tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post4845554935451508861..comments2024-03-29T03:04:00.853-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: And now it is to be feared that every well-bred reader of these pages will lay down the book with disgust.Amateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-12325256006715419822011-01-29T21:06:55.780-06:002011-01-29T21:06:55.780-06:00Thanks - good, specific advice.Thanks - good, specific advice.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-5146040453154812702011-01-29T12:56:47.016-06:002011-01-29T12:56:47.016-06:00The thing about Trollope that I value most highly ...The thing about Trollope that I value most highly is his comprehensive sympathy. It's as if he himself were Septimus Harding. <br /><br />Thirkell lacks this utterly. I admit (not proudly) to have read them all, most more than once (lightweight alert) and they do get lazy and formulaic. There is some real charm, though, in some of the early books. Try "Summer Half." If you can't get through that you can cross her off your list for ever.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-49701709871446218012011-01-17T15:21:28.928-06:002011-01-17T15:21:28.928-06:00I have an easy solution to that problem. Remove t...I have an easy solution to that problem. Remove the two worst books from the TBR pile and replace them with <i>The Entail</i> and <i>Eugénie Grandet</i>.<br /><br />Remove the worst <i>three</i> books, and you've actually shortened the pile. Two birds with one stone.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-45124328389245345412011-01-17T03:34:48.143-06:002011-01-17T03:34:48.143-06:00Thanks for that: I'd never even heard of John ...Thanks for that: I'd never even heard of John Galt before! Interesting stuff. I don't think I'll be reading him for a while though as my TBR pile is heaving (and I've only read one Balzac as it is).CJ Garwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10257201761731385333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-73968807062363675782011-01-16T12:59:22.610-06:002011-01-16T12:59:22.610-06:00Mr. Anonymous is actually me, Mr. Amateur Reader. ...Mr. Anonymous is actually me, Mr. Amateur Reader. Wonder what happened.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-47128261542369385462011-01-16T11:31:07.471-06:002011-01-16T11:31:07.471-06:00Nope, sorry - John Galt was first! He hardly work...Nope, sorry - <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2009/11/this-is-john-galt.html" rel="nofollow">John Galt</a> was first! He hardly works it all up to the extent Trollope or Balzac does, but his novels refer to each other, mention each other's places and characters, etc. Galt's probably not actually first, either.<br /><br />I would be surprised if Eliot is too hard on Trollope's metafictions. See the "defense of realism" chapter of <i>Adam Bede</i> (Ch. 17). Eliot is hardly in the "erase all traces of the author" school.<br /><br />There's another post I didn't right - how the <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2008/09/george-eliot-party-girl.html" rel="nofollow">big party scenes</a> in <i>Adam Bede</i> comment on, parody, pilfer, etc. the long, pivotal fête champêtre in <i>Barchester Towers</i>. So the Trollope-Eliot links make sense to me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-8270192916102701982011-01-16T10:27:10.666-06:002011-01-16T10:27:10.666-06:00Interesting point that 'realism' connects ...Interesting point that 'realism' connects Flaubert to Trollope, despite the huge differences in narrative style. I think I'm right in saying Trollope was the first British novelist to create his own county (Barsetshire) for a series of books and recycle characters so the reader feels immersed in a real society. George Eliot, who as far as I can see is the best proponent of realism in Victorian English lit, probably had the same objections to Trollope's authorial voice as Henry James did but I once read that Trollope's demonstration of how to create a realistic world was a major influence on Eliot's writing of 'Middlemarch'.CJ Garwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10257201761731385333noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-37622327000323965712011-01-14T21:50:34.613-06:002011-01-14T21:50:34.613-06:00Trollope is the anti-Flaubert in so many ways. Th...Trollope is the anti-Flaubert in so many ways. Thus the Henry James objections - the Flaubertian author is supposed to expunge all traces of the author, not constantly point at them.<br /><br />But you're right, they share a modern literary sensibility - they're both opposed to the melodrama of much earlier fiction. I suppose this goes under the name of "realism." They're both realists, even if their approach is so different.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-23996981357729036782011-01-14T17:32:42.552-06:002011-01-14T17:32:42.552-06:00Absolutely! That refusal to accept black-and-whit...Absolutely! That refusal to accept black-and-white characters makes him so much more--well, <i>something</i>--than that I thought he would be. After reading Flaubert and thinking no-one seemed very likable, I read Trollope and found everyone likable, even those who were sort of creepy. Both styles seem awfully modern compared to the John Bunyan/Disney style of pure good vs pure bad. (Wonder if they've ever been linked before? Probably.)Hannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09543197858284977937noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-27349542554166119812011-01-14T16:49:29.310-06:002011-01-14T16:49:29.310-06:00Strike "archaic." Replace with "ol...Strike "archaic." Replace with "old timey."Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-72639843549884279702011-01-14T16:27:18.858-06:002011-01-14T16:27:18.858-06:00I caught the humor in the reference to yourself. ...I caught the humor in the reference to yourself. Your writing is certainly not archaic. But I have a hard time considering Jane Austen "more primitive" "antediluvian" "little evolved" or "no longer applicable" while, of course, she is "characteristic of an earlier time".