Barchester Towers review
Mar. 2nd, 2010 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI am very glad I decided to persevere with Trollope's Barchester series, as Barchester Towers is a truly wonderful book. Trollope really comes into his own in terms of narrative, and presents a delightful tale of the comings and goings, disputes and ambitions of the residents of Barchester and its environs. To a certain extent, very little actual happens in the plot, but the characterisation and exploration of motivations and reactions is absolute genius, making getting to know both heroes and villains (and several degrees of people in between) really engaging and highly enjoyable.
There are two particular passages I really loved and I'm going to quote them, because they are so brilliant.
The first occurs directly after a suggestion is made that something untoward may happen to the heroine later on in the book:
"But let the gentle-hearted reader be under no apprehension whatsoever. It is not destined that [cut to avoid spoilers]... And here perhaps it may be allowed to the novelist to explain his views on a very important point in the art of telling tales. He ventures to reprobate that system which goes so far to violate all proper confidence between the author and his readers, by maintaining nearly to the end of the third volume a mystery as to the fate of their favourite personage.... ....Is there not a species of deceit in this to which the honesty of the present age should lend no countenance?...
...take the last chapter if you please - learn from its pages all the results of our troubled story, and the story shall have lost none of its interest, if indeed there be any interest in it to lose...
...Our doctrine is, that the author and the reader should move along together in full confidence with each other. Let the personages of the drama undergo ever so complete a comedy of errors among themselves, but let the spectator never mistake... ...otherwise he is one of the dupes, and the part of a dupe is never dignified."
Wonderful prose, expressing a wonderful sentiment - and indeed practised within the book, as I was never tempted to rush ahead to find out what happened next, but allowed to enjoy the narrative in all its gradually unfolding splendour, free from suspense and anxiety. I really like that in a book.
The second passage occurs when the heroine is forced to endure the advances of a man she despises:
"She sprang from him as she would have jumped from an adder, but she did not spring far; not indeed beyond arm's length; and then, quick as thought, she raised her little hand and dealt him a box on the ear with such right good will, that it sounded among the trees like a miniature thunderclap.
And now it is to be feared that every well-bred reader of these pages will lay down the book with disgust, feeling that after all the heroine is unworthy of sympathy."
I fear I cannot be well-bred, because actually I was cheering! I think it's clear that Trollope secretly was too when he wrote this, and I love him for it. I also can't help but wonder what the consequences would have been in Pride & Prejudice, had Lizzie acted in the same way the first time Darcy proposed to her...
Anyway, fabulous book, loved every page - are there more???
There are two particular passages I really loved and I'm going to quote them, because they are so brilliant.
The first occurs directly after a suggestion is made that something untoward may happen to the heroine later on in the book:
"But let the gentle-hearted reader be under no apprehension whatsoever. It is not destined that [cut to avoid spoilers]... And here perhaps it may be allowed to the novelist to explain his views on a very important point in the art of telling tales. He ventures to reprobate that system which goes so far to violate all proper confidence between the author and his readers, by maintaining nearly to the end of the third volume a mystery as to the fate of their favourite personage.... ....Is there not a species of deceit in this to which the honesty of the present age should lend no countenance?...
...take the last chapter if you please - learn from its pages all the results of our troubled story, and the story shall have lost none of its interest, if indeed there be any interest in it to lose...
...Our doctrine is, that the author and the reader should move along together in full confidence with each other. Let the personages of the drama undergo ever so complete a comedy of errors among themselves, but let the spectator never mistake... ...otherwise he is one of the dupes, and the part of a dupe is never dignified."
Wonderful prose, expressing a wonderful sentiment - and indeed practised within the book, as I was never tempted to rush ahead to find out what happened next, but allowed to enjoy the narrative in all its gradually unfolding splendour, free from suspense and anxiety. I really like that in a book.
The second passage occurs when the heroine is forced to endure the advances of a man she despises:
"She sprang from him as she would have jumped from an adder, but she did not spring far; not indeed beyond arm's length; and then, quick as thought, she raised her little hand and dealt him a box on the ear with such right good will, that it sounded among the trees like a miniature thunderclap.
And now it is to be feared that every well-bred reader of these pages will lay down the book with disgust, feeling that after all the heroine is unworthy of sympathy."
I fear I cannot be well-bred, because actually I was cheering! I think it's clear that Trollope secretly was too when he wrote this, and I love him for it. I also can't help but wonder what the consequences would have been in Pride & Prejudice, had Lizzie acted in the same way the first time Darcy proposed to her...
Anyway, fabulous book, loved every page - are there more???
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Date: 2010-03-02 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-03 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-02 10:58 pm (UTC)Btw, there's a very old BBC adaptation with Alan Rickman as Slope: I don't know if the series has stood the test of time, but I seem to remember thinking he was brilliantly cast.
-Lx
no subject
Date: 2010-03-03 12:30 pm (UTC)And, yes, the 5 x Good heavens is very cool, too.
Thanks for the recommendation - though I think it's taken me 13 years to get round to following up on it!! I should listen to you more often... :o)