Classics Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

[astrangerhere]

I am really struggling with Deronda as a character. He just feels like a Mary Sue / Marty Stu to me. For those unfamiliar with the concept, this is a good history in Smithsonian Magazine:

Mary Sues can be found throughout the history of literature, standing on the shoulders of earlier fill-in characters, like Pollyanna, the unfailingly optimistic protagonist from Eleanor H. Porter’s children’s books from the 1910s. More recently, cousins to the term can be found in the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, as coined by Nathan Rabin in his review of the Cameron Crowe film Elizabethtown, and the Jennifer Lawrence-personified “Cool Girl.”

"Mary Sues" as a concept date back to 1973 and the term came about exclusively in the Star Trek fandom. Marty Stu is a moniker that was adopted later to encompass male characters who operated the same way. But the notion of a character that is just so capital-G-Good that everyone loves them and can do no wrong definitely dates further back. Daniel just wants to rescue everyone, and everyone wants him to rescue them.

I would have been far more interested in the novel if it focused on (and found a plausible way to intertwine) Gwendolyn and Mirah's stories.

[poohbear_nc]

*snip*

I would have been far more interested in the novel if it focused on (and found a plausible way to intertwine) Gwendolyn and Mirah's stories.

I get the impression that Eliot has set them up as stark contrasts of two beautiful women in the marriage market - light/dark, showy/talented, vain/sincere, etc. Both dazzle men with their beauty, and make choices that revolve around how they are perceived by the male gaze.

[CharlieBird]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

the Mordecai chapters

What are these, poohbear, I searched and found nothing.

It would be impossible for me to rely on the audio only because for one thing the long descriptive phrases put me to sleep (literally). But when I go back and read I find myself highlighting frequently, e.g. "dregs with struggling flies in them." "...wind was turning up the feathers of a cock..." "ill-plenished". Am also surprised by how much I missed in the audio.

If I had not joined the club and found everyone's comments so interesting, causing a rethink of my initial urge to drop DD for something more to my liking. Especially 'slogged' through Mirah chapters, but found Chapter XXIII (Klesmer and Gwendolen) engrossing.

I will finish the book if only because I so admire Eliot's vocabulary and not infrequent flashes of insight.

[poohbear_nc]

What are these, poohbear, I searched and found nothing.

Chapter XXXVIII and thereabouts - I couldn't imagine listening to that stretch of prose!

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

*snip*

I get the impression that Eliot has set them up as stark contrasts of two beautiful women in the marriage market - light/dark, showy/talented, vain/sincere, etc. Both dazzle men with their beauty, and make choices that revolve around how they are perceived by the male gaze.

I admit, Mirah did not endear herself to me by opening the book with a suicide attempt. Gwendolyn was just so much more interesting, if clearly flawed.

[poohbear_nc]

Gwendolyn is a Trollope heroine suddenly thrust into a Dickensian plot.

I wonder if Mirah will traverse a reverse course from a dark beginning on the stage to the possibility of rescue through marriage.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Gwendolyn is a Trollope heroine suddenly thrust into a Dickensian plot.

That is absolutely brilliant.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Gwendolyn is a Trollope heroine suddenly thrust into a Dickensian plot.

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

That is absolutely brilliant.

I completely agree.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

Leavis was one who noted the fact that there were in effect two books. He also felt that Gwedolyn was possibly the greatest character Eliot created.

However he also felt that the novel as a whole was a failure--mainly because of the Deronda section.

Elsewhere, in an essay, “Gwendolen Harleth” he said “. . . my purpose . . . is to establish . . . that there is a major classic, which may suitably called ‘Gwendolen Harleth,’ hidden from the general recognition it deserves in the voluminous mixed work that George Eliot published--a classic that it is incumbent on us to reclaim for English literature.”

From The Critic As Anti-Philosopher 1982 pp. 65-75

Leavis seems to feel that it might be a good idea to simply eliminate the Deronda section and keep the Gwendolen portion as a separate narrative.

Not everyone agrees.

Someone could do that and publish it since it’s public domain, if they weren’t worried about trouncing over the work of a dead author. It would be something like the opposite of a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; there they added text to a classic whereas here text would be removed.

[Bookpossum]

On the other hand, as the Finnish composer Sibelius said, "A statue has never been set up in honour of a critic".

I'm not very far in yet, but I would tend to back George Eliot's judgement of the way she designed her novel, rather than to fall in with Leavis's ideas of how the book could be improved. But then, I do have a poor opinion of Leavis!

[poohbear_nc]

As I progress into the novel (60% or thereabouts) I'm having real trouble with the Deronda/Mordecai subplot - chapter XLII is a ponderous intrusion that I can't imagine anyone could narrate, let alone listen to, or barely read. Mordecai's obsession with Deronda is so completely separate from Deronda's interaction with the Gwendolyn or Mirah plotline, that is does read for me as a completely separate artificial narrative, contrived to inject as much Jewish lore and history and idealism into the novel as possible.

I'm leaning toward Leavis - expunging the Mordecai character would still leave Mirah, and the search for her family, and her interaction with Deronda and his world (and his search for his family), as a much more readable plot that could still showcase the Jewish experience in England, and contrast the life, choices, and opportunities of a Jewish woman against that of the English Gwendolyn.

This would produce a novel with 2 intertwining plot lines (Mirah and Gwendolyn) where Deronda would provide the contact point between the two separate worlds, and his reflections/reactions would provide the reader with insights into the life experiences of the two very different women.

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by issybird

I’m personally looking forward to a leisurely read, even akin to the way it was first experienced, in installments.

Do you happen to know what the instalment sections were?

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Do you happen to know what the instalment sections were?

From this source:

"Daniel Deronda was first published from February through September of 1876, in monthly installments of approximately 110 pages each. Victorian readers enjoyed and absorbed the novel one portion at a time, discussing the story’s gradual unfolding with friends and family and anticipating the turns each new installment would take. Eliot’s original installments will naturally form the framework of these serial readings."

[sun surfer]

Thank you, poohbear!

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I was immediately intrigued by the epigraphs for each chapter, some with attributions, most without, and decided to do some digging.

Here is a link to a lengthy discussion on Goodreads and here is a link to a more scholarly examination.

Thanks for those links. The very first epigraph is intense:

Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul:
There, ‘mid the throng of hurrying desires
That trample on the dead to seize their spoil,
Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible
As exhalations laden with slow death,
And o’er the fairest troop of captured joys
Breathes pallid pestilence.

It makes me think the book will be about vice and a gluttony of desire, and gives such a dark overcast to the proceedings.

Rarely does an opening epigraph produce any effect on my feeling of a novel going in. Usually epigraphs are so vague, broad or cryptic that they don’t make an impression on me at all, or at least until looking back after reading the book. Here though is one with real bite to it.