Thursday, May 29, 2014

Disappointed in Daniel Deronda

{This may be the final post in the back-and-forth that Maggie Bandur and I have been conducting on Daniel Deronda, though it’s possible that my assessment here will prompt Maggie to respond. Regardless, thanks for sticking with us through this (unexpectedly slow-paced) reading.}

In his introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Daniel Deronda, Terence Cave sums up contemporary responses from English readers and critics. My paraphrase: It would be great if it weren’t for all that stuff about Jews. Cave notes, however, that even as English critics praised the Gwendolen Harleth sections and dismissed the Jewish characters and themes, Jewish publications were doing the opposite. It’s easy, therefore, to write off the English establishment’s response as anti-Semitism, or, at a minimum, discomfort with the different social strata and lives represented by Eliot’s Jewish characters.

The problem is that they’re right. They’re not right about the Jewish characters and themes themselves being a problem, of course--that’s where the social discomfort in the response is hard to deny--but their criticisms point to the way that the failure of those aspects of the novel to be integrated with the novel’s other concerns ultimately dooms Daniel Deronda. Think back to where the book begins: We watch a striking young woman throwing caution, and propriety, to the winds at the gaming table. We meet the young man, of mysterious past, who is watching her--and who quickly, anonymously, intervenes to help her clear a debt. We know their stories will be intertwined, and that these next many hundred pages will reveal some sort of approach, combat, and resolution of their independent wills and fates.

That Eliot doesn’t deliver what we expect is not a flaw. Her decision to instead show a mismatch, a truly unrequited love, is impressive, and it makes for some moving scenes, as Gwendolen realizes that Deronda is not the safe harbor she’d been counting on. And her desire to bring in larger themes, and paint a portrait of a mostly neglected, often despised people is also admirable. Cave defends her decisions in the introduction,
The evidence might, it is true, seem to confirm the view that the novel falls into two separate parts, each appealing to different tastes and different cultural norms; but that would be to accept the least demanding reading (on both sides), whereas patently the point of the novel is to make unusual demands on the reader.
He is right that Eliot is trying to do something new, and it’s our job as readers to attempt to meet her on her ground. The problem, however, isn’t with her plan, but with her execution: She wants us to see Deronda driven by a quest for identity and purpose, a quest that can’t be fulfilled through a typical social life and novel-ending marriage. Yet Deronda’s questing always feels light, of limited depth and complexity. I compared him once before to Tolstoy’s Pierre, and I think the comparison remains instructive: Pierre is flighty and irresponsible, but we never question the fact that he’s driven by his inchoate desire to belong to something larger. By contrast, Deronda’s similar desire never ripens for the reader.

That failure can be laid squarely at the feet of Eliot’s two most important Jewish characters, Mirah and Ezra. Her secondary Jewish characters are wonderfully drawn: we believe in, and appreciate, all the Cohens from the minute they appear on stage. But Mirah and Ezra suffer greatly from a flaw that in literature is all but insurmountable, even after we discount for contemporary distrust of sentimentalism: perfection. I wrote before about Mirah’s gauziness, the insipidity that makes her as formless and uninteresting as a love interest in Dickens, but Ezra is just as bad. What do we know of him? He’s ill, he’s obsessed with Jewish history and philosophy, and he’s unfailingly kind and polite. But when we attend his discussion group with Deronda, we hear nothing from him that captivates, see nothing of the fervor or eloquence that could make us understand Deronda’s fascination. Like Mirah, he exists only as a perfection, an instrument for opening Deronda’s mind, and thus we have a hard time caring about just what Deronda’s mind is being opened to.

The same problem plagues the revelation of Deronda’s Jewish heritage. His mother--who at least is memorable in her self-absorption and caustic speech--turns out to be someone we’ve never encountered before, and the big secret of Deronda’s Jewish ancestry is exactly the one we’ve assumed we’d learn. The revelation fazes us barely more than it fazes Deronda (though perhaps we benefit unfairly from the passage of time in that case; it’s conceivable that seeing the very picture of an English gentleman revealed as a Jew could have provided a salutary shock to Eliot’s readers in her day)--it merely opens the door for him to definitively break with Gwendolen’s fantasies.

