Tag Archives: trollope

Phineas Finn and After Dark

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Phineas Finn: The Irish Member (Oxford World's Classics)
Phineas Finn: The Irish Member (Oxford World’s Classics)
Anthony Trollope

Phineas Finn is the second of Trollope's six parliamentary–or Pallisers–novels. It concerns the political career of a young Irish barrister, who is returned for two different boroughs, both of which are eventually abolished, learns to prize his parliamentary independence over his position in government, falls in love with 4 women, and marries. He also fights a duel and rides horses and attends the great parties and occasions of many members of the upper class, because it is a british novel. He doesn't, however, gamble, and while he amasses some debts and has difficulty about them, they are not on his own account but on those of a friend, and the debts are resolved by deus ex machina, rather than the usual device of "getting money from some lady who loves him."

Those are the ways it is similar to regular british novels of the 19th century, and those are the ways it differs from one.

It is the second in a series, so it is probably best to leave it until you have read Can You Forgive Her, although the story isn't really about the same characters (The Duke of Omnium and his clan, who are minor characters in Can You… are again minor characters in Phineas Finn) and you could probably just pick this one up. But why? If you are willing to read 600 pages of Trollope's musings on the parliaments of the 1860s, why not start at the beginning. Why are we even having this discussion. Read the first one first!

After Dark
After Dark
Haruki Murakami

After Dark is, by my count, Haruki Murakami's eleventh novel. Of all of his novels, it covers the shortest time frame (a single night), and in fact it is among the shorter of his major works. It has a lot of trademark Murakami elements: normal people, normal japan, strange parallel universe which intrudes into their affairs. Music. Prostitution. Hotels.

I read it and I enjoyed it, and if you liked any of his other novels (except Norwegian Wood), you will probably like it too. In the weeks leading up to it, I re-read Norwegian Wood, Sputnik Sweetheart, and South of the Border, West of the Sun, and after I finished it, I re-read Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Hear the Wind Sing, Pinball 1973, Wild Sheep Chase, Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and Dance Dance Dance. I re-read Kafka on the Shore at the end of last year, so I am reasonably current in my Murakami.

For fun, then, I give you my top Murakami novels in some semblance of order:

  1. A Wild Sheep Chase
  2. Dance Dance Dance
  3. Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
  4. Norwegian Wood
  5. Kafka On The Shore
  6. Sputnik Sweetheart
  7. Pinball, 1973
  8. After Dark
  9. Hear The Wind Sing
  10. South of the Border, West of the Sun
  11. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

You could read them in that order, of course, but I actually suggest reading them in the order 1,2,4,5,3,6,8,10,11,9,7. Hear The Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 are very difficult to find. I won't disclose what my copy of Pinball cost me.

Can You Forgive Her?

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Can You Forgive Her?
Can You Forgive Her?
Anthony Trollope

Can You Forgive Her?, despite its title, is the first of Trollope's six political or "Palliser" novels. It deals with the marriage prospects of a young woman of independent means, and her struggle as she wavers between two suitors–the upstanding but dull John Grey and the exciting but dangerous George Vavasor. It is also a great deal about securing political alliances and the difficulty in being returned for a seat in the House of Commons. And, hell, while I'm warning you, it runs a good 800 pages.

A lot of Victorian novels are about marrying well. A few of them are about the House of Commons. Either you find the subjects interesting or you don't, and for a long time, I stayed clear of English literature because, on average, I want to punch more than 80% of the characters in the face for not saying what they mean. If you've ever read, for instance, Thackeray's Vanity Fair, that was a face-punching extravaganza.

Most of the characters in this story, however, are sympathetic. You like Alice Vavasor (whom you are asked eponymously to forgive), and you like her cousin Kate, and you like Glencora Palliser and her husband, and you like Aunt Greenow and virtually everybody in her arc, and the only characters you don't like are the ones you are supposed to dislike.

As for the writing itself, Trollope talks to his readers and references what he wrote earlier in a way that would make John Barth proud, and in particular, I like his habit of guessing what else the characters might have done that day, as if he hadn't seen it or had no definite knowledge of it. I suppose it makes for inconsistent narration, since at times he knows what a character is thinking and at times he cannot account for their actions, but hell, it's cute. There are a couple of long passages about hunting, which may not be for everyone, but which, according to the introduction, were Trollope's favorite passages to write, so I think we can forgive him that.

The trouble, of course, is that there are five more novels in the series. I got a lot of reading in the last month, and it tool me the entire month of December to get through this. It could conceivably be another whole year of Trollope for me, even if I stop at the end of the Pallisers and ignore the other entire series of novels he wrote. I have already ordered Phineas Finn, and will probably begin it this week.

Anyway, great book, probably deserves more acclaim that it (or Trollope in general) usually gets, worth putting on your bookshelf. The end.