'Lady Anna' by Anthony Trollope (Review)

Jane Austen taught us that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife - but what about a single woman about to come into a good fortune?  And what should be done if that single woman is planning to give her fortune to a man whose social status really doesn't warrant it?  Hmm, some tough questions there.  I think I'll need some help with this one, preferably from an expert on the delicate questions of nineteenth-century courtship...

*****
Anthony Trollope's Lady Anna is (for Trollope, at least) a remarkably focused novel.  We begin with the plight of Josephine Murray, or Countess Lovel as she would prefer to be known.  Having married an Earl, she believes she has achieved her life's goals - until, that is, he laughingly informs her that he was already married to an Italian woman at the time of the wedding...  If the Earl is telling the truth, then the Countess would lose her title, and her daughter, Lady Anna, would no longer inherit anything.

We move on a couple of decades, and the wicked Earl has passed away, leaving lawyers to decide the truth of the matter.  With the question of the Italian marriage fading into the background, matters soon concern themselves with the contest between the two women and Anna's cousin, the new Earl.  It's a conflict that would easily be resolved if a marriage could be arranged between the two cousins - the problem, however, is that Anna's heart has already been given away elsewhere...

This is typical Trollope in many ways.  The first two chapters are all scene setting, discussing the events of twenty years and making sure the reader has a firm grasp of the nature of the court case to come.  However, once the writer has made sure everyone's up to speed, off we go at a gallop for five-hundred pages of melodrama.  Early in the novel, the Countess exclaims:

"Was it to come to her at last?  Could it be that now, now at once, people throughout the world would call her the Countess Lovel, and would own her daughter to be the Lady Anna, - till she also should become a countess?"
pp.72/3 (Oxford World's Classics, 2008)

Call me a cynic, but I doubt it's going to happen on page seventy-three...

However, unlike Orley Farm, for example, Lady Anna places little importance on the court case, an anti-climax which disappoints the eager spectators who crowd into the court room.  Instead, the emphasis shifts to the battle for Anna's hand and heart.  Having grown up in straitened circumstances, it's only natural that Anna should have become attached to her childhood companion, Daniel Thwaite, and it will take a lot of persuasion to convince her to abandon a man who has loved her through thick and thin, merely to please her mother.

This is where Trollope comes into his own, gently unveiling the delights of the English upper classes, allowing both Anna and the reader to be seduced by the comforts of a sedate existence in the country, servants waiting to fulfil your every command and money as an abstract concept which is always somewhere if you need it.  You sense that the original readership would most definitely have been on the side of the gentry, particularly as Frederic, the handsome young Earl who is to marry Anna, acts so well in refusing to contest the case against the mother and daughter (a case which would make him fabulously wealthy).

This natural bias would also have been strengthened by the early appearances of the Earl's rival.  Thwaite is a radical, and while his father (who was the Countess' only supporter in earlier times) thinks it inevitable that the blue-bloods still rule the world, the son is much stronger in his desire to change the social order:

"The world is not ripe yet, Daniel."
"No; - the world is not ripe."
"There must be earls and countesses."
"I see no must in it.  There are earls and countesses as there used to be mastodons and other senseless, over-grown brutes roaming miserable and hungry through the undrained woods, - cold, comfortless, unwieldy things, which have perished in the general progress.  The big things have all to give way to the intellect of those which are more finely made." (p.39)

Definitely not views which will endear him to the Victorian moral classes ;)

However, as the novel draws on, even his opponents, the family and lawyers who oppose his interests, acknowledge that he is a good man (if not a gentleman), although they would prefer him to take some money and run.  Surprisingly, one of his biggest supporters turns out to be the chief lawyer for the Lovel family, Sir William Patterson, a man whose actions ultimately influence the outcome of the whole state of affairs, as the knight is one of those rare lawyers who seem to have the best interests of all concerned at heart - even when some believe that he's not really doing his job:

"The cause itself was no doubt peculiar, - unlike any other cause with which Mr. Flick had become acquainted in his experience; there was no saying at the present moment who had opposed interests, and who combined interests in the case; but still etiquette is etiquette, and Mr. Flick was aware that such a house as that of Messrs. Norton and Flick should not be irregular.  Nevertheless he sent for Daniel Thwaite." (p.222)

Flick should have no worries - in a Trollope novel, everything (usually) ends up for the best :)

Initially, I was a little concerned with the narrow focus of Lady Anna, thinking that the court case might become a little dull.  However, Trollope knows full well what he's doing, and the legal aspects soon fade into the background so that he can concentrate on what he really wants to discuss, which is the right of a woman to dispose of her own heart as she sees fit.  The legal obstacles soon melt away, leaving Anna to fight a moral battle against her overbearing mother and well-intentioned friends, all of whom believe it wrong for a young woman of her rank and fortune to marry below her station.

The mother is particularly harsh (reminding me of some of the strict mothers I've encountered in Korean fiction this year), resorting to psychological warfare in an attempt to bend her daughter to her will, and refusing to see her for long chunks of the story.  Unlike, say, Sir William, this lady is not for turning:

"Her daughter was all that she had to bind her to the world around her.  But she declared to herself again and again that it would be better that her daughter should die than live and be married to the tailor.  It was a case in which persecution even to the very gate of the grave would be wise and warrantable, - if by such persecution this odious monstrous marriage might be avoided." (p.228)

The Countess is playing a rather high-stakes game here, one in which, even if she wins, she's bound to suffer losses...

While Lady Anna starts a little slowly, and looks for a time as if it might be a little ho-hum, it actually turns into a ripping read, one in which the outcome isn't clear until the last fifty pages or so, and where the interest lies not only in what happens but why and how.  Trollope is limited by the conventions of the time (and the inevitable Victorian self-censorship), but he still does a good job in outlining the hypocrisy of the nobility and the intense pressure felt by young women who were seen to not be doing their duty.  The book might not quite live up to some of Trollope's best work (no matter what he might claim in his Autobiography), but it's certainly worth a few hours of your time - I'm certainly happy to have experienced another of the big man's efforts :)

'The American Senator' by Anthony Trollope (Review)

With all the Trollope novels I've read, it's hard to imagine a year without a few, but 2013 had only seen one up to now (The Way We Live Now).  Well, until today, that is.  This review is looking at one of the Oxford World's Classics I won in a competition a while back, another two-volume monster from the master of the Victorian potboiler.  The difference is though that this one has an American touch...
 
*****
The American Senator starts off in a small village in England.  It's the perfect scene for a Trollope novel, with the usual ingredients of fox-hunting, strife and romance in abundance.  Into the village comes Elias Gotobed, an American senator who wants to find out all about British life (mainly so that he can ridicule it...), and Dillsborough seems as good a place as any for the job.

A second outsider is also on the way to the village though, the intriguing Lady Arabella Trefoil.  She is engaged to marry John Morton, a local landowner who works for the foreign office, and is travelling to the provinces to see her fiancé's family seat before the marriage.  Morton is a good catch, but not quite good enough for the ambitious Arabella.  Lord Rufford, a local neighbour, is richer - and so Arabella decides to set her sights higher...

It all makes for a (stereo)typical Trollope novel, with a controversy involving a court case and a poisoned fox to hang his story on, and there's even the obligatory soppy romance.  We have the perfect, ladylike heroine (Mary Masters) and her deserving gentleman (Reginald Morton) taking five-hundred-odd pages to get to their inevitable happiness in a relationship which is predictable to the extreme, Trollope by numbers.  There's also a slow and impenetrable start to the book, and it all takes a good while to get going.

