George Eliot explores areas of esoteric Hebrew scholarship which are exotic and strange to the modern reader but the subtlety and depth of her characters and her penetrating insights into human behaviour make it an extraordinary book. The haughty provincial dowagers and snobs are skewered hilariously. Nothing goes unnoticed by Eliot's sharp satirical eye. The romantic entanglements and class consciousness are wittily observed. It is impossible to praise the reading highly enough. This classic novel takes a long time to unfold and requires great reading stamina but Juliet Stevenson creates an immersive experience with her perfectly nuanced reading and nearly 40 hours of imaginative delight have been delivered. She elucidated the novel through her performance and I throughly enjoyed her. Juliette Stevenson reads all the characters with richness and vigor and makes them as real as any I've heard on audiobooks. She is left to rebuild a broken life stunted by an evil husband who she seemingly lets die and is left with a meager inheritance to do some good with, as she says, in trying to be good in her new life. And Gwendolyn the other side of this novel, so different from the good, decent, moral and caring Deronda and yet wanting to be. It's a very emotional journey of this man Daniel Deronda who finds himself and his heritage to be exactly what he would have wanted, in Judaism and Eliot tells it with such painful considerations to all those involved that you can't help but be utterly broken. But the story is so utterly fascinating and so enriching and beautiful that it really did take me to places beyond those I experienced in Middlemarch. Having just finished the audio book of Middlemarch which I liked very much, but which did not move me in the same way, I was slightly reluctant to begin Daniel Deronda. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot surprised me at how much it moved me.

Daniel deronda by george eliot