Tag: British Classic Novels

Dr Thorne – Anthony Trollope (1858)

On By philshanklinIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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This is the third of Trollope’s “Barsetshire” sequence and even by the author’s admission, takes quite a while to get going.  There’s a lot, he informs us, of back story which we need to get to grips with before his plot can unfold.  He even apologises “for beginning a novel with two long dull chapters full of description” (that would be the modern publishing deal out of the window then), but Trollope is a master of lighter-than-you-would-expect him-to-be classic fiction and it isn’t long before his characters are winning us over.

Dr Thorne lives with his niece.  Her father died in a brawl with the brother of the woman he had got pregnant.  A story was told about the baby not surviving and the mother went off to America where she married and had a new family.  Few people know of Mary Thorne’s real background.

She is the object of affection for the Squire’s son, Frank Gresham, who needs to marry money if the family’s status is going to continue.  Mary Thorne is considered a disastrous match and that’s without most knowing the full details of her parentage.  How much should Dr Thorne reveal and to whom?

Trollope handles this kind of social comedy very well and has sparkling characters on the sidelines, including the older heiress lined up for Frank, Miss Dunstable and the drunken reprobate Sir Roger Scatcherd, the killer of Mary’s father.

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ITV recently did a good three part adaptations starring Tom Hollander as Thorne and Ian McShane as Scatcherd.  They simplified Trollope’s plot to get to the resolution in three hours but it helped keep me moving through some of the legal intricacies and Trollope’s digressions.  Thorne is viewed sneeringly by the other local doctors and politics of the time is lampooned when Scatcherd stands in an election against tailor’s son and beau of Augusta Gresham, the pompous Mr Moffat.

After a slow start this ends up certainly on a par with the two earlier book and by choosing to continue the general location and selected themes rather than the characters (other than the odd cameo performance) it would imply that there is much mileage left in his “Barsetshire novels.”

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Dr Thorne was published in 1858.  I read a free e-book version.  There are many print and digital versions available.

 

Two From Anthony Trollope – The Warden & Barchester Towers

On By philshanklinIn Uncategorized3 Comments

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Strangely, before these I had not read any Anthony Trollope before but “The Warden” (1855) proved a good introduction to the Chronicles of Barsetshire.  It was actually a much lighter read than I was anticipating and also light on the pocket as it was a free book from Kindle.  To be fair, not a lot happens and if action is your bag you might think twice about this, but I have to say that not a lot happens very nicely.  Main character, Harding, is a vicar who alongside his other work is given an honorary post as warden at an alms hospital with a very healthy stipend.  A suitor of his daughter discovers that this was not the intention of the foundation who set the charity up.  It snowballs (slightly) from here with Trollope’s tongue in cheek look at honorary posts and the privileges of the Church of England together with the ramifications of challenging those.  It’s a perfect winter’s day novel, gentle, readable and with considerable charm.

“Barchester Towers” (1857) is a longer and more thoroughly plotted novel.  I did feel, however, that some of the simple charm of the first book was missing and it is more weighed down by the tale of intrigue amongst men of the cloth.  It picks up a couple of years after “The Warden”.  Vicar’s daughter Eleanor’s happy marriage at the end of the book is no more.  She is a widow and open to the attentions of others.  There are some new characters which add life and colour to the novel.  A new bishop, Proudie, and his formidable wife arrive to take up their (and it is very much their) appointment, bringing with them a chaplain, Mr Slope.  He is a man keen on plotting his way to the top by getting the better of the traditionalists sat in his way.  The Signora Neroni is Trollope’s best female character I have encountered to date.  She is the daughter of a cleric, forced back from his Italian retreat with family in tow, including Bertie Stanhope, the good-for-nothing son and his sister, The Signora, who is unable to walk and needs to be carried everywhere soon has the men of Barchester wrapped around her finger.  The characters stir and plot, the job of the warden comes up again, the status and advancement of the local clergy is central as is the question as to whether Eleanor will remarry.

I like both books very much but for different reasons.  “The Warden” for its readable charm but “Barchester Towers” is a rich, denser work and so I think it just has the edge.  A series which is getting better is very promising.

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There are free versions of both “The Warden” and “Barchester Towers” available in e-book.  For those who want the real thing there are reasonably priced editions from Penguin, Oxford World Classics and Wordsworth amongst other publishers.

Pride And Prejudice – Jane Austen (1813) – A Female Fiction From A Male Point Of View Review

On By philshanklinIn Chick-Lit7 Comments

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And here we have the original blueprint for many a chick lit novel. Girl meets man, girl doesn’t like man, girl is not sure if man likes her, man makes his attentions known and is rebuffed, girl decides she does like man after all and has to wait for the catalyst which brings girl and man together. Along the way, family and friends both help and hinder the eventual outcome. Sounds simple, yet when carried out with the subtlety, wit and craftsmanship of Jane Austen the whole thing reaches another level.

I re-read this to see if it was my favourite Austen novel. It isn’t. That is still “Emma” (I think although I may have to re-read this soon to confirm this). There the vivacity and machinations of the main character raise it up to a slightly higher plain. I am also a great fan of the “Gothic” influenced “Northanger Abbey”, her first novel (but only published posthumously) one of the greatest expositions on the power of books (especially on an impressionable mind). I recently had another go at “Mansfield Park”, which I felt like I virtually knew off by heart when I was at college, where I read it of necessity and found it all rather solid and indigestible. I did think age and experience would mellow my opinion but it still lacks the sparkle of her best. I think it’s because of Fanny Price, probably literature’s most passive character and the less than captivating love interest, Edward. “Persuasion” and “Sense And Sensibility” were read too long ago for me to carry out any comparison but I think they might not challenge the big three of which “Pride & Prejudice” is one.

It’s hard not to recall the BBC series when reading this and picturing Colin Firth as Darcy (I know quite a few of my readers would like to now picture Colin Firth) and Alison Steadman superb as the silly Mrs Bennet but I did feel that the Darcy in the novel does not have quite the presence that later visual interpretations have given him. (Controversial point) but Mrs Bennet is just as silly, daughter Elizabeth just as likeable and the sense of propriety just as important.

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This novel probably has the greatest range of memorable characters, the pompous Mr Collins, who first makes a play for Elizabeth; her too laid-back father; the scheming Miss Bingley; the other sisters, especially the too ready to grow up youngest, Lydia and the pretty ghastly Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Unlike the best of Dickens or the Brontes, I do not find myself hanging onto every word of the novel and my concentration does have the tendency to dip in and out, but when it’s good it is very good indeed. From Lydia’s disappearance onwards it does become more consistently engaging.  For me this is a book I am very happy to have sitting on my shelves, until the next time I decide to give it another go, but it just misses out on being an all-time favourite.

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