These usual elements are merely the background to the main stories though.  Gotobed, an American abroad, is a creation who allows Victorian readers to see the peculiarities of their society (and there are many) through foreign eyes:

"I shall be delighted to see any institution of this great country," said Mr. Gotobed, "however much opposed it may be to my opinion either of utility or rational recreation."
p.53 (Oxford World's Classics, 2008)

The good senator won't take a backward step and leaves many a feather ruffled in his honest quest to work out exactly why Englishmen talk and act as they do.  This all culminates in the public talk he gives in London - which is rather a rather heated affair...

In truth, the novel is all about Arabella though, another of Trollope's great characters.  She's a woman who hunts her husband (one of Trollope's pet hates), and she's very good at her game.  Tempted by Rufford's riches, she nevertheless tries to keep Morton hanging, just in case things go wrong in her new affair.  It's a delicate game she plays, but she has a lot of experience...

She's also very good at it, as she should be seeing as it's her life's 'work'.  However, like any worker who's been hard at it for years, there's no room for any enjoyment in her days:

"Business to her had for many years been business, and her business had been so very hard that she had never allowed lighter things to interfere with it." (p.216)

Sadly though, Arabella isn't getting any younger, and she's sick of all the intrigues and subterfuge:

"I'll tell you what it is, mamma.  I've been at it till I'm nearly broken down.  I must settle somewhere;-or else die;-or else run away.  I can't stand this any longer, and I won't.  Talk of work,-men's work!  What man ever has to work as I do?" (p.85)

This is it then, all or nothing.  Arabella is going to get herself a man, whether he's rich and landed or not...

Trollope paints a nuanced portrait of his anti-heroine, or at least as nuanced as his Victorian morals will allow.  Yes, Arabella is bad, but not all bad.  She has doubts about her way of life, and she knows she is mistreating John Morton - indeed, several incidents in their stormy relationship show that she has retained some sense of character.  In a book padded out with the usual stock personages, the lady is easily the strongest and most well-rounded character.

Overall, The American Senator, while interesting, is not one of Trollope's best.  Like The Prime Minister, for example, it's a case of one overarching novel with several ill-fitting plots crammed together.  Gotobed, despite the scholarly claims of the introduction, never really fits into the story, even if his observations are acute at times.  I would have loved to see a shorter novel focused on him, one which fleshes him out a little more (he's a bit one dimensional at times here).  In the few pages allocated to him in this book, he gets a little lost...

Still, a Trollope novel is always a comfort, and Arabella makes it all worthwhile in the end.  Like all the best seductive 'heroines', she steals the show, and you secretly hope she gets away with it.  For all the soppy heroines and big-chinned heroes, it's nice to have someone who does exactly what she wants - and Mr. T knows that as much as we do ;)

'The Way We Live Now' by Anthony Trollope (Review)

It is a sign of how prolific Anthony Trollope was that he has been my most-read author for the past three years, and yet I have barely made a dent in his collected works.  Despite all the unread novels I have to get through though, I tend to go back to my old favourites when I feel like some comfort reading, and today's choice is one of his best.  There is something unique about this book though - it is the only one I have read and not reviewed on the blog...

...consider this oversight corrected ;)

*****
The Way We Live Now is another shelf-groaner, coming in at 762 pages in my edition, but well over 800 in others.  It was originally published in twenty monthly parts of five chapters each in 1874/5, and it is actually set over six months in 1873.  It is truly a novel of its time...

As usual, most of the action takes place in London, with occasional visits to the countryside.  The main character is Augustus Melmotte, 'the Great Financier', a man of dubious provenance and even more dubious morals. While in earlier Trollope novels such a character would struggle to make it over the threshold of Barchester Cathedral, these are different times.  Melmotte may not be a gentleman, but he is (or appears to be) very rich, with a daughter ripe for the wooing:

"There was considerable doubt whether Marie was the daughter of that Jewish-looking woman.  Enquiries had been made, but not successfully, as to the date of the Melmotte marriage.  There was an idea abroad that Melmotte had got his first money with his wife, and had gotten it not very long ago.  Then other people said that Marie was not his daughter at all.  Altogether the mystery was rather pleasant as the money was certain.  Of the certainty of money in daily use there could be no doubt."
p.29 (Wordsworth Editions, 2001)

As young noblemen fall over themselves to court young Marie, their fathers attempt to attach themselves to the great man in the hope of profiting from his fortune.  Within a season, Melmotte is the biggest man in the city (possibly the empire), even hosting a banquet for the visiting Emperor of China.  But what goes up...

The Way We Live Now is Trollope's concerned look at the state of affairs in England at the time.  The gentry were beginning to struggle for money, and the idea of young heirs prostituting themselves for money was a common one - the men provided the blood and rank, their wives provided beauty and money, even if their grandfathers had made it in trade.  However, the fairly recent idea of speculation meant that bigger sums were on the table - even if the money was not always as safe as it might be.  The landed gentry see what they want to see and allow themselves to be blinded by the dream of unlimited wealth, at times with disastrous consequences.

We follow a degenerate example of this class, Sir Felix Carbury, a young man with many vices and little to recommend him but his appearance and his title.  He is the antithesis of Melmotte, a cowardly rake who cannot pluck up the courage to risk all on happiness with Marie (who prefers him among her many suitors).  Instead, he wastes his fortune on drinking, flirtations with lower-class women and cards at the club (where even his friends think little of him).

Although Felix loses large amounts in his gambling, this turns out to be nothing, for it is in Melmotte's offices in the city that real gambling is done.  The modern alchemy of creating money from nothing is a far headier (and riskier) activity than loo or three-handed whist.  Despite the obvious drawbacks, Carbury and his set of bored young noblemen begin to see the attraction of gambling on a larger scale than they had ever imagined possible...

Coming after some of the Palliser novels, The Way We Live Now is a further example of Trollope holding a mirror up to society at a time when new and old values were in conflict.  However, perhaps surprisingly, the old world isn't really portrayed that favourably.  In fact, many of the traditional characters in what was supposed to be a more balanced novel are fairly bland.  Normally, the reader would expect to be cheering on staid Roger Carbury, the reticent Hetta Carbury and Paul Montague, Hetta's chosen beau.  The reality is that in the company of figures like Melmotte and Felix Carbury, the supposed good-guys are as enticing as cardboard.

In a cast of dozens though, Melmotte is (possibly literally) head and shoulders above everyone else.  Trollope has created a monster, a man devoid of human feelings, using everyone and everything in order to satisfy his gargantuan appetite for wealth.  He is uncouth and arrogant with no knowledge of how to conduct himself in polite society, yet people fall over themselves to be in his presence.  All know his true character, but he somehow rises above his background, absolved of the onus of conforming to societal norms by the appearance of wealth.  At one point, a minor character compares him to Napoleon in explaining his appeal and his freedom of action:

"Such a man rises above honesty... as a great general rises above humanity when he sacrifices an army to conquer a nation.  Such greatness is incompatible with small scruples.  A pigmy man is stopped by a little ditch, but a giant stalks over the rivers." p.200

Trollope's views on the subject are never in doubt, but the majority of his characters in The Way We Live Now are sorely tempted by the opportunity to make their fortunes, even if (as the writer frequently points out) those who touch pitch run the risk of being defiled...

