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Trollope begins his Palliser novels., Jui 24 2002
Having almost completed chronicling the ecclesiastical affairs of Barchester in 1864, Anthony Trollope began a further series of six novels, this time depicting the English political scene of his day in general and the members of the Palliser family in particular. This one, the first of the six novels, carries a title that carries no hint of any political content whatsoever. Indeed, the "her" of the title is a perverse young lady, Alice, who refuses for almost 900 pages to marry the man whom all agree is so eminently suitable. Alice is one of at least four women that Trollope presents, all of whom struggle to answer the question, "What should a woman do with her life?" As usual with his female characters, Trollope is a sensitive, sure and unsentimental narrator. The business of the men, and the political issues they address, seem to consist in keeping solvent, gaining a seat and an office in parliament, and sniffing out any parliamentary intrigues. All of which might suggest that this is one early Victorian novel that today's feminists could pick up, read, and enjoy. I enjoy any Trollope novel immensely. No matter how slow moving, no matter how often he intrudes to comment on his characters and tell us what he does and does not know about them, every page of his novels and perhaps every sentence carries the stamp of a great novelist and language craftsman at work. Nevertheless, I must admit that "Can You Forgive Her?" has featured by my bedside for more than a year. This is not, therefore, a recommendation for something to quickly and thrillingly absorb the reader. It takes a long time to get to the novelist's final words, "But as they all ... have forgiven her, I hope that they who have followed her story to its close will not be less generous".
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