Victorian #1

I read this book for the A Victorian Celebration 2015 hosted over at A Literary Odyssey in June and July, 2015.

Dr. Thorne – Anthony Trollope

Let us now pass on to property, the greatest cause of human troubles. For if you compare all the other things by which we are troubled, deaths, sicknesses, fears, desires, endurance of pains and labors, with those evils which our money causes, this last part will far outweigh the others.

Says the stoic Seneca, and in this novel Trollope agrees property is a bugbear but adds to the list: politics, class conflict, family discord, alcoholism, illegitimacy, profligacy, hypocrisy, and stupidity.

The plot of Dr. Thorne isn’t as important as the fresh and distinct characters and variety of incidents, but here’s a brief overview, sans spoilers, as always. Young Frank Gresham faces the odious prospect of having to work for a living because his father, the squire, has gone in to debt due to campaign expenses in elections he lost anyway. Frank’s mother and the rest of her objectionable aristocratic family demand that Frank marry money in order to get his father out financial dutch.

But our hero Frank loves our heroine, the portionless Mary Thorne. She lives with her uncle, Dr. Thomas Thorne, the only one besides the squire who knows her unfortunate beginnings. Mary’s mother Mary was ruined and dumped by Dr. Thorne's bad-hat brother, Henry. Mary’s brother Roger, a mason, kills Henry and does time for it. Mom Mary is saved by an old sweetheart, who is willing to marry her but not to bring up another man’s kid. They emigrate to America and Dr. Thorne agrees to raise Baby Mary.

Br’er Roger is released from the joint and though he is raging alky, he makes a ton of money as a government contractor in large construction projects. He bids his lawyers to write the usual funky Victorian will. It stipulates that at his death he will leave his huge fortune and chattels to his dissolute son Louis or to Mary, if Louis dies. Mary of course knows nothing about these terms of the will.

Mary loves Frank, too, but the pressure on Frank is hard to bear. His mother says:

“If you wish to see me ever happy again, if you do not wish to see me sink broken-hearted to my grave, you must give up this mad idea, Frank,"—and now all Lady Arabella's energy came out. "Frank there is but one course left open to you. You MUST marry money." And then Lady Arabella stood up before her son as Lady Macbeth might have stood, had Lady Macbeth lived to have a son of Frank's years.

I was afraid that this romance Love Conquers All, Even Class Differences  a.k.a. Dr. Thorne would be a let-down after reading the first two Barsetshire novels, The Warden and Barchester Towers. But Dr. Thorne was consistently interesting, with many delightful scenes that balance Trollope’s very slow start (persevere, is all I can say); too funny names (the lawyers Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile); obvious padding (Make ‘em wait, as Wilkie Collins would say); and mock epic or Biblical language such as

Come, my friend, and discourse with me. Let us know what are thy ideas of the inestimable benefits which science has conferred on us in these, our latter days. How dost thou, among others, appreciate railways and the power of steam, telegraphs, telegrams, and our new expresses?

Trollope is quite careful to describe how much time has passed, however, which makes up for his lack of interest in describing flora or weather or season.  The passing of time leaves its stamp on his characters. Trollope’s narrator is not omniscient, but he seems to know everything important about the characters. He imparts his knowledge with irony and geniality, giving the sense that he sympathizes with his characters (Poor Mary! Poor Frank!) and so should we readers.

So, any reader who like the first two novels of the series should read Dr. Thorne. It was, says critic Daniel Rutenberg, “the best-selling Trollope novel during the author's lifetime.”

Reading Those Classics #8

19^th Century Classic. Somebody said the 19^th century English novel is always about money and marriage. Here we go again. Lucky for us, as Ceridwen Dovey wrote in 2015, "I suspect that reading fiction is one of the few remaining paths to transcendence, that elusive state in which the distance between the self and the universe shrinks."

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite – Anthony Trollope

Sir Harry Hotspur’s dream was to pass his wealth, property and baronet title to his only son, in the long and best traditions of a great commoner family. But his son died, forcing him to plan passing the family estates to his daughter Emily and the title to the male George Hotspur, a cousin.