...for as powerful as Melmotte appears, he knows better than anyone that his power (and fortune) rests on the most fickle of bases - confidence.  His insistence on brazening things out is based on the knowledge that should he show a moment's weakness, his house of cards will come crashing down around his ears.  As the great man himself bellows:

"Gentlemen who don't know the nature of credit, how strong it is - as the air - to buoy you up; how slight it is - as a mere vapour - when roughly touched, can do an amount of mischief of which they themselves don't in the least understand the extent!" p.308

It is all a matter of faith - but just how long are people willing to trust him?

The Way We Live Now is a Trollope book I come back to time and again, and what makes this a great book is the fact that it will never lose its relevance.  Recent events (such as the Global Financial Crisis...) show that people will always allow themselves to be drawn into idiotic and unethical behaviour when there is any possibility of making a quick buck.  A book of its time?  Definitely - but it still has a lot to say to us today about the way we live now...

The Law or Justice?

Sad as I was to reach the end of another rereading of Anthony Trollope's Palliser books, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.  You see, last year I was lucky enough to win a Twitter competition run by Oxford World's Classics, and the prize was four more of Trollope's novels - and I was able to choose four that I hadn't previously read.  All of which means that there are plenty more Trollope reviews to look forward to in the months to come :)

*****
The one I was most interested in reading was another of Trollope's bulky, two-volume, 800-page epics, Orley Farm.  In his Autobiography, the writer considered this one to be his best novel, and while that may be stretching things a little, it's certainly one of the better ones I've read.  The story revolves around a codicil to a will made twenty years before the main action, an addendum which leaves the titular farm to the baby boy of Sir Joseph Mason's second wife.  The old man's other children suspect that their step-mother has somehow been involved in the forgery of this document, but a court case clears her of any wrong-doing, and Lady Mason is free to claim the property and run it on behalf of baby Lucius until he comes of age.

Twenty years on, Lucius is an educated, intelligent (if somewhat grumpy) young man, and he has decided to turn his attention to farming his own land.  In the process, he antagonises one of his tenants, a lawyer who married the daughter of the attorney at the centre of the original court case - and a man who subsequently finds a document which casts a different light on the events of the past...

Court cases and mysteries have featured in other Trollope works I've read (Phineas Redux, The Three Clerks and The Eustace Diamonds are some which immediately spring to mind), but Orley Farm is a novel which is more closely concerned with the workings of the law than any other I've read.  Trollope himself talks about 'sensational' literature and compares his work with that of Wilkie Collins, but it is actually Dickens' Bleak House that we are most reminded of.  Like Bleak House, Orley Farm is a doorstopper of a book, peopled with a wide cast of personalities from all walks of life, set partially in London and partially in the provinces.

While Orley Farm is of similar length to Bleak House, it is, of course, the focus on the law and, in particular, the rather loose link between the law and justice, which connects the two novels.  Where Dickens criticised the archaic institutions which led to fortunes being squandered in legal fees, Trollope examines the gladiatorial trial system where winning is more important than finding out what actually happened.  The writer's dreams of barristers working together to uncover the truth sounds somewhat idealistic, but the alternative - trained bloodhounds savaging innocent, honest people in the hope of discrediting them and obscuring the truth - hardly sounds like justice either...

Besides the over-riding theme of law and justice though, what I enjoyed most about Orley Farm was the way in which the characterisation was a little less black-and-white than is often the case.  Lady Mason could easily be compared to Lizzie Eustace (The Eustace Diamonds), but she is a much more complex and nuanced figure than her pretty, young counterpart.  We learn more about her character as the novel progresses, making it just that little bit harder for us to judge her - and to decide if she really is guilty or not.

While there are the usual sweet, blushing maidens and nervous, but manly, suitors, even the romances in Orley Farm are more intriguing than usual.  A stay at a country house sets up two love triangles: sweet Madeleine Stavely is pursued by upstart lawyer Felix Graham and wealthy heir Peregrine Orme; Sophia Furnival, a barrister's daughter, catches the eye of both Augustus Stavely and our young friend Lucius Morris.  While in other Trollope books, both the ladies would be pure and chaste, and the preferred suitor would be obvious from the start, things are not quite so clear here.  All of the young men have their good and bad points, none really standing out, and as for Ms. Furnival - well, I'm not sure she's playing the courting game quite as she's supposed to...

All in all, Orley Farm is definitely one of Trollope's more ambitious books, and it deserves its high reputation.  However, I was left thinking that it could have been that little bit more impressive if Trollope had only been released from the restraints of the Victorian culture and his own conscience.  Despite the attempts at ambiguity, the ending has to be morally correct: the characters must look to God for forgiveness, the good are rewarded, and the nasty are (for the most part) punished.  It's what the people wanted at the time, but today it detracts a little from the more balanced tone that runs through the novel.

Still, it's not for me to pass judgement on Trollope's treatment of his creations; I'm not sure my version would have been any better really.  And this is the real moral of the story.  As easy-going Judge Stavely says:

"...judge not that you be not judged." Volume II, p.122
(Oxford World's Classics, 2008)

As Orley Farm shows, the danger in judging is that you're very apt to make mistakes...

Taking 'Bout His Generation

Just over a year ago, I began my latest reread of Anthony Trollope's Palliser Series, speeding through Can You Forgive Her? in about four days.  While I've read most of the books fairly quickly though, I've spaced them out so much that it's taken me until now to get to the last of the stories, The Duke's Children.  One quick note to delicate readers: this review will contain information which you may not want to know if you're just starting out on your own Palliser reading...

*****
The Duke's Children opens with a bombshell (albeit one indicated on the back cover): the Duke's wife, Lady Glencora as was, has passed away suddenly, leaving the grieving Duke alone with his three (grown-up) children.  For a man like our old friend Plantagenet Palliser, dedicated as he is to his public, political life, the responsibility of taking care of his children is bound to bring him his fair share of troubles at any point in time.  As it happens though, this was a singularly unfortunate time for him to be left alone...

The Duke's youngest child, Lady Mary Palliser, has become engaged to Frank Treager, a man who, while an educated gentleman, in no way measures up to the type of husband Mary's father expects for her.  When Treager formally asks for Mary's hand in marriage, the Duke rejects him out of hand and forbids all communication between the two.  Far from accepting her father's command to end the relationship, Lady Mary digs her heels in, preparing to wait things out.

The former Prime Minister has more family problems on the horizon though.  His elder son Lord Silverbridge, the heir to the Palliser title and millions, has been thrown out of Oxford for an immature prank, lost large amounts of money through gambling and - something far worse - has decided to go against his father's politics and stand for parliament as a Conservative candidate.  In one way, at least, he is in his father's good books, as he is courting the beautiful, and highly respectable, Lady Mabel Grex.  That is, until one day at a garden party he crosses paths with Isabel Boncassen - an alluring American...

The Duke's Children is the culmination of almost twenty years work for Trollope in his development of the character of Plantagenet Palliser.  First introduced as a boring, hard-working, young politician in The Small House at Allington, Palliser becomes the main character of a new series of books, in which the reader is able to follow the ups and downs of his personal and political lives.  After an extremely shaky start, his forcibly-arranged marriage to Glencora gradually becomes a success, and The Prime Minister, the predecessor to The Duke's Children, marks the high point of his career, with the Duke taking charge of the government and his wife entertaining the high and mighty of the Empire.

