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[willowgreen]

So, to totally change the subject... Anyone out there into Trollope (Anthony, not Joanna)? I never read anything by him until this past year, when I read Jo Walton's "Tooth and Claw" and found out that the plot drew heavily from "Framley Parsonage." So I read that, and then "The Small House at Allington." People always talk about how long Trollope'

Comments

[gillo]

I've loved Trollope for years - his Palliser books are also very good value, though Barchester has my heart. (Mrs Proudie is so deliciously awful!). There are some excellent BBC versions of them for radio (via Audible) and TV - a youngish Alan Rickman as Mr Slope is delicious - and even of the Pallisers.

Have you ever read anything by his mother, Fanny(Frances) Trollope? Also very good, though one of her books offended a lot of Americans!

[willowgreen]

I haven't read anything by Fanny Trollope, but I'm going to look her up right now. Thanks for the recommendation! I don't mind (too much) being offended by a good writer. :-)

[julia_here]

Oh, my , The Last Chronicle of Barset which is, if nothing else, the best answer to people romanticising the good old days that exists. I love Trollope, and I love that set of novels for both their humor and their hard-eyed examination of how people's virtues and aspirations can be far more destructive than their weaknesses, viz Mrs. Proudy as much as Rev. Crawley.

Forgot to say, about Trollope's prolixity: I think he takes as long as it takes, so to speak. I once read a sort of easy-reader version of Can You Forgive Her that cuts the meticulous detailed description of the green drawing room from a couple of thousand well-chosen, vivid words to maybe a couple of hundred which superficially mean the same thing. And so very much is lost about the psychology and taste of the character who hires the room decorated, about social class and expectations of levels of economic participation at that very moment in time, about the way the environment structured the life of people who lived in the house...

Julia, the political novels are even

[willowgreen]

Yes! He makes you hate Mrs. Proudie, and then he makes you sorry for her. Amazing.

I've just bought the Kindle edition of "Can You Forgive Her" and will keep my eyes open for the description of the green drawing room.

[julia_here]

I'm pretty sure it's in the first or at most second chapter: it's the stage setter for the protagonist's family environment.

Julia, I love the description the way I love some of John McPhee's descriptive passages: it's lengthy, but every word carries meaning and music.

[herself_nyc]

Me me me! I've read almost all his novels at least once, some more often. Read the rest of the Barsetshire books, and also the Palliser series.

I won't say you can't go wrong with Trollope - he did write a few snorers, but in his case, the longest novels are all pretty great; the shorter ones can be uneven. Do consider reading “Miss Mackenzie”.

[willowgreen]

The Kindle edition of "Miss MacKenzie" costs $0.00, and thus is now mine. Thanks for the recommendation!

[red_satin_doll]

I read "Can you forgive her?" two years ago, right after reading Henry James' "The Portrait of a Lady"; and what was interesting was how many themes, conventions, plot structures and characterizations (esp with supporting characters) in POAL were visible in (sometimes) broader and less sophisticated forms in Trollope.

The protagonist was a crashing bore but the supporting cast were funny and fascinating and I had a hard time putting the book down.

[julia_here]

Oh, no doubt she's a bore (but not a boar, so to speak), and a prig into the bargain, but I've found Henry James a drag every time I've attempted him. Probably just me: I'm notable for preferring All Passion Spent to To the Lighthouse.

Julia, Trollope was pretty solidly a rare recorder of common behavior.

[willowgreen]

I read "Portrait of a Lady" nearly 30 years ago, and after I turned the last page, I asked myself "What was that about?" Possibly I should give it another shot now that I'm older.

[red_satin_doll]

I read "Portrait of a Lady" nearly 30 years ago, and after I turned the last page, I asked myself "What was that about?" Possibly I should give it another shot now that I'm older.I'm more than willing to admit that some of my inability to "get" the novel has to do with my having dropped out of grad school, and failing to really keep up with my reading of fiction ever since. (I read a lot, but mostly nonfiction.) In other words, I felt a little dumb - just getting through James' preface to the 1908 edition was a chore. (More of a chore than the story itself.) The funniest thing about this preface was that James apologized to his readers for writing so much about Miss Stackpole and her adventures, but then says he decided not to edit any of her story out in this second edition regardless. Isabel's friend takes up a huge portion of the first section, but in the Wikipedia outline of the book isn't even mentioned at all. (James could have excised her altogether and perhaps have come up with something more compact, as Campion did in

[gwynnega]

I love Can You Forgive Her, Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux.