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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"No good is unalloyed...",
This review is from: The Warden (Paperback)
Anthony Trollope's The Warden (1855) raises interesting ethical questions concerning questions of right and wrong, and ideas of fairness. The novel is grounded in conflicting interpretations of how funds earmarked for the poor from a wealthy man's four hundred year old will should be spent. The novel focuses on Reverend Septimus Harding, the good natured Warden of Hiram Hospital, who is at the center of the controversy. The plot of Trollope's novel chronicles Mr. Harding's internal struggles with public accusations of malfeasance. As Warden of Hiram's Hospital, Mr. Harding has been charged with overseeing the welfare and spiritual well-being of twelve aged bedesmen-poor elderly men supported by John Hiram's trust. In performing his duties towards the bedesmen, Mr. Harding's efforts are universally regarded as beyond reproach; nevertheless, questions arise as to whether the amount of money Mr. Harding receives as Warden, eight hundred pounds annually, contradicts the original intention of John Hiram's 1434 will to help the poor. John Hiram, a wealthy magnate of the Barchester wool industry, had stipulated in his 1434 will that an almshouse be created to take care of twelve aged men who had worked as cardsmen in the wool trade. The will directed that funding for the almshouse come from rent from Hiram's lands to be overseen by the Anglican Church. From 1434 to the mid-nineteenth-century-the present of the novel-the amount of money raised for the rent of these lands has increased considerably. When the novel begins, most of this extra money has been given to the Warden himself. Trollope's The Warden raises this basic question: how should the extra proceeds from the rent be distributed? Throughout the novel various interests-the popular press, the church, and legal authorities-weigh in on this question, each with its own unique point of view and stake in the matter. This novel offers no easy answers and instead dwells on the ambiguity of moral issues. In chapter 15, the narrator (and by extension Trollope) hints at this perspective: "in this world no good is unalloyed, and that there is little evil that has not in it some seed of what is goodly." The Warden is definitely worthwhile read. It is not as funny as Barchester Towers, which made me laugh out loud, but it is as sophisticated and subtle. This would be an interesting novel to complement a college course on ethical issues.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thar be good readin, matey!,
This review is from: The Warden (Paperback)
If anything, this book provides ample evidence that the quality of the writing is often the far more decisive factor in one's enjoyment of literature than said literature's supposed content (_Crime and Punishment_ offers similar evidence, from the opposite side of that equation). The most inadequate book jacket of the copy I'd read promised a "deliciously barbed" tale of ecclesiastical intrigue and for some reason gave me the false impression of the presence of sixteenth century clergymen who would engage in witty repartee as well as learned theological debates. Indeed, there was some disappointment on my part at finding the setting to be rural and Victorian, theology nonexistent, and the "intrigue" to be moving at the pace of a nineteenth century tea party. And yet the author's style (though the "barbs" do not so much sting as perhaps provide a gentle tickling sensation), with its intentionally comical verbosity, its narrator's frequent self-referential digressions, its pleasantly ironic look at humanity, renders the characters and their fictionalized setting likeable completely in spite of my lack of empathy with the values and concerns of Victorian England. If any reader is familiar with the short-lived American television show _Picket Fences_ -- this book, as does the entire series to which it belongs, comprises the closest I have seen to a nineteenth century English equivalent thereof.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not your typical Victorian tale of adventure!,
By
This review is from: The Warden (Paperback)
Trollope's plot is of a plodding sort, though there is no doubtthat the protagonist's (Harding's) sufferings, not to mention theirsource, do raise some excellent ethical questions. The characters in "The Warden," of whom there are relatively few, are profiled with the most meticulous detail. However there is want of movement -- both vertical and horizontal. The characters are one-dimensional and lack vitality. The story line is devoid of that element so vital to a novel's appeal: ample change of setting or scenery -- a popular and essential trademark of writers like Dickens and Eliot.If you read this book, perhaps you should do so for its employment of Victorian linguistic technique or else use it as a springboard to discussions on ethics. As a novel exposing the true nature of English clerical life, across the board, this novel may not hold up too well, for Trollope confessed that he was no expert on such matters, and at times relied on his own estimations. Comparatively speaking, "The Warden" lags and does not fare well in the category of "engrossing."
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