Lady Glencora is a great character, and when you first learn of her passing, it comes as a blow - she is someone the reader has lived with (and loved) for years.  However, her death is necessary for the plot of The Duke's Children to develop in the way Trollope intended.  During their marriage, the Duke has not had to concern himself overly with domestic affairs, leaving all this to his wife; now he is forced to arrange matters himself, and he finds himself totally unable to deal with the strong-willed semi-strangers that have been raised under his roof.

In his struggles with his daughter, he initially has no doubts about his behaviour.  Despite his liberal politics and his utter disregard for status in the abstract, he is completely unable to live up to his politics in matters affecting his family.  As the head of one of the most blue-blooded families in the kingdom, he feels it is his duty to ensure that his children make appropriate matches - and his daughter's happiness comes a long way behind this sense of duty.

Of course, the Duke, as anyone who has read the series will know, is an utterly honest man (too honest at times for his own good), and the longer matters drag on, the more they eat away at him.  While still unwilling to compromise his views, he begins to realise what exactly it is he is doing:

"Now the misery must go on from day to day beneath his eyes, with the knowledge on his part that he was crushing all joy out of her young life, and the conviction on her part that she was being treated with continued cruelty by her father!  It was a terrible prospect!  But if it was manifestly his duty to act after this fashion, must he not do his duty?" p.398 (OUP, 1999)

Unable to reconcile his roles as loving father and aristocrat, Palliser has a very difficult decision to make...

Lord Silverbridge's romance is slightly less dramatic (mainly because the reader always feels that the father is much more likely to give in to the son than the daughter), but it is, in many ways, more interesting.  Quite apart from the novelty of the trans-Atlantic courtship, Silverbridge's love affairs carry distant but strong echoes of previous Trollope romances.  Lady Mabel is a very similar woman to Lady Laura Standish, a character who was very close to the titular hero of Phineas Finn, and Silverbridge and Treager (Lady Mabel's current and former admirers) seem to embody different aspects of Finn in themselves: Treager is the penniless man who is able to transfer his love easily enough when told to, and Silverbridge is the young, immature man who is slightly cowed by a woman no older than himself.

Looking outside the immediate family, it is Lady Mabel who is one of the most intriguing characters.  Like many Trollopian women, she is trapped by her sex, doomed from birth to be subservient and to depend on the whims of male relatives who, in terms of character, are not fit to polish her shoes.  Her need to find a husband before it is too late has made her (like Lady Laura Standish...) old before her time in terms of character.  As she thinks about Silverbridge, she muses:

"How was it that she was so old a woman, while he was so little more than a child?" p.128

While liking the young Lord, she feels no real love for him, but her situation means that she is compelled to play the game and angle herself an eligible husband.  However, to succeed in this game, one needs nerves of steel and a conscience of cast-iron, and her scruples may just get in the way...

Once again, Trollope uses The Duke's Children to sympathise with the plight of women in his own way, even though real feminism was something he found slightly distasteful.  He elegantly portrays the way society treats (upper-class) women, pointing out the inequalities in his own, wry manner.  When introducing the idea of a grand garden party, the one at which Silverbridge will meet Isabel Boncassen, Trollope explains:

"Everybody who was asked would go, and everybody had been asked, - who was anybody.  Lord Silverbridge had been asked, and Lord Silverbridge intended to be there.  Lady Mary, his sister, could not even be asked, because her mother was hardly more than three months dead; but it is understood in the world that women mourn longer than men." p.217

While Trollope points out these double standards, he doesn't really propose to do much about them.  In the end, he relies on our (i.e. men's) conscience to take lessons from his fictional examples of good and bad behaviour...

*****

At which point it is time to stop rambling and bid farewell to the Pallisers for another few years.  Like The Last Chronicle of Barchester, The Duke's Children is a book which brings the curtain down on an era, leaving the reader full of regret.  However, where the earlier series seemed to finish leaving us desperate for more, to me The Duke's Children is the right time to bring an end to the series.  The Palliser books are primarily about Plantagenet Palliser, Trollope's epitome of the English gentleman, and having safely navigated the treacherous waters of Westminster (and married off two of his children), our old friend Planty Pall thoroughly deserves to slip gently into the background and enjoy the rest of his life in peace and quiet.  It's time to say goodbye to the Pallisers...

...and move on to the rest of Trollope's gargantuan back catalogue :)

Tough at the Top

While I've had fun with a lot of translated fiction recently, it's always a pleasure to slip into something comfortable and while away a few hours with some Victoriana.  With me, of course, that usually means Anthony Trollope, and today's offering is another of big, bad Tony's political offerings.  Pipe and slippers ready?

*****
The Prime Minister is the fifth in Trollope's Palliser Series and sees the return of our old friend Plantagenet Palliser.  The country is in crisis, parliament at a standstill - none of the usual suspects believes they can muster enough support to build a cabinet and bring the House through the session.  What they need is a respected, uncontroversial gentleman to pull the various factions together in a coalition government - and when it comes to reliable, if slightly dull, gentlemen, there are none so respectable (or dull) as the newly-honoured Duke of Omnium himself.

While one half of the novel recounts the traumatic experience of the thin-skinned Duke's term as PM, the other half, as is common in Trollope's fiction, introduces a new character, albeit one who will brush shoulders with the sizeable cast of players the series has already created.  This new man is Ferdinand Lopez, a young, attractive, well-mannered man about town, an habitué of certain clubs and guaranteed to be seen at the best parties and dinners.  Despite uncertainty as to his background, and suspicions as to the exact nature of his wealth, when he asks for the hand of the wealthy heiress Emily Wharton, her father can find no real reason to reject the match other than his own xenophobic and anti-Semitic tendencies.

These are gradually overcome, and Lopez and Emily (as the reader knows full well they will from the first mention of them) eventually tie the knot.  Once married, however, Lopez drops his act.  He has married both for love and for money, and finding the latter not forthcoming, he does his best to destroy any feelings of the former his wife ever had for him, demanding that she use her influence on her father to suck him dry.  This is one couple that will not live happily ever after...

Anyone who has ever read any of Trollope's work will no doubt be able to guess the ending of this particular tale (and could probably fill in certain details I've endeavoured to spare you too).  Lopez, a speculator in the newly invented futures market, has his day in the sun, but he is always destined to fly too close to it and have the wax melt from his wings.  The problem, you see, is that while educated and cultured, Lopez is not a 'gentleman'; he has never mastered the million tiny necessities which form the education of a true British man, and the moment times become difficult, the thin veneer of culture peels off all too easily.

And it is this predictability which mars the novel.  Lopez is a fascinating character, an outsider attempting to carve a way into the lives of the upper classes, and, unfortunately, for that he must be punished.  Trollope is hamstrung by the conventions and expectations of the Victorian novel and is unable, or unwilling, to make Lopez likeable (or even ambiguous).  He feels compelled to make his creation into a villain, one who becomes more black-hearted the longer the novel goes on, when a more balanced approach would have made for better reading.

There is also the question of the above-mentioned xenophobia and anti-Semitism to consider.  It is clear that the writer is attempting to reflect existing attitudes and suspicions towards foreigners in general and Jews in particular.  However, at times, it is tempting to wonder how much of this is really necessary.  Does Lopez have to be a Jew?  Does he have to take on the part of a Shylock desperate to bleed the Christians dry?  While the melodrama may have entertained at the time, it seems like a wasted opportunity to create something more nuanced and worthy...