<br />I also freaked out when one of my students couldn't read Dickens because it was written in "Old English".Sparkling Squirrelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10899640164757220074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-82797921821850602582011-01-14T11:04:49.639-06:002011-01-14T11:04:49.639-06:00"Archaic" can have a suggestion of "..."Archaic" can have a suggestion of "ancient" that I mean only as a joke here, but otherwise, yes, the books often do sound archaic, in the sense that they are recognizably of their time. The difference between Jane Austen and a good Austen imitator of our time should be immediately evident.<br /><br />I swear, I don't write like a 19th century critic! I like to think I write like - or aspire to write like - a more informal Ruth Franklin or William Pritchard, 21st century critics I admire.<br /><br />Although, you know, I kind of wish I wrote <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2010/05/in-pits-of-stinking-dust-and-mortal.html" rel="nofollow">like this</a>.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-48666731773125360542011-01-14T10:26:11.141-06:002011-01-14T10:26:11.141-06:00Do you think that the books you discuss sound arch...Do you think that the books you discuss sound archaic?Sparkling Squirrelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10899640164757220074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-9460241994154024002011-01-13T23:28:57.516-06:002011-01-13T23:28:57.516-06:00I wish A Sentimental Journey were three times as l...I wish <i>A Sentimental Journey</i> were three times as long! No, twice. Boy, that's a weird book.<br /><br />As for importance, oh, sure - I'll grant you <i>Clarissa</i>, and also <i>La Nouvelle Heloise</i>, <i>Candide</i>, <i>The Sorrows of Young Werther</i>, <i>The Vicar of Wakefield</i>, etc., etc. Sterne's influence (I'm lost without that word) was strong in German literature, absent everywhere else, aside from <i>Sartor Resartus</i>.<br /><br />"Best" is aesthetic, outside of literary history. I'm secretly an aestheticized Modernist, so it's easy for me to pick the best! Nabokov somewhere calls the 18th the "least artistic of centuries."<br /><br />For Trollope, though, the key novel is <i>Tom Jones</i>, not the story, but that series of introductory chapters, Fielding on How Fiction Works. <br /><br />So that's Trollope through Fielding. But you want Trollope through, what, David Hume? I have no idea how that would work. In the face of actual philosophy, I lose my phony breezy confidence. Do it! See what happens. If you've missed one point, you'll find another.<br /><br />Now, Sonia, that LOL disconcerts me, but I'll just take the compliment and say thanks. It's just the complex-compound sentences, right? I don't actually sound archaic, do I?Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-44658392926401757062011-01-13T21:07:07.279-06:002011-01-13T21:07:07.279-06:00Scott-I assume as a Sterne supporter you've re...Scott-I assume as a Sterne supporter you've read "A Sentimental Journey"? Great Yorick moments. And it's a nice antidote to Richardsonian sentimentalism.<br /><br />Amateur Reader-I haven't decided if I agree with you that Stern is the best novelist. I'm more of an 18th century/Romanticist girl than a Victorian, so it's hard for me to pick who is the best novelist of a fantastic century. But to my mind, "Clarissa" is perhaps the most important British novel of the 18th century to the extent that it shaped ("influence" is too loaded a word) everything that was written after it (including, to some extent, "Tristram Shandy"). <br /><br />This should not be read, however, as any condemnation of Sterne. On the contrary, I have a mind to re-read Trollope through the lens of 18th century skepticism. Or have I missed the point entirely?Annahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00961332983813359209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-13427562707425941062011-01-13T20:47:17.346-06:002011-01-13T20:47:17.346-06:00I like your style of writing. It really sounds lik...I like your style of writing. It really sounds like some of these old books. LOLSoniahttp://storytreasury.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-65662779722662104702011-01-13T18:41:13.448-06:002011-01-13T18:41:13.448-06:00It's true: you can always see James tiptoeing ...It's true: you can always see James tiptoeing around the edges of his own scenes, making sure the hedges and flower arrangements are obscuring just the right amount of meaning. I love old Henry, but again I'd rather drink with Nabokov.<br /><br />Sterne was brilliant. I wish "Tristram Shandy" was twice as long as it is. I miss Trim and Toby and the Widow Wadman almost every day.<br /><br />I have not read Thirkell; I've had some fabulous excerpts read to me. She's considered something of a lightweight, I think, but she had a great eye for the flaws and contradictions that make people human. From what I've heard, the war years novels are her best.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-42907245214786895892011-01-13T18:21:43.330-06:002011-01-13T18:21:43.330-06:00I would guess that James on Nabokov would not be s...I would guess that James on Nabokov would not be so different than <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2008/04/appreciationist.html" rel="nofollow">Nabokov on James</a>. But who knows. As if James was above playing around with the narrator!<br /><br />James-on-Sterne I should look up in the relevant Library of America volume. Amateur-Reader-on-Sterne: Best novelist of the 18th century.<br /><br />Now, Thirkell. I had to use the ol' internet to refresh myself. How good is her stuff? I have no idea. I have doubts, I guess, but am easily persuaded.<br /><br />For the uninitiated: Angela Thirkell adopted Trollope's Barsetshire as her literary home and wrote a long string of novels set there. Barsetshire during World War II and so on.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-82562065625553138782011-01-13T17:26:50.954-06:002011-01-13T17:26:50.954-06:00One wonders what James thought about Sterne, or wo...One wonders what James thought about Sterne, or would have thought about Nabokov's games.<br /><br />Tangential to Trollope: Have you read Thirkell?scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.com