Sir Harry and Lady Elizabeth introduce intelligent, beautiful and vibrant Emily to likely suitors but she remains unmoved, seeing herself as an heiress with no reason to settle. Her parents make the mistake of inviting Cousin George to the house. Emily gives her heart to handsome, charming, suave man.

Sir Harry is less than thrilled to discover that Cousin George is a gambler deeply in debt to money-lenders and is rumored to live off the earnings of the actress Mrs. Lucy Morton. Every traditional bone in Sir Harry’s body wishes to keep the family estates and titles together. Sir Harry is thus torn by two choices, like Alice Vavasor and Lady Glencora in Can You Forgive Her?

In the end, “He knew that Cousin George was no fitting husband for his girl, that he was a man to whom he would not have thought of giving her, had her happiness been his only object.” He forbids Emily to have contact with Cousin George.

Obstinate Emily will obey her father as dutiful children must but she refuses to get Cousin George out of her heart. She points out one, society is such that it expects and even tolerates the recklessness of its fast young men and two, our Savior says to forgive and forget, that no black sheep is so defiled with pitch that he can’t be washed clean.

“I am afraid George has been worse than others, Emily.” 

“So much the more reason for trying to save him. If a man be in the water, you do not refuse to throw him a rope because the water is deep.” 

“But, dearest, your papa is thinking of you.” Lady Elizabeth was not quick enough of thought to explain to her daughter that if the rope be of more value than the man, and if the chance of losing the rope be much greater than that of saving the man, then the rope is not thrown.

Hey, I’m all for Tony’s authorial interjections when they are as wise as that. Emily’s stance calls to mind that of Lady Mary Palliser in The Duke's Children: “She had told the man that she loved him, and after that there could be no retreat.” The author bears Emily’s pig-headed silliness (my word) with as much genial sympathy as he expressed for Mary Thorne in Dr. Thorne, Lucy Robarts in Framley Parsonage, Lucy Morris in The Eustace Diamonds, Lily Dale in The Small House at Allington and numerous other Trollopian heroines that provoke eye-rolls, sighs, groans, and foot-stamping among us post-modern readers.

Emily, I admit, is not totally silly since she “…suffered under a terrible feeling of ill-usage. Why was she, because she was a girl and an heiress, to be debarred from her own happiness?” It’s a pointed question, one asked by thinking females married off for the sake of consolidation of property and military alliances. Still, given Cousin George is as weak, sordid, and clueless as the family de Courcys in Barchester Towers, he’s not worth it. People assent to irrational ideas and unfortunate things happen. It’s the world.

As in the relatively short The Claverings (1867) and the really short Cousin Henry (1879), this novel from 1871 finds Trollope focusing on the psychology of the characters, sparing us, for example, romcom subplots or hunting scenes that don’t advance  the story. I’d recommend it for readers really into Trollope or looking for tightly-constructed Victorian novel with as sad as ending as An Eye for an Eye.

Click on the title to go to the review.

Prize Winning Classic: The Moviegoer – Walker Percy

Classic Novella: Old Man – William Faulkner

Classic Epistolary Novel: Augustus – John Williams

Classic Comic Novel: Thank you, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse

Classic Short Stories: New York Stories – John O’Hara

Classic Air Pilot Memoir: Wind, Sand, and Stars - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Classic Set in the Big Apple: Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos

Mount TBR #35

I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over at My Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2016. The challenge is to read books that you already own.

Miss Mackenzie – Anthony Trollope

The titular heroine of the novel at first seems a paragon of unworldly altruism. Margaret Mackenzie selflessly nurses her aged parents and consumptive brother till they check out of this vale of tears. In her dealings with the world in her secluded life, she evinces a disarming naivety. But after she inherits her brother’s well-heeled estate, the mercenary suitors - the subtly named Handcock, Rubb, and Ball - come calling thick and fast. In her dealings with guys and their mixture of romance and self-interest, Trollope reveals her as less simple and less malleable than she appears. Really vexing things happen to her, but she is adept at accepting whatever happens with good grace.

