Daniel Deronda

This is Eliot’s last novel about an ostensible British aristocrat’s journey to uncovering his real identity. Often referred to as Eliot’s “Jewish novel,” it reflects her unerring ability to empathize with the Other. It is very long but also un-put-downable, with two interwoven plots that complement each other masterfully. It’s at once a conventional 19th-century novel and an entirely original and surprising take on the genre. As a Jew with a love of nineteenth-century British novels, this one spoke to me most powerfully.

Daniel Deronda draws me strongly for two reasons: my Jewishness and its can’t-look-away portrait of a terrible marriage. Spoiled and shallow Gwendolyn Harleth marries the impeccable Henleigh Grandcourt to rescue her family from financial ruin, discovering too late his emotional sadism. Her maturation through her trials is moving reading. The parallel narrative, in which the title character searches for his origins, was at the time an unprecedentedly rich and sympathetic look at England’s Jewish community.

A powerful novel by possibly the finest nineteenth-century writer, that exposes the virulent anti-Semitism prevalent in late nineteenth-century Victorian England. The protagonist, Daniel Deronda, raised in privilege, meets a young Jewish woman and through her, discovers his Jewish identity. In spite of its length, I felt a sadness at having to leave these beautifully drawn characters who had become my best friends.