Book Review: The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

The Last Chronicle of Barset , last and longest of the Barsetshire Chronicles, is tied together by the central mystery of whether or not Josiah Crawley, curate of Hogglestock, stole a check. One way or another, all of the characters from previous novels become involved in the affair. It also picks up the trailing threads left from The Small House at Allington, and introduces another romance, this one between Grace Crawley and Henry Grantly, son of Archdeacon Grantly (first seen in The Warden).

This proved the hardest of the Barsetshire Chronicles to read because it is a little too brilliant. Reading a novel with Josiah Crawley at the center means spending a good portion of the book inside the mind of someone who is severely depressed. It's a sympathetic view, showing all of the external circumstances that led to Crawley's depression, but it's also a merciless look at all the ways he makes it worse for himself and harder for his family. It is exhausting spending time in his head.

As with prior novels, this is also apolitical issue, since one of the big issues at the time Trollope wrote was church reform, including the question of the wildly uneven pay scale for clergy, and Trollope puts a human face on some of the abstractions; Crawley works at least as hard as Dr. Grantly and receives a fraction of his salary. As with The Warden, Trollope avoids oversimplifying or coming down too definitely on any given side to the issue. Crawly may be underpaid, but it is not Dr. Grantly's fault, and it is hard to condemn him for enjoying the comforts of his life or for arranging for his family to enjoy them.

I admit that I sighed a bit over the Grace-Henry romance. Here was yet another good girl being rejected by the man's parents on the grounds that she wasn't of a sufficiently high class and being ultimately accepted in part because she is a "good" girl who does not push herself forward. The saving grace here, as in prior novels, is the characters. While this is, at heart, the same romance plot used in prior novels, the people involved are very different, making it seem nearly new.

The issue of class, contentious since Dr. Thorne is partially resolved at the end of the novel: A "gentleman" is someone who is educated and has the right set of manners, regardless of income and, possibly, even of background. Here, as elsewhere, however, Trollope does not show this as the easy answer: It works for the characters at the end, but there's also no doubting that money helps, nor that Lord Dumbello will always receive more deference from the world at large than Josiah Crawley.

The series has been quite a ride. I think only The Warden and Barsetshire Towers are going to go on my reread list, but I am very glad to have read the whole. Trollope is one of the most brilliant creators of character and scene it has been my pleasure to encounter.

I'm now wondering if I have the stamina to tackle the Palliser novels.

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(1)I started my grand read-and-review of the Barsetshire Chronicles over at The Geek Girl Project. My review of The Warden is up there, as is my review of Barchester Towers. My reviews of Dr. Thorne, Framley Parsonage, and The Small House at Allington were on this blog. It's been fun!

Book Review: A Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope

The Small House at Allington did much to restore my faith in Trollope, which I admit was wavering a bit after Doctor Thorne and not quite steady even after Framley Parsonage. It is a brilliant book, though like most brilliant things, not always entirely comfortable.

It has the largest cast of characters yet, including a number of memorable characters. As Trollope writes of the hero, "that part in the drama will be cut up, as it were, into fragments. Whatever of the magnificent may be produced will be diluted and apportioned out in very moderate quantities among two or more, probably among three or four, young gentlemen—to none of whom will be vouchsafed the privilege of much heroic action." All the major characters from previous books make at least a cameo appearance, and then there are the central characters of the Dale family, their close friends, and the inhabitants of a boarding house in London. Geographically, it is also the most ambitious of the series so far, covering several country houses of varying degrees of wealth plus the aforementioned London boardinghouse, a city office, and assorted smaller places.

In keeping with the ambitious goal, there are multiple plots. There are love stories (Barsetshire wouldn't be the same without them), but also promotions, family reconciliations and separations, and the advancement of several series-long subplots. The characters are given a dept they haven't had since Barchester Towers, even a greater depth, in fact. There are more and less likeable characters, characters of greater and lesser heroism or villainy, but everyone has a multitude of motivations and desires. Even the De Courcy family, consigned to the role of generic aristocratic villains for the last two books, at long last gains some much-needed shading.

The narrator is in fine flow here, commenting on this "fraction of a hero" or "dear Lily Dale—for my reader must know that she is to be very dear, and that my story will be nothing to him if he do not love Lily Dale," and moralizing where appropriate, usually in a wry, spiky fashion that keeps him as one of my favorite characters.

For all of that, I will admit to some small sadness: As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a brilliant book and an engrossing read. I am glad I read it, but... I miss the coziness of The Warden. Ah well. I am human and therefore contrary. I still highly recommend the book; in most ways, it's the best of the series so far.

5/5

A note on editions: The library copy was without notes (Yes, I generally pick my editions based on what the library has). I missed them, even though the book was entirely readable without them, so if you're buying or have a choice, I'd suggest either the Penguin or the Oxford World's Classic edition, either of which is likely to have a good introductory essay and notes. For those of you with ereaders, Project Gutenberg has multiple formats.. Librivox also has audio versions available for download.

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(1) I started my grand read-and-review of the Barsetshire Chronicles over at The Geek Girl Project. My review of The Warden is up there, as is my review of Barchester Towers. My reviews of Dr. Thorne and Framley Parsonage were on this blog.