This novel has the usual dings we find in Trollope. Like Dr. Thorne, this novel starts oh so deliberately. Then more than a couple of patches feel quite sluggish and leisurely, to the point where the post-modern reader starts stamping a foot and thinking about 70 pages should have found themselves on the cutting room floor. I think Trollope rather teases us by spinning things out, especially with proposal scenes and over-delicate feelings  that stop people from doing what they naturally want to do. A novel, like the law, is slow, says a joshing Tony. This, about our old friend from The Three Clerks and Orley Farm, a long-time lawyer:

Mr. Slow was a grey-haired old man. ... He was a stout, thickset man, very leisurely in all his motions, who walked slowly, talked slowly, read slowly, wrote slowly, and thought slowly; but who, nevertheless, had the reputation of doing a great deal of business, and doing it very well. He had a partner in the business, almost as old as himself, named Bideawhile; and they who knew them both used to speculate which of the two was the most leisurely. It was, however, generally felt, that, though Mr. Slow was the slowest in his speech, Mr. Bideawhile was the longest in getting anything said.

Generally speaking, Trollope’s sentences are extremely easy to read but his grammar gets convoluted on occasion. In his novels, there’s always at least one sentence that is so twisted up as to be incomprehensible.

The paper in question was not a wicked paper, nor were the gentlemen concerned in its publication intentionally scurrilous or malignant; but it was subject to those great temptations which beset all class newspapers of the kind, and to avoid which seems to be almost more difficult, in handling religious subjects, than in handling any other.

Something gets garbled starting with “class newspapers of the kind.” My mildly lazy brain struggles to take in the meaning of everything after that garble. Oh, well, as the Japanese say, even monkeys fall out of trees.

But Trollope skillfully portrays Victorian codes of conduct with rigid social rules, the constant hunt and fighting for money, and the persistent female concern at the time, looking for a husband. The plot includes the machinations of contenders for her hand, lawyer and financial intriguing, and much quiet comedy from Trollope. Though Trollope signals what ultimately is going to happen, he tosses in unexpected developments  (I won’t say “surprises” – I think Trollope saw surprises as unworthy and tricky) keeps us readers in agreeable suspense. The other appeal of Trollope is that his stories offer soothing escape from the reality of sweltering weather and bloodthirsty talk in an election year.

Click on the title below to go to my review.

The Three Clerks

The Warden

The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson

Orley Farm

Barchester Towers

Dr. Thorne

Framley Parsonage

The Small House at Allington

The Last Chronicle of Barset

Victorian #6

I read this book for the A Victorian Celebration 2015 hosted over at A Literary Odyssey in June and July, 2015.

Framley Parsonage - Anthony Trollope

The strict definition of a roman-fleuve is a sequence of related but self-contained novels that can be read independently or out of sequence. Having finished the fourth novel of six of the Chronicles of Barsetshire, I think, however, the novels of this particular roman-fleuve, anyway, should be read in order.

One reason is that I think Trollope wanted his readers to feel the rush upon meeting again familiar friends like Dr. Thorne, Rev. Harding, and Archdeacon and Mrs. Grantley and old pains in the neck like Mrs. Proudie. For another, it’s interesting to see how Trollope develops into a better writer. Though the plots hinge on commonplace concerns such as love, marriage, money and success, his characters become more interesting in their efforts to maintain their integrity and self-respect while pursuing their goals.

Framley Parsonage first published serially the Cornhill Magazine in 1860, then bundled in between covers in 1861. There plots involve a money problem and different love stories. Mark Robarts is a young up and coming clergyman for whom success has come very easily because of solid connections. Ambitious to cultivate people that can advance his career, he falls in among bigwigs and hustlers. In moments of overweening ambition and weakness, he is pressured into co-signing loans for a black sheep politician in constant money trouble.

As for the love stories, we have three. Will the delightful character from Dr. Thorne, Miss Dunstable, the ointment heiress, find middle-aged love and avoid fortune hunters? Will Griselda Grantly, likeable enough in Barchester Towers, but cold, remote, and calculating in this outing, find success in the marriage market? Finally, will the mother of Lord Lufton see her way to consenting to her son’s romantic affinity toward Lucy Robarts, the sister of Mark. Lady Lufton concisely lists her objections: “But her father was a doctor of medicine, she is the sister of the parish clergyman, she is only five feet two in height, and is so uncommonly brown!” The lady is worried that Lucy will never cut an impressive figure as the wife of a lord.

