Back to the Classics #9

I read this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2020.

Classic Adaptation. I have had time only for a dip into the 1974 BBC adaptation of the six Palliser novels. It has 26 one-hour episodes, which promises ample room to stretch out and thus be more faithful to the original stories, which is unusual in an adaptation. The sets are beautiful and the costumes striking but lack the textured look ushered in by Merchant-Ivory movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1974 they could certainly not achieve that kitschy HD look movies – Christopher Robin, for instance - are ridden with now. But I still believe in balloons and honey, okay? Especially in plague years.

Can You Forgive Her? – Anthony Trollope

The first book in the Palliser series was published in serial form from 1864 to 1865. Trollope examines the cases of three women who readers may or may not feel to be in need of the forgiveness asked for in the title.

Alice Vavasor gets her headstrong nature from her willful mother who died shortly after giving her birth, leaving her daughter a pile of tin that her well-off relatives wanted to keep from the clutches of John Vavasor. They hated him since they didn’t approve of the marriage which their stubborn daughter dived into. We can’t say motherless Alice was raised by her father John since he always left Alice alone, hanging out at his club or working his silly sinecure of signing papers for 12 hours a week.

At the beginning of this novel, Alice is engaged to an upright man named John Gray. Like his bland name, he is leading what looks to her a colorless life of reading and gardening in bleak Cambridgeshire. She loves him, but she sees her future with him as one of a kind of upper servant in a remote country house. She sees herself as fit for better things and playing a role in the larger plays of life, perhaps with a political husband whose campaigns she can fund with her wealth.

Alice is drawn again to her cousin George Vavasor, who she had turned down once before, for reasons about which Trollope remains mum. We post-moderns are thinking that poor Alice could avoid a lot of trouble by not marrying somebody she shared grandparents with. But Victorians saw things differently from us and where would our novel be if cousin marriage was a no-no? George is excessively ambitious to be a Member of Parliament. Alice’s cousin Kate, George’s sister, without scruples, manipulates Alice’s inclinations and emotions into thinking she could marry and assist the untrustworthy George. Alice jilts the worthy John Gray, but tells George she won’t marry him till a year goes by.

Another woman possibly in need of forgiveness is Lady Glencora Palliser, a good friend of Alice. She married Plantagenet Palliser, a Member of Parliament who has his eye on becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lady Glencora comes from an immensely rich family so she has money of her own which her husband can use, if need be, in his campaigns.

Glencora feels trapped in a loveless marriage and fears she’s letting his people down by not having an heir. Her husband doesn’t value a work/life balance that would provide her with the love and attention which she craves. She carries a torch for the worthless and penniless but shockingly handsome aristo, Burgo Fitzgerald. Alice, a prude, tells Glencora she is being perverse and wicked about Burgo, but the abject example of Planny and Cora’s marriage pushes Alice toward George, making her think risky and warm is better than dull and tepid. Trollope makes a clear point that bad decisions and worse yearnings are contagious.

The third woman that might need forgiveness is Mrs. Greenow, the star of the romantic comic subplot. The aunt of Alice's father John is a theatrical widow, wearing fashionable weeds and tearing up on command. It’s not clear if she really loved her decrepit husband but she clearly enjoys being pursued by two men. Captain Bellfield, a veteran of the army if his stories can be believed, barely keeps body and soul together and faces debt. He doesn’t have in him to be mean, which puts him in contrast with his rival. Rich farmer Mr. Cheeseacre prides himself on his dunghills and can’t stop talking about his money or expecting prerogatives because of his tin.

After the brisk set-up, Trollope has Alice provide George with campaign funds even before their marriage. John Gray cares for Alice to the point where he works behind the scenes to give George the money from his own pocket in order to protect Alice’s fortune. How this plays out makes compelling reading, the kind of story a hardcore reader can focus on, in deep concentration, happily diverted from outbreak and stable geniuses

Alice’s obstinacy borders on perversity and thus tries the reader’s patience once in a while. These moments are balanced by Aunt Greenow’s juggling of swains and Lady Glencora’s breezy selfishness. Cora is too young, beautiful and self-absorbed to understand and love her husband in a mature way, but she has a devilish sense of humor and jaunty irreverence that appeal to me. Trollope’s male characters are often pleasantly blah, but George Vavasor is one of Trollope’s most spectacular villains and John Gray actually grows in the course of the novel.

I highly recommend this novel which  Tony wrote about the time he wrote the masterpieces The Small House at Allington and The Last Chronicle of Barset.