You'll notice that I have spent a lot of the review talking about Lopez, and that is no accident.  The character dominates the novel, entering the lives of the Pallisers at one point in a sub-plot involving an inevitable by-election.  Once his story has run its course though (and it does so at a relatively early stage, allowing for a protracted and tediously conventional ending for Miss Emily...), the story loses its sparkle, and if you're not particularly interested in the political side, you may as well just close the book then and there.

Luckily however, for those (like me) who have followed Palliser's career throughout the series, the portrayal of the three years of his Prime Ministerhood is excellent.  Trollope has elevated his favourite character, his perfect gentleman, to a position which he is patently unfit to hold.  While he may possess the wealth and breeding necessary for the task of holding the coalition together (and lack the ambition and genius which would only get in his way), he does not have the one thing which is vital for the success of a Prime Minister - a thick skin.

As he suffers the slings and arrows of treacherous colleagues and slanderous journalists, the Duke is simply unable to ignore ridiculous slights which other politicians would laugh off.  Making things worse, his wife, the wonderfully mischievous Duchess (Lady Glencora as was), insists on doing her part to keep the coalition ticking - with predictably disastrous consequences for her husband's peace of mind...

The Prime Minister is a very entertaining novel at times, especially so if you've gone the whole journey with the Duke and his friends.  However, it's not a complete success, largely owing to the struggle of integrating the misfiring Lopez-Wharton side of the story into both the Prime Minister side and the larger, overarching narrative of the series.  In a period of his career where Trollope was writing his best work (He Knew He Was Right and The Way We Live Now were both written around this time), The Prime Minister doesn't quite hit the mark.

But I'd still advise you to find that out for yourself ;)

The Return of the Man with the Magnificent Whiskers

While I quite enjoyed my month of women writers, it's nice to get back to a less-restrictive reading pattern - especially nice when that entails a return from an old friend.  And when I say 'old friend', I'm not talking about Trollope himself (although he has kept me company for many a year now), but one of his many fictional creations, a certain Mr. Phineas Finn.  We first met the charming Irish politician in  Phineas Finn, the second of Trollope's Palliser Novels, and Phineas Redux, the fourth of the set, returns our friend to London from his Dublin sabbatical.

After a couple of years away from Westminster, Finn's misguided, but principled, betrayal of his party has long been forgotten, and a letter from an old colleague (along with a feeling of emptiness after his wife's death) soon persuades Phineas to cross the sea and don his parliamentary armour once more.  In no time at all, the reader is back in the midst of Trollope's usual scenes: crooked elections, breath-taking hunts and bitter, spiteful debates in the House of Commons.  It's almost as if we were never away...

The more the novel unfolds, however, the more obvious the differences with the first book (what Trollope actually thought of as the first half of a single book) become.  In Phineas Finn, our friend is a young, innocent, indestructible character.  While he has his troubles, we never have any doubt that he will fall, cat-like, on his feet, usually with a thousand pounds a year and a new love interest to keep him going.

Phineas Redux though introduces a rather more mature Finn, a darker, more pessimistic man.  Where his first attempts to climb the political ladder were almost playful, now that he is keener than ever to make politics his profession, he sees that it is far from the noble pursuit he once thought it.   While the landed gentry, unburdened by the need to actually live off their parliamentary earnings, may be able to command respect, men like Finn, without fortunes of their own, are required to scramble for every crumb which may fall from the party leader's table, sacrificing their dignity in the process

Another difference between the two books is that where Phineas was able to glide through this parliamentary life fairly comfortably during his first terms of office, his second attempt at politics runs a lot less smoothly.  Mr. Bonteen, a minor character in Phineas Finn who is foregrounded in this novel, becomes a major obstacle in our hero's path, one whose spite causes Finn to be left out in the cold by his Liberal Party superiors.  Finn and Bonteen quickly become sworn enemies - until, that is, Bonteen is mysteriously removed from the picture...

The 'redux' of the title is Latin for 'restored' or 'brought back', and it is apt for many reasons.  Not only is our friend (and his moustache!) brought back for the reader's delight, so too are many characters we have met in the first three of the Palliser novels.  This is one of the many joys of reading Trollope's work - though he, like many Victorian writers, uses a number of minor plot strands, he is able to make these sub-plots more interesting by using old friends to paint in the minor details of the bigger picture.

Who needs to invent scores of new characters when you can bring back the likes of the Duke of Omnium, Madame Max Goesler and Lord Chiltern?  When the pivotal murder strand needs an alternative murderer, who better than to fulfil that role than a shady character we met in the previous novel?  Even where there's a need for a new character, let's just pluck a relative of the wonderfully sanguine Plantagenet Palliser from the aether to suit our purposes.  Comfort reading indeed :)

As is always the case with my reviews of the Palliser novels, there are several other ideas which would justify a post in their own right.  Just as Phineas Finn did, Phineas Redux once more examines the frustrations of middle-class women in Victorian England, bored to tears and prey for idle gentlemen when single, mere chattels of their husbands when married (especially if the marriage was more for the sake of convenience than love).  The character of Lady Laura Kennedy is an exceptional one, and a thorough retracing of her character over the course of the two books would show a complexity that many readers may think beyond Trollope.

There's also the small matter of the double-edged sword of publicity and the fashionable world.  Phineas benefits greatly from his high-class connections and his position in parliament, but the flip side of this is the extra attention paid to him in his most difficult hours.  The crusade against him in the pages of The People's Banner is eerily reminiscent of the way certain British tabloids consider it their duty to interfere with the lives of the rich and famous today...

Despite all these fascinating ideas though, the reader will always return to the man himself, our young Irish friend, a character whose early innocence and joy for life has been seriously tempered by the ordeals he has gone through.  By the time we reach the end of this chapter of his story, we fully understand why he makes the decision he does.  No longer is he as happy a man as he was when he first set foot in London; in return though, he has acquired a much greater maturity and depth of character, traits which will stand him in good stead in later years when he eventually returns to the parliamentary fray - which he will, as a minor character, in the final two novels in the series.

Don't worry - next time I'm in the Palliser world (in the not-too-distant future...), I'll be sure to give him your regards...

Diamonds Are A Girl's Worst Enemy

After a hard month reading and reviewing German literature, it's time to kick off my shoes and slip into something a little more comfortable, and those of you who have been around my blog for a while will know that there's little I find as comforting as a reread of some of my favourite Victorian literature.  So today, for the third time this year, we're heading back into Anthony Trollope's Palliser Novels for a little R & R - slippers please...

*****
The Eustace Diamonds is the third of Trollope's 'political' Palliser novels, but it is perhaps the least political of them all.  The story centres around Lady Elizabeth Eustace (known to her friends as Lizzie), a young, beautiful widow, who has made her fortune by capturing the hand of a Lord, shortly before his death through dissipation.  Not content with being left money, property and a regular income in her husband's will, Lizzie decides to appropriate a diamond necklace which is in her possession at the time of her husband's death - an ornament which the family lawyers are not prepared to let her have.

Lizzie, attempting to brazen out the situation, decides that her case will be better served by finding a new partner to fight her battles for her; the only problem is that the men she considers as potential partners all want her to give the diamonds back.  As the cunning Lady regards her potential beaus (the dull but steady Lord Fawn, her manly barrister cousin Frank Greystock, and the slightly dangerous Lord George de Bruce Carruthers), she continues to fight off the best attempts of the lawyers to seize the jewels.  Until, that is, someone else takes an interest in the precious stones...