For me, Trollope’s strong points are his sense of irony and humor and clear-headed common sense. When I read this passage, I realized I must have forgotten that I read this novel a long time ago because this passage struck me as something I’ve often thought, don’t ever work in a job that calls for you to apologize for carrying it out, like being a repossession agent:

The bailiffs on that day had their meals regular,—and their beer, which state of things, together with an absence of all duty in the way of making inventories and the like, I take to be the earthly paradise of bailiffs; and on the next morning they walked off with civil speeches and many apologies as to their intrusion. "They was very sorry," they said, "to have troubled a gen'leman as were a gen'leman, but in their way of business what could they do?" To which one of them added a remark that, "business is business." This statement I am not prepared to contradict, but I would recommend all men in choosing a profession to avoid any that may require an apology at every turn;—either an apology or else a somewhat violent assertion of right. Each younger male reader may perhaps reply that he has no thought of becoming a sheriff's officer; but then are there not other cognate lines of life to which perhaps the attention of some such may be attracted?

During its serialization this story was extremely popular. Fellow writer Elizabeth Gaskell even said “I wish Trollope would go on writing Framley Parsonage for ever. I don’t see any reason why it should come to an end.”

Victorian #2

I read this book for the A Victorian Celebration 2015 hosted over at A Literary Odyssey in June and July, 2015.

The Uninhabited House - Mrs. J. H. Riddell

The Victorians loved ghost stories. They had a Christmas tradition in which they read aloud ghost tales that were printed in Christmas annuals of magazines like Household Words. This short novel was released in the Routledge’s Christmas Annual in 1875. Too long for short story collections and too short to be published as a stand-alone novel, it was not collected until Dover Publications released Five Victorian Ghost Novels in 1971. Get it.

Mrs. Riddell lost her husband and had to provide for their numerous kids by writing. In this novel, she has a charwoman say

"Well, sir, when a man goes, all goes. I have done my best, but still I have not been able to feed my children—his children—properly, and the sight of their poor pinched faces breaks my heart, it do, sir," and she burst out sobbing.

One gets the feeling this is not only out of the author’s imagination. And it makes us think what burdens a widow faced in those days - and ours, for that matter. Mrs. Riddell’s husband died of a broken heart after business reverses so she knew what it was like facing money troubles.

Anyway, as the title implies, this is a haunted house story. It is narrated by Hal Patterson, a clerk in a London solicitor’s office.  I read this one after the quiet country people in Dr. Thorne, and frankly it was fun to get back to the city and its lively street scenes like this:

At last, imagining the way clear, she made a sudden rush, and had just got well off the curb, when a mail phaeton turned the corner, and in one second she was down in the middle of the road, and I struggling with the horses and swearing at the driver, who, in his turn, very heartily anathematized me.

Patterson works for kind and good Mr. Craven who lives down to his name by being consistently pusillanimous when dealing with his worst client, Miss Blake. Born in Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Mrs. Riddell brings Irish high spirits to describing the imperious oafish Miss Blake:

Her face was a pure, rich red, from temple to chin; it resembled nothing so much as a brick which had been out for a long time, first in the sun and the wind, and then in a succession of heavy showers of rain. She looked weather-beaten, and sun-burnt, and sprayed with salt-water, all at once. Her eyes were a lighter blue than I previously thought eyes could be. Her cheek-bones stood out more prominently than I had thought cheek-bones capable of doing. Her mouth—not quite a bad one, by the way—opened wider than any within my experience; and her teeth, white and exposed, were suggestive of a set of tombstones planted outside a stonemason's shop, or an upper and lower set exhibited at the entrance to a dentist's operating-room. Poor dear Miss Blake, she and those pronounced teeth parted company long ago, and a much more becoming set—which she got exceedingly cheap, by agreeing with the maker to "send the whole of the city of London to her, if he liked"—now occupy their place.

Miss Blake depends on the rent of the haunted house for most of her income. It’s a beautiful place that attracts tenants until they experience its spooky doings: weird noises, unexplainable lights, doors that move by themselves, and full-bodied apparitions. For 50 pounds, Patterson agrees to stay in the house until he gets to the bottom of the mystery.

