Daniel Deronda

I love George Eliot. I love her intelligent, erudite, incredibly critical, and, yes, pedantic view of the world. And I find that the longer and more pedantic her fiction, the more I like it. If you want to check her out, don't go the lazy route and read the much shorter Silas Marner, because it's just not that good. But Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda are vast, sprawling, and wonderful. This book takes commitment and stamina, but it's worth it for the complex and compelling characters and the astute narratorial asides. The central narrative of Daniel Deronda's spiritual journey is somewhat naive and two-dimensional, but the story of Gwendolyn Harleth and her quashed ambitions is what makes this book so resonant.