Gwendolen Harleth is a character worth reading 900 pages for, even if the novel disappoints. And nothing by Eliot could ever be devoid of interest, given her piercing intelligence and facility with epigrammatic observations. But oh, how I wish that Daniel Deronda were the novel it appears to be in its opening, full of fire and dash, mixing self-dealing subterfuges by Lush and clever machinations by Gwendolen, honorable doubt from Deronda and long-held secrets from Sir Hugo. What I wish for, I realize, is a much more traditional novel--and perhaps not a George Eliot novel at all. But sometimes it’s worth remembering the value of form, and this book brought it to mind: to watch such a compelling set-up dissolve into so much inchoate blandness can’t help but frustrate.

4 comments:

  1. I think this is a fair assessment, myself. It's not the only Eliot novel to tail off after a brilliant opening -- I think Felix Holt begins wonderfully but soon grows impossibly tedious. -- but I do find it the most disappointing, because the idea of it is so impressive. I wonder if she just didn't have the old fire left in her when it came to the actual brute-force task of writing it -- too much of it feels willed rather than imagined from within.

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  2. Mark Marowitz9:57 PM

    Truth be told it has been a while since I read Daniel Deronda, I searched for my trusty Signet Classic copy with the introduction by Irving Howe. Howe writes glowingly about the Philo-Semitic and proto-Zionism that this novel encompasses. I find none of this. I found instead a supersessionistic (did I just invent a word?) undercurrent ebbing and flowing just near the surface of the novel. Since this is only the comment section I offer this as grist for the mill, so to speak (on the Floss). I found only one passage to explain and substantiate my audacious pronouncement.

    “She says herself she is a very bad Jewess, and does not half know her people’s religion,” said Amy, when Mirah was gone to bed. “Perhaps it would gradually melt away from her, and she would pass into Christianity like the rest of the world, if she got to love us very much, and never found her mother. It is so strange to be of the Jews’ religion now.”

    I find this to be George Eliots’ voice speaking to us.
    Can the reader imagine Deronda and Mirah living in Jerusalem circa 1875? This one can’t.
    Philo Semitic? Well, we have a Jewish mother, Derondas’. And we have a Jewish father, Mirahs’. We encounter a Jewish family, the Cohens and Deronda wishes that no one he cares about is their relation.
    He travels to a synagogue in Frankfurt and is unmoved by the traditions and religious practices he encounters. He makes no Jewish friends and seems like a Christian sticking his toe in to test the waters. No more.
    What exactly is he studying? I think everyone is so grateful that he is no Shylock, Fagin or Melmotte that we have the intellectual equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome.

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  3. Mark Marowitz9:59 PM

    But let me move on to my main subject, Grandcourt. Grandcourt, the most misunderstood hero in the English novel. Grandcourt, the most sincere, handsome, plain spoken man of his time and place. Grandcourt my faithful friend.
    What do we really know of this good man?
    Well, he has a mistress but what a mistress! He is in his early twenties when they meet and at the top of the world.
    She is aware that they can never be because of status but she stays, anyway. He has not one, not two but four children with her. As her body changes with each birth he remains in love and takes care of her and his children. This is a man capable of commitment and love. He does not marry her off or ship them away. He does not hide the children. He claims them, he visits them and plays with them. He supports them in grand style. Finally, he leaves them everything! A man who loves his children and their mother is a good man, a very good man!
    The diamonds: Grandcourt wants them back to give to Harleth. Why? Because they were his mother’s and have sentimental value and because he wants his ‘legal’ daughters to inherit them. Love and family are complicated.
    The animals: They adore Grandcourt. The dogs have handlers but they come to him. They are drawn to him. He is their master. The dogs vie for his attention and his lap. The horses hunt and ride for him and he rides them with care.
    This is a great guy. Perhaps if Harleth were a decent person instead of a villainess. Grandcourt wouldn’t have to be so manipulative. Harleth is one of the great villains in literature. And she’s gotten away with murder for so long.

