Library Director’s Notebook
March, 2014
For the past few weeks I have been enjoying the novels of Anthony Trollope, who although a contemporary of Dickens and a more prolific author, is not as well known and not usually as highly regarded as Dickens by modern readers. Trollope has written nothing, for example, as loved and universally lauded as A Christmas Carol, yet in his own way, Trollope had as keen an eye for both the sublime and the ridiculous as Dickens.
If you like long, complicated descriptions, lively dialogue, dry, sardonic wit, and romantic entanglements, you will love reading Anthony Trollope, especially his six volume series of novels known collectively as the Chronicles of Barsetshire. These novels, written between 1855 and 1867 feature a cast of characters living in the fictional county known as Barsetshire, including the cathedral town of Barchester. Featured in the impressive cast of Victorian characters are clergy, bishops, dukes, earls, landed gentry, lawyers and farmers, numerous lovely ladies, with or without fortunes to attract numberless well- or ill-meaning suitors, anxious mothers, clueless fathers, eager daughters and feckless sons.
It is a delight to read Trollope, but perhaps it is an even greater delight to hear his work read by a gifted actor. My long commute back and forth to work has been wonderfully enlivened by listening to superb actors read Barchester Towers and Dr. Thorne, two of the chronicles of Barcestshire. In the first novel, a new bishop comes to Barchester with his overbearing wife and scheming chaplain and soon throws the self-complacent clergy and their families into an uproar. In Dr. Thorne a lovely, self assured young woman of no fortune and very dubious birth is wooed by the heir of the local squire, much to the despair of his relatives who keep intoning “Frank, you MUST marry money!”
In fact, nearly all of Trollope’s novels have to do with money; what the pursuit of it, or the want of it, does to people of all classes. Trollope himself knew what it was to be born into a family that experienced more than its share of stressful financial difficulties. All his life Trollope worked very hard to keep such difficulties from blighting his adult life, and his astounding outpouring of novels and short stories certainly was effective at keeping the wolf from the door!
One habit of Trollope’s as a writer that some modern readers might find disconcerting, if not actually annoying, is his habit of intruding his opinions and reflections directly into the novel, sometimes slowing the pace of the story down to a crawl. Like some other novelists of his time, he had no scruples about suddenly addressing “the reader” directly; commenting on characters and their motivations or suddenly going off on a flight of discourse about modern politics or social commentary! He has been criticized for this, and while understanding the criticism, I usually find these comments and musings of his to be quite enjoyable.
In fact, I think that if Trollope had lived in modern times, he would probably have loved having his own blog, where he could have nattered on and on about everything under the sun! But being a Victorian, with only his novels to feed his passion for commenting about all and sundry, including his remarkable knowledge and insight about each and every one of his hundreds of characters, he had to be content with the fiction he left behind for us to enjoy! And although my Director’s Notebooks are usually reserved for reviews of books, including recorded books, I want to also urge readers to view a wonderful adaptation of one of Trollope’s last novels The Way We Live Now. The multi-part series, broadcast a few years ago on Masterpiece Theater features performances by an outstanding cast of British actors, led by the inimitable David Suchet, of Hercule Poirot fame. Although written more than 130 years ago, it shows an insight into financial chicanery and rapaciousness that is very modern indeed!