I'll get it out in the open at once - The Eustace Diamonds is one of my least favourite Trollope books.  I had that feeling before starting it this time, and my opinion certainly hadn't changed by the time I got to the last page.  Although the Pallisers are mentioned several times over the course of the two volumes, the reality is that this is a stand-alone novel, and one which (in my opinion) overstays its welcome.

The key to the novel is the character of Lizzie Eustace, a no-good, cunning, treacherous gold-digger, who would remind any well-read Victorian of Thackeray's own villainess, Becky Sharpe.  To succeed in her intrigues though, Lizzie needs the men surrounding her to be almost as bad as she is, and this is where Trollope falls down a little in this book.  The world seems incapable of doing anything about Lizzie's antics, and despite Trollope's constant explanations as to why people are content to have the wool pulled over their eyes, it feels like a bit of a hollow argument.

Of course, it's not all bad (I wouldn't be reading it if it was...).  Lizzie is gradually worn down over the course of time by the pressure of having to fight for 'her' diamonds, and the writer describes Lizzie's psychological ordeal perfectly.  In fact, the diamonds almost become a character in their own right, one whose whereabouts are of pivotal importance to the story.  The idea of an item of great value becoming a burden not worth keeping, but equally something which you cannot part from, is not exactly unique in literature (my precious...), and Trollope almost makes you pity poor Lizzie - but not quite ;)

As always, Trollope also has a keen eye for the problems of Victorian women in their quest to be well married and less of a burden for those who must support them.  Quite apart from Lizzie's own need for a husband, there are several other marriage sub-plots, not all of which end well.  In particular, the frightening engagement of Lucinda Roanoake, a beautiful young American, and Sir Griffin Tewett, a brutal aristocrat, a 'romance' which ends with suspected mental illness, is one to put you off marriage for life...

At the end of the day though, I was very glad to get to the end of the novel, anticipating happier times when the series moves on to the next stop, Phineas Redux, featuring the return of our Irish friend Phineas Finn.  And, coincidentally, it was a character from Phineas Finn, Lord Chiltern, who best summed up my feelings about The Eustace Diamonds on the very last page:

"I never was so sick of anything in my life as I am of Lady Eustace.  People have talked about her now for the last six months... And all that I can hear of her is, that she has told a lot of lies and lost a necklace."

I couldn't have put it better myself  :)

An Irishman Abroad

Although I was definitely tempted, I decided earlier this year to put off rereading Anthony Trollope's Palliser Novels until next year, hoping to delay the pleasure for a little longer.  However, after my Rereading July project turned into a V-Lit comfort-reading fest, I ended up racing through Can You Forgive Her?, and it was only a matter of time before I slipped off the wagon again...

*****
If you are going to break promises you make to yourself though, there's no better book to do it with than Phineas Finn, the second of Trollope's 'political novels', and arguably the most interesting.  In this book, the reader follows the eponymous hero of the novel as he emerges from obscurity in the Irish backwaters to follow his ambition - to enter the 'mother of all parliaments', the centre of power of the most powerful nation on Earth.

Young Phineas, armed only with his native wit, a pleasing appearance and a set of the finest whiskers a man could ever hope for, sets out to make his fortune in the great British metropolis, managing to succeed both politically and romantically, despite his humble origins and empty pockets.  However, parliament can be a cruel mistress, and there are no guarantees in politics, particularly for those without family and fortune to support them...

I love this book.  I absolutely love it (well, I don't love my Everyman version and its multitude of typos, but the novel itself, yes).  It is such a dazzling entry into the world of Victorian politics and society, a book which can be read on so many levels and for so many reasons.  I doubt there is a sub-genre of Literary Theory which wouldn't be interested in deconstructing Phineas Finn, from Post-Colonialism and Feminism to Marxism (Queer Theory might be a stretch, but there was definitely one 'gay' Irish bachelor with no conspicuous female attachment...).

Our loveable Irishman, all six feet of him, is not the deepest of characters, but that is not especially important as he is more the reader's ticket of entry to Westminster and Mayfair than a fully-functioning protagonist.  It is through Finn's eyes that we are privileged to enter The House of Commons and experience for ourselves the nerve centre of the largest Empire the world has ever seen; when he rises to make his maiden speech, we share his sense of terror and vertigo, and when he is unable to bring himself to make the effort, we feel the shame of his failure.  It is through his visits to the city homes of the landed gentry that we, 21st-century citizens of the world, are able to gain access to the lifestyle of the very rich and the very famous of mid-1860s Britain.  It's an exhilarating ride.

Another reason why Finn's relatively shallow, if pleasing, character is not an issue is that the novel is crammed full with more interesting ones, most of them women.  Apart from a childhood sweetheart back in Ireland, our dapper young politician has many female friends and lovers, and these young women are far from being one-dimensional love interests.  An area where Trollope is perhaps underrated is the length he goes to in creating believable female characters, women desperate to do something with their lives, but prevented from doing so by a traditional, patriarchal society which wanted nothing more than to pass its female citizens from the protection of their fathers straight into the arms of their (usually much older) husbands.

The three women Phineas becomes involved with in London, Lady Laura Standish, Violet Effingham and Madame (Marie) Max Goesler, are all independent women - with independent means -, and you would think that this would enable them to enjoy their place in life.  Sadly, this is far from being the case: each is forced to recognise that despite their wealth, they are nothing more than birds in a cage, albeit a large and roomy cage.  Without an appropriate partner by their sides, they are unable to make the most of their undoubted advantages, and the apparent freedom their money gives them is offset by the weight of the social pressure they must eventually bow to.  It is striking though that the one who comes to struggle financially is the one who will suffer most in her future affairs...

If you like Victorian literature (and especially if you have any interest in the machinations of politics), you will enjoy this book immensely.  This is one of those books where, if I had unlimited time and typing hours in my pain-riddled arms, I would come back again and again to look at the novel from a slightly different angle (I didn't even touch on the perils of independent thought in a party political system, or the parallels between the robotic, and slightly disturbed, Robert Kennedy and the later creation of Louis Trevelyan of He Knew He Was Right...).  Unfortunately (or perhaps for the best), this is all you're getting for today.

Still, there are four more Palliser novels to come, including a sequel featuring our loveable Irish friend.  Now that's definitely something to look forward to ;)

The Last Chronicle of V-Lit

July is over, and so is my Rereading July project.  Over the past month, I managed to reread seven wonderful books, all plucked from my V-Lit collection, and to finish off my reviews, I have one last little post to entertain you with - one last trip through time and space, if you please :)

*****

Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope, is the first of the six books known as The Palliser Novels, and it's a good book in its own right.  It tells the tale of Alice Vavasor, a young woman who breaks off her engagement to the worthy John Grey because she feels that she is unsuited to the kind of life he is planning to lead, a secluded, leisurely life on his country estate (which sounds wonderful to me).  After making this decision, she begins to gravitate back towards a former love, her cousin George, whom she decided not to marry earlier in her life because of his terrible behaviour towards her.  As Alice moves closer towards throwing her lot in with her impulsive (and possibly psychopathic) cousin, Trollope ask the reader a couple of questions: will Alice regret her decision, and, more importantly, can you, the reader, forgive her?

Funnily enough though, as well designed as this side of the story is, I really couldn't care about Alice (or John Grey) at all because the main order of the day is our first lengthy introduction to one of Trollope's favourite characters, Plantagenet Palliser, and his bubbly wife, Lady Glencora.  Palliser previously appeared in a bit role in The Small House at Allington, but here he takes centre stage as the character who will occupy the writer's mind for the next decade or two.  In fact, Palliser is the character who best represents Trollope's own opinions and beliefs - the epitome of the English gentleman -, and his relationship with his wife is a masterful, realistic depiction of love and companionship.

