David Frum’s blog about George Eliot convinces me that I should read Scenes from Clerical Life. But an earlier blog of his convinced me to start Daniel Deronda, which I could not finish.

The novel begins promisingly with its heroine, a beautiful spoiled rich girl whom we nevertheless like. Her family goes broke, and she marries the villain, who is too much like Voldemort’s snake, but still interesting. Daniel Deronda, the hero, is also interesting–the handsome, thoughtful illegitimate son of a squire and a Jewish mother (we come to suspect his parentage only gradually). Then, disaster: we meet a secondary heroine, a beautiful young Jewish refugee, and the charitable Christian ladies who help her. It’s as if Eleanor Roosevelt took over the writing. The victims of oppression are as endearing as they are virtuous, and so are those who help them. It is as icky as bad Dickens, without even the vigor of showmanship. So I put the book aside, and unless David assures me it gets suddenly better — the death of the charitable ladies in a car chase would help–I am putting it in the bag for the thrift shop.