Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

Published in 1876, this is a book about the two main characters of Gwendolen Harleth and Daniel Deronda. Gwendolen is an exceptionally beautiful and spoiled young lady of a minor arostocratic family. We meet Gwendolen in Germany as she is gambling at the roulette table and winning a tidy sum. She catches the eye of a strikingly handsome young man across the room whom she later learns is a man by the name of Daniel Deronda. Bored with her winning, she embarks on purposefully losing the sum before leaving the table. She is interupted before having the opportunity of being introduced to Deronda when she recieves a note from home.

Her family's fortune has been lost to poor investments and she is instructed by her mother to come home at once to England. To pay for her journey home, she pawns a family necklace rather than asking help for her journey from friends. The next morning, when leaving her hotel, she recieves a package returning the necklace she had pawned with an unsigned note from her benefactor, who she imnmediately supposes to be Mr. Deronda.

Upon returning home, she finds that her mother is preparing to sell the family homestead to pay her debts and the family is to move to keeping of a country uncle who will look after them financially. Gwendolen is appalled by the family's sinking into poverty the prospects of the accompanying decline in social standing. The story stays for some time with Gwendolen as various men pursue her for her beauty, but some are put off by her loss of social station. These many chapters without the mention of Deronda leave the reader in suspence of his possible impact on the story.

When we are reunited with Deronda, we find that he is man of mysterious parentage as he lives with a distinguished older gentleman named Sir Hugo Mallinger. All around them assume that Sir Hugo is his father and Daniel the result of an illegitamate birth. Daniel is universally loved for his kind character and his good looks. One evening, Daniel comes across a beautiful young lady , named Miriah Lapidoth, who is on the precipice of casting herself into the waters in a suicide due to her desperate condition. She has escaped her overbearing father who together with Miriah had been making their living on the stage as actors and singers. The father, an invenerate gambler, had taken Mariah from her mother and was making his living largely at Miriah's expense. Miriah leaves when she learns of a plot for her father to marry her off to a wealthy patron.

Daniel takes Miriah to live with friends of his. There they discover Miriah's backstory as well as the fact that she is a JEWESS. The reader is constantly reminded of the fact that she is a JEWESS throughout the rest of the novel. The word, JEWESS, is repeated constantly. Her status as a Jew is a central part of the novel as Deronda is seen as a man of liberal view and of a caring nature. Daniel undertakes to help Miriah find her long lost family and in the act of doing so, finds a sort of Jewish visionary named Ezra Mordicai Cohen, who Deronda comes to suspect of being Miriah's long lost brother.

Thus we have the love triangle setting up the rest of the novel. Will Daniel end up with the beautiful but flawed Gwendolen or follow the more wraught trail of falling for the beautiful and dignified JEWESS, Miriah?

There are many twists and turns, some of a strictly Victorian nature. But the book is well written and entertaining. As with many books of the period, one must get used to the flowery language and length and pace of the sentences. But the plot is engaging and one is left guessing as to the outcome. The depiction of Jews alternates between ugly stereotypes and reverant glorification. I guess one must make allowances for the time period.

In all, an excellant book.