Rather than taking us up to the wedding day and then leaving the loving couple to live happily ever after, Trollope has married off a young heiress, against her wishes, to a good, but unloving, politician - and then stirred in a little unresolved tension with an old flame.  Over the next five books, we will see how, from an unpromising beginning, the relationship will blossom and grow into a true love match, despite the many bumps along the way (especially in this book...).

I've read this story several times, but I still wolfed it down, devouring the 800 pages (of admittedly large type) in just four days.  I simply love this kind of Victorian novel, where multiple plot strands are teased out over hundreds of pages (and, in the original format, over years - Can You Forgive Her? was originally published in twenty monthly parts...).  You know what is likely to happen - that is if Trollope doesn't actually tell you himself -, but the destination is relatively unimportant; it's the journey that matters.  And when that journey involves the wonderful Pallisers, the terrible George Vavasor and a cameo appearance from the writer himself (in the guise of a heavyweight literary fellow gamely following the hunt over the English countryside), it's a very good journey indeed.

And, as I suspected on starting this wonderful book, I think I have just committed myself to reading the rest of the series over the rest of 2011.  Life's hard sometimes :)

*****

My final book for the month, Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White, is a slightly different novel to my usual Victorian reads.  It's a mystery, set in the Victorian era, and one of many 'sensational' novels of the time.  However, despite being lumped in with a multitude of other crowd-pleasing novels, Collins' work is a quality piece of writing with a groundbreaking style.

The Woman in White is told in a series of narratives by the person most closely involved with the events of the time, almost as if the course of a crime was being described in a court of law.  Our first narrator, young drawing teacher Walter Hartright, is walking home one night after paying a visit to his family.  He is walking along a deserted road in the darkness, thinking about the work he is shortly to do in the north of England...  when suddenly, from nowhere, a woman dressed all in white appears in the street.  Although his first meeting with the woman is fleeting, this chance encounter is to alter the course of his life, setting him on a journey where he will meet the love of his life - and some rather dastardly villains...

The style adopted by the writer allows him to build up the story from several different angles, and also permits him to poke a little fun at his characters' expense.  While the parts played by the major characters are played with a straight bat, some of the minor roles are definitely described tongue in cheek.  The part told by the housekeeper is full of "I'm not racist, but..." jibes at the foreign occupants of the house, while the section narrated by the self-absorbed, self-declared invalid Frederick Fairlie begins:

"It is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone." Wordsworth Editions, p.266

a statement immediately indicating that this is a character who will struggle to gain our full sympathy ;)

Anyone who has read the book will know though that the most impressive character is that of the inimitable Count Fosco, a villain of the highest order, but with the most impeccable manners.  Belonging less in a Victorian novel than in a James Bond film, the mysterious Italian emigré, a magnificently intelligent, courteous (and corpulent) mountain of a man, plays with his pet mice and birds, bursts out into impromptu arias and effortlessly plots a monstrous crime without breaking into a sweat - all assisted by his sinister, devoted wife.

What sounds like overexaggerated melodrama is raised above this by the book's format; Fosco is described by several of the narrators, each fleshing the Count out in a slightly different way, all (willingly or unwillingly) admitting the power of his persona.  In this way, Fosco becomes larger than life, a seemingly unstoppable genius, which makes the danger Hartright and his friends find themselves in seem palpable to the reader.

I'm not really one for crime novels, but The Woman in White is far more than just a detective story - it is a fascinating account of the lengths people will go to to get money, and a superb character sketch of a criminal mastermind.  Whether you are a fan of this genre or not, it's well worth the effort.

*****
So alas, Rereading July has come to an end.  Over the past month, dear reader, I have travelled far and wide through Victorian England: over hill and dale; through the bucolic Wessex landscape and up to the pleasant farm lands of the Midlands; up to a wild and wintry Yorkshire and across the Pennines to industrial Manchester; down to the great capital, the centre (at the time) of the civilised world and back up to the far-flung desolate north-west.  This is my country; at least, this is the country I visit in my imagination.  The more Victorian literature I read, the fuller my image of the England of the past becomes, and the more I want to know.  I'll be back very soon.

Ironic/Electronic

As some of you may already be aware, I recently caved into the desire to get an e-reader and purchased a Kindle of my very own.  I've been playing around with it a bit, but I haven't given it a name; that's a bit of a girly thing to do and also seems to be the first step towards madness (one day you're calling your i-Pod Trixie, the next you're talking to Betty the kettle and holding a funeral for Charlie the toaster, whose filaments burned out at such a tragically young age).

My reason for getting an e-reader was to be able to download, and read, tons of free classics, and I've managed to find a lot of favourites and save them to the memory of my new toy - Victoriana, French- and German-language classics, you know the drill.  So here's a review of my first foray into hand-held electronic reading: guess who I chose to start off the new era of literary enjoyment...

*****
The Three Clerks is one of Anthony Trollope's early novels, published between Barchester Towers and Doctor Thorne.  It follows the fortunes of three young men, gainfully employed in the service of their country at various public offices in London.  Harry Norman, a very respectable fellow, is joined at the Weights and Measures by the clever Alaric Tudor, whose cousin Charley Tudor is taken on at the Internal Navigation office.  Just down the river lives a distant relative of Norman's, Mrs. Woodward, a widow with three young daughters, and the three young clerks become quite intimate with the ladies of the Woodward family.  It does not take a brain surgeon to see where this story is going...

Admittedly, this early work is not up there with Trollope's best novels, but it's an entertaining read and worth trying for a couple of reasons.  The first is the light it sheds on what is to come in Trollope's fiction throughout the remainder of his career, as The Three Clerks, seen in retrospect, is filled with pointers as to future themes and characters.  The duo of the ambitious Alaric and the dastardly Undecimus Scott, a nasty Scotch nobleman who uses Tudor's ambition to further his own interests, are surely prototypes of Mark Robarts, the 'hero' of Framley Parsonage, and the very persuasive Nathaniel Sowerby.  The Woodward sisters would remind any fan of the Barchester Chronicles of the Dale sisters, first seen in The Small House at Allington, while Charley Tudor is most certainly reincarnated as Johnny Eames in the same book.

The areas covered in the novel are also revisited later in Trollope's career, forming the background to some of his finest work.  The seed of The Way We Live Now, Trollope's epic tale of greed, is sown in The Three Clerks, where Trollope first explores the dire consequences of dabbling with stocks and shares, and the extraordinary characters who manage to make a living from it.  Of course, the political side of the novel, only briefly mentioned, will eventually lead to the Palliser novels, perhaps the finest portrayal of politics in British literature.  It's also a warning to anyone who is thinking of running for office - a warning Trollope himself ignored...  Ever yearning for acceptance, Trollope stood for parliament later in life, coming (as expected) last of the four candidates, and gaining nothing from the experience but more room in his wallet, but it's hardly surprising when you read his eulogies in the novel to serving the Empire in this way.

And this is the second reason for reading The Three Clerks: its autobiographical nature.  Charley Tudor is Anthony Trollope, just as David Copperfield is Charles Dickens, and the difference in the way these two famous authors deal with their youthful alter-ego is telling.  Copperfield's journey to manhood is sedate, and he appears to have been born mature and ready to face the world.  Tudor is a disaster waiting to happen, a likeable, lazy lad, thrown into the world of adults before he is ready, able to drink, flirt and joke around at work - yet with a good heart and a burning sense of what he really should be doing.  I know which one I find more interesting.

