It took me longer than I wanted it to, but I finally finished reading George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. My winter reading list is Victorian literature, and I'd put Middlemarch down, since it's one of ~the~ 19th century novels. However, the library did not have it, so I went with the only Eliot novel on the shelf. The only thing I'd known about the book before was that the main character wears a gorgeous red-orange gown with an ivory jacket in an archery scene in the 2002 miniseries.
Overall, it was a pretty decent read, even if we didn't really need the last 20 or so pages.
Anyways, things that stood out to me:
Hateful Female Characters
Call it internalized misogyny or just me paying more attention to female characters because I too am female, but I am very good at hating women in literature. And I have to say, I really hated Gwendolen Harleth. The way she automatically sneers at all the other young women in the village and immediately writes all of them off as being intrinsically inferior to her is repulsive. Same for how she views her younger sisters as non-entities because ... they're normal teenagers and one of them seems to have either bad posture or something wrong with her shoulders. And let's not forget that her initial dislike of Mr. Lush and wanting to avoid him is because he's ugly. That it takes her entering into an emotionally abusive marriage to make her improve is pathetic and speaks to the lack of moral fiber she has. I don't think I buy her ~becoming a better person~ thing either; to me, it seems like she was just really infatuated with Daniel Deronda (in a very selfish way at that; who sends a letter to their crush on their wedding day?).
I also saw some parallels between the way she treated and manipulated others with how Grandcourt treated her, albeit he's a lot more cruel than she is. Eliot even makes a reference to her knowing that she can't complain that much about his treatment of her seeing as she planned to manipulate and control him in their marriage.
So basically the chapter in which Klesmer brutally informs her that she has no real artistic talent was absolutely delicious to me.
BUT let's not ignore her creepy enabling uncle, Gascoigne. This guy is a total social climber - he changed his last name from the boring Gaskin to the fancier sounding Gascoigne. Eliot mentions how he spends more time hobnobbing with more socially advantageous people than focusing on the poor and their needs like a minister ought to. And he is so, so weird about Gwendolen. He totally prioritizes her over his own daughter Anna, as well as criticizing Anna while praising Gwenny H in front of them both; in the archery ball scene when she's trying to be ~unique~ by not dancing the waltzes and polkas, the text mentions how he totally wants her to be distinguished in everything. Dude, stop obsessing over this one niece and start caring about your own family more, you weirdo. His losing his money due to bad investments felt well-deserved. While he's still going to get invited to stuff by the ~right kind of people~ because he's a rector, he's definitely going to feel the differences in status more acutely. Serves him right. [I suspect that he's so concerned with her making an advantageous marriage not just because it'd help her family out, but that he might benefit from it too.]
Side note: I do however like that Gwendolen is put off by the thought of marriage because of the sacrifices on the part of women that she's seen up close with her own mother's miserable second marriage (Davilow is an awesome last name, however) and that she wants to be able to do whatever she wants. The school I went to was always harping on about how it's women's spiritual role to sacrifice for their families, etc., etc., and I naturally developed the same attitude as Gwendolen.
Is George Eliot Cringey?
There are some critics who think the "Gwendolen" content is better than the "Daniel" chapters; apparently one commentator back in the day went so far as to suggest the novel be improved by cutting all the Daniel content and calling it "Gwendolen Harleth" (but I'm pretty sure that was because that person was an anti-Semite). I wouldn't go so far as that, but a lot of the Daniel content feels ... off. Like Eliot is trying too hard. Especially with Mirah's tale of epic melodrama, suffering, and struggles against her corrupted father. Granted, the Victorians were all about the melodrama and virtuous heroines. But for some reason, it seems like Elliot was trying too hard to make Mirah the perfect heroine, above approach in all ways. Granted, she was probably doing this deliberately so no prejudiced readers could find fault with a Jewish protagonist. Still, to modern eyes, it still feels so cringey. If Eliot were alive today, she'd totally have one of those "In this house, we..." yard signs while sending her kids to private school. [This Guardian article says "her portrayal of the innocent Mirah swings the other way, so saintly it has shades of the noble savage." Pretty much.]
Ditto with Elliot lacing practically every single language with references, both well-known and obscure, to the Torah and Jewish history to show that she alone amongst the goyim knows Jewish culture. [mostly unrelated: George Eliot always strikes me as one of those "I'm not like other girls; I'm one of the boys" women] By all means, I applaud her for A) not accepting the ingrained antisemitism of her day and wanting to make a stand and B) doing research and becoming familiar with Jewish history. But it does come across very heavy-handed, especially for a modern audience. In trying to show the Jewish characters as belonging to a venerable, illustrious, and fascinating culture worthy of society's respect, it came across as her robbing them of their agency by making them more of "characters" than individual, fully fleshed people. Or at least that's how it seemed to me. Which is a shame, because I don't think I've come across many Jewish characters in British literature who we're supposed to root for before.
Also, she isn't above using some anti-Semitic tropes herself in trying to show Daniel's initial prejudiced assessment of the Cohen family - she makes them out to be money-grubbing and even refers to Ezra Cohen as oily. [I also suspect that Eliot didn't have much regard for normal non-intellectual types, but I have nothing to back that up with since I've only read Silas Marner (the kid's hair color is symbolic for the lost gold, groundbreaking) and The Mill on the Floss (hello, sibling incest vibes) and don't know that much about Eliot herself.]
