Dear Readers,


I now consider this blog to be my Juvenelia. Have fun perusing the archives, and find me at my new haunt, here.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Ahh, Trollope, a Refreshing Summer Read...

Or so David Ignatius would have us believe in his WaPo column.

Although we at EBC can't say we approve of this:

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" arrived at our house last weekend, all 759 pages -- two copies to be shared by my wife and three daughters. I'm missing the party, but only because of this summer's addiction to Anthony Trollope -- luxuriating at present in the 841 pages of "Can You Forgive Her?" with a mere 3,643 pages left to complete the sextet of the Palliser novels.
Ditching JK for AT is not cool. Still, the idea of 19th century tomes as "escapist" and fun is definitely something I'm digging. And he makes a good point about the role of the Female in these epic machinations of manners:

But the women in these novels are passionate seekers, embodying bourgeois Europe's journey toward free thought and personal freedom. They refuse the easy comforts and arranged marriages of their class in pursuit of deeper values. Often, as with Austen's Elizabeth Bennet or Trollope's Alice Vavasor, they make themselves positively miserable trying to escape the worthy men who will make them happy. They are too rebellious for their own good, these fine ladies, and when they finally achieve a happy ending (for there is always a happy ending in these books), it is, to the sentimental reader, deeply satisfying. There are so few opportunities in real life to see virtue rewarded.
True.

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