Daniel Deronda

By: George Eliot

Narrated by: Nadia May

Length: 30 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

One of the masterpieces of English fiction, Daniel Deronda tells the intertwined stories of two characters as they each come to discover the truth of their natures.

Gwendolen Harleth is the beautiful, high-spirited daughter of an impoverished upper-class family. In order to restore their fortunes, she unwittingly traps herself in an oppressive marriage. Humbled, she turns for solace and guidance to Daniel Deronda, the high-minded adopted son of an aristocratic Englishman. But when Deronda, who is searching for his path in life, rescues a poor Jewish girl from drowning, he discovers a world of Jewish experience previously unknown to him, and to the Victorian novel. Dismayed by the anti-Semitism around him, the tragedy of the lovely Gwendolen begins to fade for Deronda. When he finally uncovers the long-hidden secret of his own parentage, he must confront his true identity and destiny.

(P)1997 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"Nadia May meets the strenuous demands of Eliot's narration with easy assurance." (Library Journal)
"Daniel Deronda is a startling and unexpected novel....It is a cosmic myth, a world history, and a morality play." (A.S. Byatt)

AMAZING! MOVING,EVERY MINUTE A DELIGHT!

Where does Daniel Deronda rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

ONE OF THE BEST AUDIO-BOOKS I HAVE HEARD SO FAR.THE STORY IS SO PERTINENT TO OUR DAYS IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT IT WAS WRITTEN NEARLY 150 YEARS AGO.

THAT'S THE MAKING OF A TRUE CLASSIC.

THE STORY -NO SPOILER HERE- TELLS OF TIMES WHEN PEOPLE STILL HELD HUMANISTIC VALUES AND IDEALS.

IT IS,THE EPIC ROMANCE APART,A STRONG MANIFESTO AGAINST ANTI-SEMITISM,MASTERFULLY WRITTEN.AGAIN,ADDRESSING ISSUES AS PERTINENT TO OUR DAYS AS THEY WERE IN1860,IN 1930 AND,PERHAPS WILL BE ETERNALLY.

THE CHARACTERS ARE BEAUTIFULLY DESCRIBED,WITH HEART-WRENCING DEPTH,INSIGHT AND ABOVE ALL,HUMANITY.
THE STORY-LINE IS FASCINATING,NEVER A DULL MOMENT.I COULDN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT DEVELOPMENT IN THE STORY,ALWAYS SURPRISING,NE'ER A CLICHEE.
I
WANT TO COMPLIMENT THE NARRATOR,NADIA MAY.
SHE IS EXCELLENT .FABULOUS DICTION,SUPERLATIVE ABILITY TO TAKE ON THE VOICES OF THE NUMEROUS CHARACTERS IN A CLEAR,COMPREHENSIBLE AND DIVERSIFIED MANNER.
LOOKING FORWARD TO MORE GEORGE ELIOT

Nadia May reading is superb

After reading/listening to Middlemarch and Adam Bede, I embarked on the 4 volume Deronda. I was happy that I enlisted Nadia May whose spectacular voice rendition of charcters pulled me through all 4 volumes. I enjoyed it all and was particularly captivated by the ugly experience of British prejudice so prevalent in cultured British society. The love story as with all George Eliot's books was tender and romantic.

Lovely

What an amazing story. The reading was very good. This may be my new favorite.

Wonderful!

Thank you! It was a true pleasure listening to this thoughtful, interesting, and insightful novel.

An intense novel with a few flaws

A wonderful reading by Nadia May of George Eliot's complex novel. For me, this was a far more absorbing and emotionally resonant tale than "Middlemarch"; Eliot's ability to portray the London Jewish community sympathetically seems unique among Victorian authors, at least the ones I've read. That portrayal is not just sympathetic but (at times) immersive: this is no cursory glance but a deep exploration. I can't quite give it five stars though, for two reasons: one is that Eliot's writing tends to be humorless, even though her characters are brilliantly drawn; and May, even though she gives wonderful voice to those characters, can't make up her mind how to pronounce the name "Mordecai."

If you liked "Middlemarch," this one is certainly worth listening to. If you didn't, the greater dramatic intensity in this novel may still be worth a try.

Excellent narrator. Great old British tale.

I really enjoyed listening to the fine language of this story. It's a tad longish but lots of fun.

Extraordinary novel

Given the vicious history of English antisemiitism in its literature from Chaucer to Dickens and Trollope to Eliot and Pound, this novel ranks with Ivanhoe as a rare sympathetic portrayal of Jewish protagonists. Deronda, Mordechai, and Mirah compare favorably with Gwendolyn and Henleigh, who are morally ungrounded in varying degrees. Eliot’s portrayals are imperfect as to Jewish practice but remarkably knowing with references to Ibn Gabirol, the Talmud Babli, the Shemah and Maimonides. There is fierce feminism in it too Recommended ,

‘Took a while to get into, then enjoyed

Published in 1876…
I grew to enjoy just pulling out sentences that were so cleverly and beautifully written, and those flowed constantly.
It’s slow, like life was then, but picks up about 2/3 through when the parts come together and the reader starts to care about the characters and their arcs.

That the inner lives of women is so beautifully depicted only made sense to me when I learned that George Elliot was Mary Ann Evans.

I listened to it on a backpacking trip, so sweet words and a slow paced story made sense in that setting.

I loved the narrator. Not every voice was perfect but her range was impressive and she gave each character a personality.

Better than Middlemarch

Excellent novel. I liked it better than Middlemarch. Middlemarch had a very good description of two bad marriages, and the way that such marriages can ruin a person's idealism, but it confined itself to "small" and provincial lives. This one had a larger scale and more sweeping implications.

Daniel Deronda has two intertwining stories of Daniel and Gwendolen. Gwendolen's story is very Jane Austen like at first, with a lively, spirited girl navigating a meat market type of marriage circuit. But it turns into something darker and more interesting by showing the misery of marrying for money, as well as the remarkable constraint that merely being part of "polite society" can incur. Daniel's story is one of a search for identity and purpose, as he first rescues a Jewish girl and then falls in with her Zionist brother.

Everything in the novel intertwines and echoes, presenting stories that seem to play out an alternative narrative if this character or that made a different choice. Most interesting was the presentation of Daniel's mother, who fascinatingly undercuts all the neat narrative presented before her. Also interesting was Gwendolen's moral evolution, which is almost Dostoevsky-like in scope.

Overall, if you liked Middlemarch, or even if you didn't but like books of this scale, this is strongly recommended.

A compelling, fascinating story

A beautiful, complicated story very much worth the time commitment, which is considerable. Nadia May's brilliant narration made it an even greater pleasure; I marvel at her vast talents as a narrator and as an actor. I wager there are few characters she cannot do justice to--and nary a one in this book. Truly a command performance.