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Anthony Trollope being just about the perfect author to read in a time like this, and "The Way We Live Now" being one of the dwindling number of Trollope novels I've not yet read, I've started reading it...and therefore, about 14% of the way in, stumbled upon the following distinctly un-Trollopean snippet of dialogue;
"He is a gentleman then ( Read more... )
"He is a gentleman then ( Read more... )
But if you're a Trollope virgin, I think I'd start with Barchester Towers. I am totally on board with the Amazon reviewer who said something like "Nothing could have prepared me to believe that I would be transfixed by a very long novel about who was going to get which of a whole bunch of positions in the hierarchy of the Churc of England that I have never heard of."
That might be a controversial recommendation, because Barchester Towers is Number 2 in the 6-book Chronicles of Barset series. But I'd still start with it, because it's so much better than The Warden (#1), and especially because I think The Warden sort of spoils Barchester Towers by making some of the characters less appealing in ways that are hard to get out of your mind. As far as plot goes, you're not missing anything important by starting at #2. The next three in the series are also at least as good as Barchester Towers and roughly as long (and the final one is almost as good and even longer) so if you like one of them, there's a huge payoff in terms of all the reading you've got in front of you, followed by the other 60 or so incredibly long novels that Trollope also wrote. (When he finished a novel, he'd immediately start on the next one without getting up from his desk.)
I once set out to read everything Trollope had ever written (excluding the ones I'd already read) in chronological order, and discovered that the early Irish novels are a bit of slog. But this is approximately the fifteenth one I've read and except for those early ones, I recommend them all, and this one more than most.
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