When Eliot wrote Middlemarch, she was interested in the probable, the typical human and natural event—her intention was, she said, echoing a phrase Lyell used in his description of long geological processes, 'to show the gradual action of ordinary causes rather than exceptional'. Daniel Deronda is about matters neither ordinary nor gradual. It is not held together, as Middlemarch is, by a web of mataphors about interconnection of people, things and ideas. It is constructed around flashing brief images of sudden light and dark, demons, snakes and cold-blooded nixies. It is a cosmic myth, a world history, and a morality play.
—A.S. Byatt, Introduction to Daniel Deronda (Everyman's Library edition)
Who could resist a description like that? So far, Susan has managed to lure me, Eva, and the Red Room Librarian into reading this 900-pager (my edition), along with Sarah who is already re-reading it for school. Any other takers?
Incidentally, the Everyman's edition I got from the library is much nicer than my copy of Jane Eyre from the same imprint. The type is a little lighter and a hair larger, and the paper is smoother and more opaque. It's a really beautiful book to read.
