More Reading
Sep. 19th, 2013 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowI also recently finished Can You Forgive Her?, the first of Anthony Trollope's series of Palliser novels. My previous acquaintance with his work was with the Chronicles of Barset, some of which I've reviewed before, and which I enjoyed greatly. The flavor of this one is... rather different.
In the first place, this is much more a Victorian novel than the Barset stories. The two central female characters, Alice Vavasor and Lady Glencora Palliser, are both rebels against Victorian conformity (albeit in sharply different ways); as a result of their rebellions, each passes through a series of crises, ultimately resolved by their being mastered - Trollope's word - by their husbands. In Glencora's case, her husband is emotionally distant, but ultimately recognizes the seriousness of her emotional difficulties, and makes a great sacrifice to help resolve them; Alice's husband-to-be is simply persistent, forgiving her her mistreatment of him - but he does so from a position of self-evident superiority, which only exacerbates her rebellion, until she hits rock bottom and finally accepts his love.
Secondly, this is also the first Trollope novel I've read with a definite, unmitigated villain. The Barchester novels feature people whose actions may lead to harm, but they are always well-intentioned; here, though, we have a completely self-centered, avaricious, and violent character (whose inner evil even has a physical manifestation). It's all much cruder than I'd come to expect from Trollope.
Finally, I had heard accusations of anti-Semitism against Trollope; here, I find substantiation of those charges. It's minor and casual - less offensive than, say, Heyer's anti-Semitism in The Grand Sophy - but it's definitely there.
I will continue with the series, but at this point I'm less enamored of it than I was of the earlier books.
In the first place, this is much more a Victorian novel than the Barset stories. The two central female characters, Alice Vavasor and Lady Glencora Palliser, are both rebels against Victorian conformity (albeit in sharply different ways); as a result of their rebellions, each passes through a series of crises, ultimately resolved by their being mastered - Trollope's word - by their husbands. In Glencora's case, her husband is emotionally distant, but ultimately recognizes the seriousness of her emotional difficulties, and makes a great sacrifice to help resolve them; Alice's husband-to-be is simply persistent, forgiving her her mistreatment of him - but he does so from a position of self-evident superiority, which only exacerbates her rebellion, until she hits rock bottom and finally accepts his love.
Secondly, this is also the first Trollope novel I've read with a definite, unmitigated villain. The Barchester novels feature people whose actions may lead to harm, but they are always well-intentioned; here, though, we have a completely self-centered, avaricious, and violent character (whose inner evil even has a physical manifestation). It's all much cruder than I'd come to expect from Trollope.
Finally, I had heard accusations of anti-Semitism against Trollope; here, I find substantiation of those charges. It's minor and casual - less offensive than, say, Heyer's anti-Semitism in The Grand Sophy - but it's definitely there.
I will continue with the series, but at this point I'm less enamored of it than I was of the earlier books.
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Date: 2013-09-20 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-21 01:32 am (UTC)I'll probably watch them, but not until after I've read the books.
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Date: 2013-09-21 03:16 am (UTC)