There are some unnerving moments but it’s never as scary as the scariest moments in a Sheridan LeFanu story. After all, it was a story written to read at Christmas, recall. Mrs. Riddell is more humorous and diverting than, say, Bram Stoker or M.R. James. I strongly recommend this story and Mrs. Riddell, who ought not to be a forgotten writer.

Back to the Classics #12

Classic with a Name in the Title. Starting with The Tale of Genji, novel writers have dearly loved naming novels with the name of the hero of the novel. For Trollope, see also Rachel Ray, Miss Mackenzie, Doctor Thorne, and Cousin Henry.

Phineas Finn: The Irish Member – Anthony Trollope

This engaging novel from 1869 tells the story of a young Irishman, the only son of a successful doctor in County Clare, who begins his adult life in London studying law in the odd way they study law in that part of the world. Young Phineas is blessed with luck, being born handsome and pleasant by disposition. Charming as he is, however, he’s no scholar.

So he is lucky again when he builds a useful friendship with Whig politician Barrington Erle who recommends that he run for an Irish seat for parliament. A child of fortune again, he wins in “just one of those flukes that occur once in a dozen elections,” causing his law mentor Mr. Low to warn darkly:

… Even if you are successful, what are you to become? You will be the creature of some minister, not his colleague. You are to make your way up the ladder by pretending to agree whenever agreement is demanded from you, and by voting whether you agree or do not. And what is to be your reward? Some few precarious hundreds a year, lasting just so long as a party may remain in power and you can retain a seat in Parliament! It is at the best slavery and degradation,—even if you are lucky enough to achieve the slavery.

Finn’s first speech in that august body is a fiasco and any reader that has blown an interview or presentation sky-high will connect with his experience. Finn also feels what we now call imposter syndrome, Trollope showing that feeling an outsider and a fraud and full of self-doubt has been around for a long time though we post-moderns love to think our new names name new things.

Trollope presents so many examples of Finn’s luck that such good fortune borders on the improbable. As he attempts to woo young heiresses, another character tells him “Upon my word, Phineas, my boy, you're the luckiest fellow I know. This is your first year, and you're asked to the two most difficult houses in England.”

Finn is also lucky enough to find himself in a position to rescue not one but two men. In the obligatory sporting scene for readers that like fox hunting (a bigger demographic in the Victorian era than in our staying-at-home times), he provides aid and comfort to injured Lord Childtern, the brother of his most earnest supporter, Lady Laura. Later he saves Robert Kennedy, the husband of the same lady, from being garroted by beating off the muggers. Kennedy’s feeling of obligation to Finn works itself out in both fortunate and unfortunate ways.

The Palliser novels are often called the political novels. Lots of us idealistic readers see politics as a set of beliefs about how the wealth of nations ought to be divided up, but a character in this novel sums up an attitude still with us today:

"Convictions! There is nothing on earth that I'm so much afraid of in a young member of Parliament as convictions. There are ever so many rocks against which men get broken. One man can't keep his temper. Another can't hold his tongue. A third can't say a word unless he has been priming himself half a session. A fourth is always thinking of himself, and wanting more than he can get. A fifth is idle, and won't be there when he's wanted. A sixth is always in the way. A seventh lies so that you never can trust him. I've had to do with them all, but a fellow with convictions is the worst of all."

It appears I have written 500 words about this novel without telling anything about the plot. I don’t think that Trollope especially cared about the story. Instead, he puts his energy and creativity into memorable characters.

Two men and three women especially stand out. Lord Chiltern aka Oswald Standish brings to mind the tumult and selfishness of George Vavasor but without the ambition that drove the latter to use people as mere objects. Chiltern is out of the place in the modern world because he is wild, impetuous, surly, brawling in the violent 18^th century manner. Nobody better to share a foxhole with, nobody worse to work or travel with. No wonder heiress Violet Effingham, as fun as Lady Glencora Palliser, is rather afraid that Chiltern will be a drinking, gaming, out of control husband.