Book Review: Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope

It is difficult to review Framley Parsonage without also discussing Doctor Thorne. The romantic half of the novel seemed to me a revision of the romantic plot of Doctor Thorne, though a far superior model.

As with Doctor Thorne, Trollope leaves the confines of Barchester to look at the countryside. Here, too, he deals more with class issues and with the adjustments the aristocracy is slowly making to the many changes in the nineteenth century. He is moderately chatty, though not as much as in Barchester Towers.

While the romance is something of a retread, the motivations and actions of the characters are more comprehensible and nuanced. Lord Lufton and Lucy meet, become friends, and gradually realize how highly they value this friendship, making it much less necessary to insist on his status as a hero. Also, where the Lady Arabella was largely a one-dimensional nasty, making Mary's deference to her increasingly frustrating, Lady Lufton is someone whose good opinion is worth something. She may be overly conscious of her noble blood, but she's also kind, generous, and loving. Thus Lucy's hesitations make sense, even to a twenty-first century reader. All of the other characters benefit from greater depth and nuance in their characters, and there is plenty of interplay beyond and around the twinned main plots to keep things moving , if not at a racing speed (this is a Victorian novel we're talking about), at something approaching a good, brisk walking pace with plenty of stops to enjoy the scenery and plenty of scenery worth enjoying.

The other half of the main plot, the financial and moral difficulties of Mark Robarts, is more difficult to read, not because Mark was unlikeable or unrealized, but because in some ways he is too well realized. His errors and embarrassments often had me wincing on his behalf, and I find it easier, as a reader, to share someone's sorrow than their embarrassment.

All in all, Framley Parsonage was a worthwhile read. So far, I've enjoyed Trollpe's town novels more than his country ones, but all the same, I'm glad I'm reading the series. I'm getting more and more inclined to try the Palliser novels some day.

A note on editions: I read the paperback Penguin Edition. It was well bound and easy to hold and came with a decent supply of endnotes. They are well-organized and easy to locate, but found myself wishing they were more detailed and frequent. For example, I could follow the progress of the bills Robarts signs well enough for the purposes of the plot, but I would still have liked a fuller explanation of the money-lending, interest, and bill selling going on behind the scenes.

For those of you with ereaders, Project Gutenberg has several formats (almost certainly without notes). Librivox has a free audio version read by a number of readers.

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(1)I started my grand read-and-review of the Barsetshire Chronicles over at The Geek Girl Project. My review of The Warden  is up there, as is my review of Barchester Towers. My review of Dr. Thorne was on this blog, last week. The rest of the series will be here, at one a week until the end!

Book Review: Dr. Thorne by Anthony Trollope

Dr. Thorne is about one-third too long. The joint story of Doctor Thorne and his niece, Mary Thorne, it gets off to a lively start with an engaging heroine, hits the trials and tribulations of her love life, and then stalls.

Mary Thorne is introduced at the top of the world, teasing her best friend, enjoying wordplay, and being as likeable a heroine as anyone could wish. Her difficulties start when she falls in love with wealthy heir to Gresham, Frank, and, worse, he falls in love with her, causing his aristocratic mother to panic and forbid her to come near the house any more. Matters only get worse when rumors spread that she is illegitimate (as she in fact is).

At first, it was easy to sympathize with her and with her guardian, her uncle Doctor Thorne. It was also not too hard to feel the difficulties class and the need for money posed, and to understand why Mary herself might think marriage to Frank unwise. There are also, as with all the Barsetshire books, plenty of subplots to follow: There's Frank's maturing, Dr. Thorne's work to establish his practice, Miss Dunstable's trials as a rich woman in a fashionable, cash-poor world, and the difficulties of a stone mason who has been ennobled and cannot now be at ease with anyone. So, for two-thirds of the book, I was a happy reader.

Then Frank's mother, the Lady Arabella, who is little more than a cardboard caricature of the aristocratic woman, managed another way to exclude Mary, Frank proposed again, Mary refused again, and the cycle repeated. Dr. Thorne, too, although presented as an admirable man, has a couple of moments of true stiff-necked stubbornness that come close to costing Mary both happiness and a chance of an income after he dies.

When finally reached, the ending proved unsatisfactory, though given the complexity of the problems Trollope is presenting, an entirely satisfactory ending is out of the question.

The book is worth reading, or at least, two-thirds worth reading, particularly if you want to read the entire Barsetshire series, but it's not going to make it onto the reread list alongside The Warden and Barchseter Towers.

A note on editions: I alternated between the Librivox audio book and a library-bound hardback that had no endnotes, and, while the book is comprehensible without, I did miss them. For those with ereaders, Project Gutenberg has the book (doubtless without notes), available in several editions.. Librivox has a free audio version,.

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(1) For a different (and still Victorian) look at the consequences of illegitimacy, and another complicated balancing act between a heroine who is active and yet still "ladylike" enough to remain likeable, see Collins' No Name. I like Magdalen rather better than Mary, but it's a similar struggle. Or, if you don't mind an heroine with even more domestic virtues, there's Dickens' Bleak House

(2) I started my grand read-and-review of the Barsetshire Chronicles over at The Geek Girl Project. My review of The Warden is up there, as is my review of Barchester Towers. The rest of the series will be here, at one a week until the end!