In An Autobiography, Trollope discussed the art of novel writing, claiming (bound by Victorian morals as he was) that the writer is torn between the moral imperative to portray good behaviour and the writer's need to liven up his story, saying that good literature trod the fine line between the two sides.  Of course, today we don't share the Victiorian requirement for every villain to get his come-uppance, but The Three Clerks shows the truth in Trollope's words.  Harry Norman, morally by far the superior of our three young friends, is easily the most boring; the other two flawed men capture the reader's attention and carry the story along, and the treacherous Undy Scott, entertaining as he is, is doomed to be punished by the everpresent Victorian Nemesis of fate.

There are several flaws in The Three Clerks - the ridiculous names (Sir Gregory Hardlines, Mr. Oldeschole, the lawyer Gitemthrouit), the predictable plot, and the rather lengthy and trying start to the novel.  However, Trollope always comes good and, at times, pokes fun at his own failings.  In Charley's literary attempts, the writer parodies his own style, when Charley repeats his editor's pleas to start the book in the middle of the action, claiming that once the reader has committed themself to the first volume, the writer can describe people and places at whatever length he desires.  If Trollope had taken his own tongue-in-cheek advice, it would probably have improved the novel; nevertheless, for Trollope aficionados at least, it's still one which is well worth the effort.

*****

And what of the Kindle experience, I hear you ask (no, you did, I heard you).  Well, it's not all good.  I was forever adjusting the font, trying to get as much as possible onto the screen without the text becoming too small to actually read.  I'm also not a big fan of the need to click to turn the page, especially as you're reading twice as many pages (at least) as in a paper book.  The biggest issue, however, was probably due more to the free classic than the format - without a cover page, introduction and notes, the novel seemed a little bare and uninviting.  It was free though :)

All in all, the jury's still out on the Kindle - watch this space...

Self-Promotion of the Highest Order

In the introduction to virtually all the Anthony Trollope books I've read (and there have been a few), there has been one constant, one recurring fact mentioned time and time again: the damage to his reputation done by the publication of his autobiography.  It's something which has been teasing away at me for years, so I finally bit the bullet and had a look at it for myself.  Does it explain this loss of face?  Yes, very much so.  Is it worth reading?  Again, the answer is a resounding yes.

*****
Trollope had a reputation as a hard-working, hard-living, jovial and cantankerous fellow, and An Autobiography did nothing to dispel that image (which may, of course, have been Trollope's intention in writing it and ordering its posthumous publication).  Stories of his hunting, his rides around the countryside in the service of the Post Office - his employer for decades, even after he had earned fame - and his behaviour at literary parties, alternating between belligerence and snoozing are present throughout the book.  The London he describes is a fascinating one, populated with literary giants such as Thackeray, Eliot, and Carlyle, and Tony Trollope was one of the leading lights, if we are to believe his account.

While most of this was known to the public though, the chapters on his early life revealed information that most had never suspected.  Owing to the disastrous business decisions of his father, Trollope's family was plunged into poverty, leaving him in the unenviable position of one born to affluence and forced to live amongst the affluent whilst possessing nothing himself.  His dreams of university dashed, things got worse when both his father and his sister and brother died while in financial exile in Belgium.  His mother Francis (who could be - and probably is - the subject of her own biography) took up writing in her fifties, and through her literary pursuits managed to revive the family's fortunes and set an example for the the young Post Office clerk.

Apart from the fascinating account of his personal life, Trollope talks about several areas he was interested in, focusing on writing in general and his works in particular.  He  is a notoriously bad judge of his own work, dismissing the epic He Knew He Was Right as a failure while praising himself for having produced minor works which are virtually unknown today.  He ponders the attempt he made to portray the development of the character of Plantagenet Palliser, before lamenting:

"Who will read (the Palliser books) consecutively, in order that he may understand the characters of the Duke of Omnium, of Plantagenet Palliser, and Lady Glencora?  Who will even know that they should be so read?" An Autobiography, Oxford World's Classics edition (2008), p.184

Erm, pretty much everyone who enjoys his work...

His musings on the wider literary world are also interesting and, for the most part, still valid today.  He believes the vocation of writer to be the best occupation available - provided that you are successful.  With the chances of that being as low then as now, and as

"many a good book is born to blush unseen..." p.70,

Trollope claims he would always advise aspiring writers against throwing themselves into a writing career.  He also discusses critics, deploring the waste of time and energy spent by many writers in trying to obtain, by fair means or foul, favourable reviews in popular publications (something which may sound familiar to many bloggers...).

Of course, publishing itself is another topic of interest, and his pages on the problematic issue of American pirating of English literature make for an eye-opening, if familiar, topic.  I, for one, was not aware that American publishers used to simply take an English copy, use it to make their own edition and then sell thousands of copies in The States at great profit...

Trollope also had issues with getting his own work published, but he was more than capable of fighting his own battles.  When a publisher attempted to beat him down on an advance price, claiming that it was worth the lower price to have the publisher's name on the cover, Trollope wryly stated:

"I did think much of Messrs. Longman's name, but I liked it best at the bottom of a cheque." p.109

It is, of course, Trollope's attitude to money, along with his tradesman-like attitude to writing, which so disgusted critics.  Rather than pretending to be writing simply for the sake of art, he makes it quite clear that he regarded it as a second occupation and appears just as concerned with the amount of money he made from each novel as with its literary merits.  This unsuppressed sense of glee at the piles of filthy lucre earned through his fiction offended the sensitivities of the Victorian literary police and damaged his reputation for decades.

His method of work also put many people's noses out of joint, with his assertion of words-per-hour as a sensible technique confounding many.  Each morning, he was woken at 5.30, wherever he was in the world, and he wrote for three hours at the rate of 250 words (or one page) every quarter of an hour.  Once a book was finished, he simply moved onto another, the ultimate book-churning machine, always ahead with his serialisations, always with a novel or two ready to unload onto unsuspecting publishers.  Trollope didn't think much of talk of muses and inspiration...

What Trollope perhaps failed to realise is that it was not so much the fact of his money obsession and work ethic which scared the horses, but rather his lack of restraint in discussing it.  While he may (rightly) accuse those who disagree with him of hypocrisy, what he fails to see is that it is the act of discussing these things which leaves a disagreeable taste in the mouth.  For someone so obsessed with the idea of a gentleman, he seems to have made some serious misjudgements about what gentlemen would consider acceptable (I realise that he probably wasn't too concerned with the backlash, what with being dead and all, but this was his attempt to enshrine his reputation, and, to a certain extent, he blew it).

Still, time has healed the wounds, and Trollope is again one of the more successful, and popular, Victorian writers, his fame outstripping many contemporaries whom he considered his equal (or superior).  An Autobiography is an extremely interesting insight into a great author and a fascinating man, one whose faults are far outweighed by his many talents.  Trollope seems satisfied with his life and ends by saying:

"... if now and again I have somewhat recklessly fluttered a 5-pound note over a card-table; -of what matter is that to any reader?  I have betrayed no woman.  Wine has brought to me no sorrow." p.366

Truly a life less ordinary.

*****
Thanks to Betty from Oxford University Press (Australia & New Zealand) for sending me this review copy :)