An extension of the idea of literary sympathy bounced off of the Phineas Finn chapters about politics.

The first Palliser novel, Can You Forgive Her?, had politics in it, just a little.  It is only minimally about politics.  A reader is not asked to be particularly interested in the political activities of the characters, in what a politician in Parliament in the 1860s actually does.  One prominent character, for example, when elected to Parliament does nothing at all.

This character runs for Parliament almost as an investment, or a gamble.  Phineas Finn, the hero of the second novel in the series, has not only ambitions but beliefs and even ideas.  The political side of the novel – remembering that 70% of the book is about the love troubles of Finn and his friends – is very much about what he does in Parliament:  how he speaks and votes, what it means to be a member of a party, and what it means to work in a ministry.  In the latter, Finn’s specialty turns out to be the financing of Canadian railroads.  Trollope does, happily, spare us too much detail about that.

But he does not spare us what we might now call the wonkery of the main issue that runs through the five years covered in the book, the issue of Reform, the issue that earns its generic name, since it is so purely concerned with the functioning of politics – who has the right to vote and how much does their vote count?  In other words, as tedious a political subject as I can imagine to a reader not especially interested in politics.

I began to wonder about those readers.  However much we might flatter or delude ourselves, we can’t be interested in everything, and political reform in mid-19th century England seems like one of many reasonable places to draw a line.  I Care; I am Interested; I am Curious; I Just Can’t Bring Myself To Care.

Personally, that last category has shrunk over time.  Classical music, dance, religious painting, abstract painting, wine, fashion – at some point, thankfully long ago for many of them, something I did care about finally got a hook into the subject I did not think I would ever care about.  Often learning the history of the field helped, but sometimes it was the luck of seeing a particular performance.

By definition, because I do not care about them, it is difficult to think of subjects that still belong in the category.  From experience, one I am sure of, from going to art fairs and museums, is jewelry.  I can look at pottery with active pleasure, billing and cooing over glazes and artistic flaws, but a case of jewelry is instantly exhausting.  I need to sit down, over there, where I can’t see the jewelry.

Some of the political chapters in Phineas Finn must be, for some readers, like cases of jewelry.

Literature has the curious effect of making us care about things we do not care about, if only – often for only – the length of the work.  I care because the heroine cares; I sympathize with her so I join in with her interests.  Or I care, temporarily, because I sympathize with the implied author and want to help him out with whatever he is trying to accomplish.

If there is a well-made novel that is actually about jewelry, with lots of descriptions of jewelry, I should try to read it, just to test this idea.  Can fiction make me care even about this?