Monday, April 10, 2017

Misery was being prepared for someone - Trollope, The Duke's Children, and the last bit of the horse

The Duke’s Children (1880) ends Anthony Trollope’s Palliser series, with the story shifting from Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium and in the previous novel an unhappy Prime Minister of England, to his children, particularly his eldest son.  Trollope’s series of novels do not work the way such creatures work today – Palliser is only a minor character in several of the novels in the series that bears his name – but he legitimately aged, developed, regressed – changed, is what I am trying to say since his introduction in a synergistic subplot of The Small House at Allington back in 1864.

This, to me, is close to the whole point of writing novels as a series, as an extended serial.  It allows the fictional passage of time to line up with the actual passage of time, resulting in some powerful effects, which I have tossed aside by reading the books at a rate of two per year.

Bluntly, the last two books, The Prime Minister and this one, are on the weaker side, but good enough that I don’t care.  The problems the Duke and his children face recapitulate a number of the most important themes of the series, the fox hunting scenes do not go on all that long, the new plotline about horse racing – well here’s what Trollope says about that:

How that race was run… the present writer having no aptitude in that way, cannot describe.  (Ch. 17)

Some of Trollope’s fox hunts have a sportscaster quality – heaven help me, he is going to call the entire match – so even though several of the greatest scenes in the 19th century novel are horse racing scenes, I did not quite trust Trollope on this matter.  But everything’s fine.  It’s just a way to get rich characters to do a lot of idiotic gambling, and it keeps the “con man” theme of the series going, in the fine minor character Major Tifto.

The minor characters are at their usual level, like the equally fine Miss Cassewary:

‘That's d---- nonsense,’ said the Earl.  Miss Cassewary gave a start, – not, we may presume, because she was shocked, for she could not be much shocked, having heard the same word from the same lips very often; but she thought it right always to enter a protest.  (Ch. 9)

This chapter is entitled “’In media res,’” and it includes the only extended metafictional joke in the book, another old theme brought back for a last run, as Trollope tells his reader that he is going to start in the middle of a plot (“but only for a branch of my story”), putting the cart before the horse, the horse being all of the exposition, but warns that however much he tries to hide it the horse will still be there.  Then throughout the chapter he points out whenever the characters discuss their backgrounds or whatnot by saying things like “This is another bit of the horse.”

Two lines that summarize much of the emotional content of the novel:

Mary, who watched it all, was sure that misery was being prepared for someone.  (Ch. 59)

‘Young ladies generally have a bad time of it.’  (Ch. 53)

As in George Meredith’s The Egoist from just a year before – I wonder if Trollope knew it – five characters need to be arranged into couples; thus the misery, thus the bad time.  No, not for everyone.

Trollope would die two years later, and this novel would have provided a natural and satisfying close to his career, but he published at least four more novels in the last two years of his life, so forget that idea.

32 comments:

  1. I adore The Duke's Children, such a contrast to The Prime Minister. Those novels most concerned with the public sphere tend to be gloomier, whereas those such as The Duke's Children that are more about the private and social lives of characters are usually lighter and more amusing. Certainly Trollope's later novels can't be lumped together as universally 'darker', as they often are. I'd like to get hold of the longer version of The Duke's Children, which Trollope had to cut by about a quarter for publication. My favourite late Trollope? Ayala's Angel. By the way, I'm a bit of fan of the fox-hunting scenes.

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  2. The contrast may well be part of why I enjoyed the "conclusion" so much - both novels. It is impressive to see such different moods and themes addressed with the same core of characters.

    I was wondering about the longer Duke's Children, too. I would not have guessed from the text that there had been such a severe edit job. It feels complete.

    I have mixed feelings about the fox hunting scenes. I admire their attention to detail and skillful action. The early long, complex one in Orley Farm is a masterpiece, beginning to end. But they risk turning into - pardon the arcane reference - Strat-o-matic baseball, an indulgence of Trollope's hobby. The same problems that afflict sporting fiction more generally apply.

    Thanks for the recommendation of Ayala's Angel. With so many Trollope novels, recommendations are always welcome.

    Your Brookner blog is fascinating. "This is, of course, what we really want" - yessss!

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  3. Your comments are appreciated. I read almost all of Trollope some time ago. I've really got only the early novels to go now, and they don't much appeal. I find myself in this position with Thackeray, Dickens, Eliot and James too. Currently reading Romola. An historical novel very much modelled on Scott; once you realise that, it's OK and has lovely moments. I shall follow your blog with enthusiasm.

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  4. Everybody - almost everybody, not James, I guess - had to write their Scott novel. It was a phenomenon.

    Rohan Maitzen wrote a great appreciation of Romola a while back. Everything I know about the book comes from that piece.

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  5. Maybe The Princess Casamassima was James' version of a Scott novel? Aside from the period setting, it's got a lot of the hallmarks.

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  6. Everyone back then was suffused with Scott, dripping with Scott.

    The most important novelists of the 19th century, during the 19th century, were Scott and Goethe. This is what keeps people who love novels from studying literary history. "You mean I have to read" - yes, that is exactly what I mean.

