I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over
at My
Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2017. The challenge is to read
books that you already own.
Rachel Ray –
Anthony Trollope
A light fairy tale like this novel is the choice to take
on summer vacation, laze on a deck, in the shade, and delight in.
Our titular heroine lives with her widowed mother and
older sister. Mrs. Ray is timid but good-natured. Sis, a.k.a. the widow Mrs.
Prime, is a dour bible-thumper put out when others seem to be enjoying life.
The trio lives in a humble cottage in Bragg’s End, where reasons for boasting
peter out. Mrs. Ray is tyrannized by Mrs. Prime, but Rachel holds off Sis’
efforts to get to toe the evangelical line.
Comely - of course - Rachel attracts the attention of Luke
Rowan. He has inherited a share in a local brewery that makes a little profit
though its product “isn’t worth swallowing” and thus can’t compete with the
local hard cider (strange how things come back, considering the growing
popularity of cider in our day). Mrs. Prime mistrusts Luke’s character, and does
not hesitate to share her concerns with her easily-alarmed mother. Mrs. Ray talks
to her pastor, the misnamed Mr. Comfort. He vouches for Rowan’s motives at
first but unfounded rumors undermine Luke’s reputation. Mr. Comfort then
advises Mrs. Ray to squelch the engagement between Rachel and Rowan. O,
trouble, indeed.
Trollope also includes a serio-comic courtship between
Mrs. Prime and her pastor, Samuel Prong. Prong is as fanatical as narrow-minded
as she. But conflict ensues because his ideas on wifely submission to husbandly
authority include his control over her income from her first husband's estate.
Stand-out pieces include the planning and execution of Mrs. Tappitt’s ball and
the conversations between Mr. and Mrs. Tappitt. Luke is not nearly the fatuous
overly confident young person as the clerks in The Three
Clerks, Harry Clavering in The
Claverings, or the naïve lame suitors (Arabin, Eames, etc.) in
the Barsetshire
chronicles.
This was written in 1863 between Framley
Parsonage (1861) and The Small
House at Allington (1864). This novel
is an example of what George Eliot was talking about when she wrote Trollope of
his novels, “They are like pleasant public gardens, where people go for
amusement and, whether they think of it or not, get health as well.” If you in the mood for English-style "nice" this is the ticket
Click on the title below to go to my review
of other Trollope novels.
The Warden
(1855)
Barchester
Towers (1857)
The Three
Clerks (1858)
Dr. Thorne (1858)
Framley
Parsonage (1861)
Orley Farm (1862)
The Small
House at Allington (1864)
Miss Mackenzie (1865)
The Claverings (1867)
The Last
Chronicle of Barset (1867)
He Knew He Was Right (1869)
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