch from her sample and that's backed up by those of you here listening to her and liking her. As Bookworm_Girl also discussed, Tanner's version as well as Stevenson's are both six hours longer than May's.

The fourth version I can easily dismiss from my own consideration, though maybe someone else would like it. It's by Philippe Duquenoy. The name sounds somewhat familiar but I don't think I've listened to his narration before. Anyway, I don't think his sample held up to the others for my own listening. It seemed to have an automatic quality, as if he were a computer generated voice like Siri, or maybe better said that his reading seemed very performative or energetic without fitting the book's contents. It's the shortest unabridged version though so there's that.

From trying the samples I think any of Stevenson, May or Tanner would be great choices, and it's making it hard for me to choose! I'll give it a little longer today before deciding on one for myself.

[Bookpossum]

I hope you enjoy whichever one you decide to go with, sun surfer. I can't venture an opinion as I find that audiobooks don't really work for me. However, I do like Juliet Stevenson very much, having seen her in several films.

I am just three chapters into the book and plan to take it at a leisurely pace. The character of Gwendolen has been clearly set out already, and it will be interesting to see how she develops, assuming she does so. Daniel has been glimpsed only fleetingly and remains mysterious at this point.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I am at the same place as Bookpossum and also plan to read at a leisurely pace.

I bought a biography of George Eliot by Tim Dolin published by Oxford when the Lit Club read Middlemarch. I plan to revisit this book too since I don’t remember many specifics except I thought it was interesting at the time.

In a landmark essay, Virginia Woolf rescued George Eliot from almost four decades of indifference and scorn when she wrote of the 'searching power and reflective richness' of Eliot's fiction. Novels such as Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss reflect Eliot's complex and sometimes contradictory ideas about society, the artist, the role of women, and the interplay of science and religion. In this book Tim Dolin examines Eliot's life and work and the social and intellectual contexts in which they developed. He also explores the variety of ways in which 'George Eliot' has been recontextualized for modern readers, tourists, cinema-goers, and television viewers.

[CRussel]

I'm slogging through this, but slowly. Listening to the Nadia May narration. The narration is good, but the book...

IAC, I'll check in with more as I get further along.

[poohbear_nc]

I was chugging along nicely until today ... when I hit the Mordecai chapters ... where everything ground to a halt. Was this really necessary?

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

I hope you enjoy whichever one you decide to go with, sun surfer. I can't venture an opinion as I find that audiobooks don't really work for me. However, I do like Juliet Stevenson very much, having seen her in several films.

Thanks Bookpossum; I went with the Stevenson.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I was chugging along nicely until today ... when I hit the Mordecai chapters ... where everything ground to a halt. Was this really necessary?

Is any of it really necessary? It's necessary to the story that she wanted to tell.