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  7. This comment thread is particularly enlightening and entertaining. Hope to read the Palliser books one day (along with, you know, everything else).

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  8. Always read the comments, as I always say.

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  9. I'm not going to read the post or the comments, yet, because my wife and I haven't gotten to the novel yet and I want to avoid spoilers, but I wanted to say that I'm very much looking forward to coming back to it when circumstances permit!

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  10. It's just a cheerful, breezy, "ain't this fun" kind of post. It ought to match your mood when you return to it.

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  11. Re: your comment about "important" novelists:

    Dickens.

    Dickens.

    Dickens.

    All (except Scott) fall before the Inimitable, whose Scott novel is, I suppose, Barnaby Rudge, although one could argue that it owes as much to Smollett.

    (Hardy would turn over in his grave if he could but, being cremated and in two places, would have a tough time).

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  12. The Tale of Two Cities, too. By "Scott novel," I just mean "historical novel." Not getting too fancy here.

    By the end of the 19th century, Scott was already fading, and fast. I suppose Dickens was thought of as more important then. He certainly is more important now, and has been for a long time. But not for most of the 19th century.

    The Scott boom was a curious international phenomenon.

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  13. Scott has his merits still. I dutifully read him at uni, but have since read him for pleasure. Love Ivanhoe and Kenilworth. His approach to the genre is no more or less authentic than modern novelists' efforts. One day Hilary Mantel will seem as dated.

    Prince Albert was reading Scott's Peveril of the Peak when he died. Queen Victoria later had a black border inscribed on to the page he'd reached.

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  14. One day Hilary Mantel will seem as dated.

    If you mean that in a millennium or two literary culture will have changed to the point that all writers before, say, the 24th century will seem much of a muchness, yes, I suppose so. If you are in any way implying that the amiable Scott and the brilliant Mantel are on the same plane aesthetically, I take strong exception.

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  15. I hope nothing here is taken as anti-Scott. I have been talking up Scott since the beginning of Wuthering Expectations. This 2010 post shows that up above I am just repeating myself.

    How sad that none of my ideas have changed in seven years. After reading 700 more books, have I learned nothing?

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  16. Mantel is a much superior stylist to Scott (I adored A Place of Greater Safety), but she has the advantage of working in a genre that's already been established--Scott deserves credit as a genius for his innovation in subject matter.

    Romola is quite good, actually. I didn't find the research obtrusive (except a bit the later Savonarola parts) and it has some brilliant moments and a husband as repulsive (in a different way) as Grandcourt.

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  17. Waverley was full of enormous conceptual innovations. that were extremely easy to detach from Scott's work itself. Thus, the Scott boom. Thus, the novel as people mostly still write it.

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  18. You wondered about the complete edition. Here is your chance:

    https://www.amazon.com/Dukes-Children-Complete-Everymans-Library/dp/1101907819/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492650680&sr=8-1&keywords=9781101907818

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  19. "wonder" means "wish I could read someone else's piece."

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  20. Ah. I am still not quite fluent in Amateur Tom.

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  21. I very much agree with Maya on Romola. Its forbidding reputation is justified in places, but the human story is very powerful. I like to read great authors' supposed turkeys. I loved Barnaby Rudge, another 'historical'. Maybe I'll brave Trollope's La Vendee one of these days.

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  22. The "Gordon Riots" section of Barnaby Rudge is outstanding, and that's a big chunk of the novel. The romance and mystery sections are terribly thin, but eh. Plus there's Grip the raven. Easily worth reading.

    I've wondered how the Trollope novel relates to Balzac's Les Chouans (1829). In subject, it seems like a cousin. That's another Scott-ish historical novel that is, like the Dickens book, a mess, but excellent in its best scenes.

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  23. You're braver than I am--I couldn't get past chapter 1 of La Vendee, and I'll read most anything with the French Revolution in it.

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  24. I've sometimes been tempted by Thackeray's The Virginians, a sort of sequel to Esmond. Anthony Powell in his diaries speaks of trying the novel, and breaking down after fifty pages.

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  25. Hugo's Ninety-Three is definitely an underrated Scott-style novel, set in Brittany like Les Chouans. I should read Les Chouans, as I'm sure there's some influence.

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  26. Ninety-Three is a lot more tempting than The Virginians, although I was so impressed by Henry Esmond.

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  27. As I learned when I finished the interminable "The Newcomes," you CAN have too much Thackeray.

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  28. I suppose all of these writers, except for Dickens and let's say Eliot, are now in the category, whatever great writing they have all done, of "you can have too much." Hugo's very essence is an experiment in "too much."

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  29. Now that I've read virtually all of Hardy (except The Dynasts and some of the other poems) and Melville (except the minor poetry), I can say that I've never read a word of either of these two that wasn't at least interestingly infuriating (The Hand of Ethelberta and Clarel come to mind).

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  30. I loved Clarel. That was a good readalong. I'll have to try it again someday.

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