    The end of chapter 54:
    She was not afraid of any outward dangers--she was afraid of her own wishes, which were taking shapes possible and impossible, like a cloud of demon-faces. She was afraid of her own hatred, which under the cold iron touch that had compelled her to-day had gathered a fierce intensity. And as she sat guiding the tiller under her husbands eyes.......plans of evil that would come again and again..like furies preparing the deed that they would straight away avenge.
    Harleths’ bejeweled hands, her murderous fingers are on the tiller! The slightest movement of her hand in choppy waters and the boat will turn violently.
    Whoa, there goes Grandcourt over the side. She stands and wonders what to do. He cries for help. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi he’s 40 yards away let’s throw him a lifesaver. Oomph. Plop. Well it lands about two feet from the boat. Wait whats that? Another boat seeing us in distress turning this way.
    Now, we first meet Harleth in a casino. she’s a gambler. What does she do? She gambles everything and loses. In the boat she hesitates and waits and gambles everything. She jumps in the drink and maybe holds onto the boat as long as possible and when the rescuers are close enough she pushes off to rescue my buddy Henleigh. They rescue her as she vainly attempts swimming to someplace near where her husband went under for the last time. And for 150 years, dear friends she gets away with murder until today when I, the Columbo of readers unmasks her. Her murderous thoughts and Grandcourt’s behavior are not real but the inner turmoil of a psychopathic temperament. Remember those songbirds?
    Finally, my last tribute to Grandcourt. He leaves his hateful wife a goodly enough sum so that she can return to that state in which he found her and live her life out as an unloved and unloveable old maid not wanting or reduced to penury. Perhaps, her sisters and cousins will treat her well in the years to come, better than she deserves. I think I’m in lust for her.

    ReplyDelete
  4. M. Marowitz10:01 PM

    But let me move on to my main subject, Grandcourt. Grandcourt, the most misunderstood hero in the English novel. Grandcourt, the most sincere, handsome, plain spoken man of his time and place. Grandcourt my faithful friend.
    What do we really know of this good man?
    Well, he has a mistress but what a mistress! He is in his early twenties when they meet and at the top of the world.
    She is aware that they can never be because of status but she stays, anyway. He has not one, not two but four children with her. As her body changes with each birth he remains in love and takes care of her and his children. This is a man capable of commitment and love. He does not marry her off or ship them away. He does not hide the children. He claims them, he visits them and plays with them. He supports them in grand style. Finally, he leaves them everything! A man who loves his children and their mother is a good man, a very good man!
    The diamonds: Grandcourt wants them back to give to Harleth. Why? Because they were his mother’s and have sentimental value and because he wants his ‘legal’ daughters to inherit them. Love and family are complicated.
    The animals: They adore Grandcourt. The dogs have handlers but they come to him. They are drawn to him. He is their master. The dogs vie for his attention and his lap. The horses hunt and ride for him and he rides them with care.
    This is a great guy. Perhaps if Harleth were a decent person instead of a villainess. Grandcourt wouldn’t have to be so manipulative. Harleth is one of the great villains in literature. And she’s gotten away with murder for so long.

    The end of chapter 54:
    She was not afraid of any outward dangers--she was afraid of her own wishes, which were taking shapes possible and impossible, like a cloud of demon-faces. She was afraid of her own hatred, which under the cold iron touch that had compelled her to-day had gathered a fierce intensity. And as she sat guiding the tiller under her husbands eyes.......plans of evil that would come again and again..like furies preparing the deed that they would straight away avenge.
    Harleths’ bejeweled hands, her murderous fingers are on the tiller! The slightest movement of her hand in choppy waters and the boat will turn violently.
    Whoa, there goes Grandcourt over the side. She stands and wonders what to do. He cries for help. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi he’s 40 yards away let’s throw him a lifesaver. Oomph. Plop. Well it lands about two feet from the boat. Wait whats that? Another boat seeing us in distress turning this way.
    Now, we first meet Harleth in a casino. she’s a gambler. What does she do? She gambles everything and loses. In the boat she hesitates and waits and gambles everything. She jumps in the drink and maybe holds onto the boat as long as possible and when the rescuers are close enough she pushes off to rescue my buddy Henleigh. They rescue her as she vainly attempts swimming to someplace near where her husband went under for the last time. And for 150 years, dear friends she gets away with murder until today when I, the Columbo of readers unmasks her. Her murderous thoughts and Grandcourt’s behavior are not real but the inner turmoil of a psychopathic temperament. Remember those songbirds?
    Finally, my last tribute to Grandcourt. He leaves his hateful wife a goodly enough sum so that she can return to that state in which he found her and live her life out as an unloved and unloveable old maid not wanting or reduced to penury. Perhaps, her sisters and cousins will treat her well in the years to come, better than she deserves. I think I’m in lust for her.

    ReplyDelete