#daniel deronda still has my entire heart but that was SO good | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fangirlinglikeabus · 5 years

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i finished reading daniel deronda yesterday so here are my Completely Unsolicited Opinions:

gwendolen was like ‘oh. i love dan’ 50 pages from the end but Listen i have a perfectly good theory for her still being aromantic because this is the guy who she relied on entirely for emotional support during the worst year of her life so like. Of Course she’d be upset that he was getting married and fucking off eastwards

sidenote: fuck grandcourt

when daniel said he was glad to be jewish!!! when before he was horrified that anyone even asked!! that’s character development baby and i’m proud of my boy

the book’s attitude to his grandfather was kinda weird tho? like. it’s super creepy that this guy was forcing his daughter to be something she didn’t want to be but at the same time said daughter is v anti-judaism in a way that george eliot clearly doesn’t intend us, the readers, to be

i mean it makes an interesting parallel with mirah’s dad since he tried to force his daughter away from judaism into opera singing and in the end both recoil from what their fathers want

mirah!!! my daughter...i love her. the reunion with her brother? poetic cinema literature

actually i kinda loved all the characters a lot? except grandcourt. again, fuck him

and possibly hans? idk he was nowhere near ‘emotionally abusing his young wife’ levels of bad but he did make some very skeevy comments re: mirah’s loyalty to judaism

also what are the chances of two completely unrelated people called ezra cohen living in the same damn house lmao

gwendolen’s arc was the spoilt-girl-learning-to-be-better-through-suffering character study that we were robbed of in middlemarch and i’d like to thank the academy, my friends,,,,ms eliot herself,,,,,,

no seriously i love her with my whole damn heart and by the end i just wanted to give her a Really Long Hug

i kno she’s a fictional character but like...i hope she gets to be happier in the future and find some satisfaction in life

and to go back to my first point whilst i’d’ve preferred her not to have any connection to romance at all (even if i can read it away) i totally appreciate that she goes from like. wanting men to fall head over heels in love with her to being willing to accept and wish for daniel’s happiness without her

this is like the second eliot book i’ve read in a row where she referenced ivanhoe so maybe it’s just on my mind but the fact that that ends with the jewish girl leaving and the man marrying a christian woman whereas this has him depart with mirah while gwendolen stays in england...is Good

#daniel deronda #george eliot #laura talks books #long post #according to the front of my edition i only have 2 full length eliots left so ahh!!#it's only taken me like 2 yrs #gaskell took me 6 months but in my defence i didn't have to buy those myself because my mum already owns them #next up in terms of Disgustingly Long Books: waverley #i might post my thoughts on that as well idk #anyway #if i think of anything else i might add it in the morning but right now i'm going to bed!

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