Robert Kennedy is a control freak because, like most control freaks, he is weak and fears uncertainty. He thinks that religious zeal, inflexible schedules and rigid adherence to social duty will stave off change that he dreads he won’t be able to handle. His controlling ways drive his wife Lady Laura to distraction, as if she does not feel guilty enough marrying him out of ambition to make a difference in the world (see Alice Vavasor) after throwing over our hero Finn.

Another vibrant character is the widow of a Viennese banker, Madame Max Goesler. She’s another outsider who works hard to find a place in London society, so beautiful and charming that she becomes sought-after by the Duke of Omnium. This, naturally enough, alarms Lady Glencora who fears for the future of her son, the future duke if all goes as it should.

Like the characters in the Barchester novels, the characters in this novel struggle to reconcile their own preferences with the expectations of the world. The world hectors Chiltern to settle down. It chides Finn that entering Parliament is a misstep. All the women are told love is most important and that they should live only for others. Reading Trollope reminds us that we readers still struggle to resolve our own heart’s desire for freedom with what a silly fickle world tells us to want - money, a soul mate, property, reputation, position, awards, making a difference, good health – all desires that enslave us because they are out of our control, not up to us.

Classics #12

I read this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2017.

The Tale of Genji – Murasaki Shikibu (tr. Edward Seidensticker)

Lady Murasaki Shikibu composed this long novel in 11th century Japan. The novel chronicles the story of Genji, an aristocrat connoisseur and government minister, whose good looks, refinement, aesthetic taste, and accomplishments in all the arts and crafts attract the admiration of everyone he meets, except of course mediocrities who envy his talents and feel jealousy with his success with the ladies.

The novel’s 1100 or so pages can be divided into three large sections. Chapters 1-33 cover Genji’s youth through middle age. Genji suffers the ordeal of exile to faraway Satsuma because he is caught with the daughter of a high minister of state. However, after that unhappy sojourn, his court success and eventful personal life are described in witty, readable incidents.

Chapters 34-41 feels as if the author were ready to move on to other characters in the next generation. There is also a discernible shift in tone. Genji begins to feel what our ancestors in the 1950s called “that old mortality,” the melancholy we feel as we contemplate being subject to death. The Japanese have called this feeling mono no aware (物の哀れ), “the sadness of things.” Everything is subject to flux in both the short and the long term. We need to savor the sad beauty that people, places, and things express because of their transient nature.

Finally, Chapters 42-54 cover Genji’s grandson Niou and supposed son Kaoru. There’s no point to applying morals or ethics as we understand them to many characters in this book. In fact, their callousness to each other, destructive jealousy, breaking up of families, harsh treatment of women, casual treatment of illegitimate offspring and lack of anything we’d call privacy rather prevent us from being sympathetic toward many of the characters. The men are weak when faced with temptation and strong when justifying their own selfishness.And women can't relax for a minute because a mistake in a unguarded moment will bring down gossip, derision, and economic insecurity.

I suppose some readers will condemn this book for the same reasons the Victorians turned their noses up at it. That is, the lack of sexual restraint stands out. People in the court of Heian Japan acted promiscuously, however, according to a strict code of conduct not only social but aesthetic. For example, it was obligatory that lovers could compose and appreciate poetry in its various forms and be able to write poems that drew on famous poems and stories. Such poetical allusions had to be made in exquisite calligraphy. People judged each other on the basis of their penmanship.

This novel is truly for people who love to read novels packed with episodes and people with curious characters. In other words, if you like Trollope, you might want to try this one. It’s the same kind of comfy reading experience as, say, Doctor Thorne or The Last Chronicle of Barset in that once it gets going - and for pete’s sake it takes a while to get going - it’s un-put-down-able.

Finally a caution and advice. This is not like Anna Karenina, which can pick up and enjoy without knowing too much about Russian society and culture in the 19th century. But, in the interest of full disclosure so people know that they are getting into, I think a reader that knows little or nothing of Heian Japan will probably become lost and disgruntled without first reading Ivan Morris' The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. No sheepish apology here for advising background reading and prep to the unknowing. This is a masterpiece of world literature about people who are different from us post-moderns. So it had better be approached with knowledge and respect.