Some thoughts on Trollope

The Inn is rather fond of Anthony Trollope.  The top two shelves are all by Trollope or about Trollope.  Hence the following.

Anthony Trollope, "the most adult of English novelists":

Trollope is perhaps that most adult of English novelists; he speaks better to us when we have “put away childish things.” In part, that’s because Barchester is obsessed with the persistent, corrosive theme of money: Who’s got it and who hasn’t, whether it’s “old” or “new,” deserved or undeserved, and the precarious existence and temptations of those who do not have enough. “Of all novelists in any country,” the poet W.H. Auden observed, “Trollope best understands the role of money.” 

Trollope is lethal in showing us the resulting contest between decency and pettiness in human nature. Pridefulness, status anxiety, the willingness to think the best or worst of your neighbor, seething jealousies and the vaulted ambition of mediocrities: all these elements of the human condition are brilliantly laid out for us. And while so many good men are suffocated by doubt and paralyzed about taking action, it is often the women characters to whom Trollope gives agency. In both novels it is not the Warden but his daughter, Eleanor Harding, whose strength of character forces events into a different, more satisfactory pattern.

More here.

Found Again

If you happen to frequent the Anthony Trollope webpage, you know that you can subscribe to the Anthony Trollope quote of the week.  Not usually riotously funny, if that's what you were hoping for.  But usually insightful enough into human nature -- or at least my human nature -- as to give a start of recognition.

In clearing out the email in-box, I found this one from two or three weeks ago.

"He did not find in the contemplation of his grievance all that solace which a grievance usually gives."
          -The Small House at Allington

Indeed.

And then in looking up the webpage citation -- for what's a blog post without a citation? -- there was this:

"In ordinary life events are so unfrequent, and when they do arrive they give such a flavour of salt to hours which are generally tedious, that sudden misfortunes  come as godsends, almost even when they happen to ourselves."
          -Marion Fay

Almost.

Anthony Trollope's webpage
The Trollope Society