![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON by Anthony Trollope
Aug. 6th, 2013 07:28 amIn this novel, Trollope was trying to be very sincerely progressive with the character of Carry Brattle - a fallen woman. He doesn't go as far as other Victorian authors, but he makes an effort to write with compassion.
The factual intrigues of the Marquis and Gilmore and their respective clergy were fascinating. I enjoyed the way that the Vicar's conduct in the feud and Carry Brattle's story mirrored each other as meditations on the way to reconcile religious teaching with modern life. And I was touched by the way that the Vicar and the Brattle family always make themselves worse off when they conciously choose not to follow their religion - specifically, the parts of it that I think are the good parts, the parts about doing unto others and turning the other cheek and welcoming sinners home. It's a moral, but it's convincing and laid on gently.
And there was something of a murder mystery! In a more realistic mode than Mary Elizabeth Braddon, a low-key, petty murder, and a young man one does not wish to be the guilty party. There's no grand adventures in detection, unfortunately, but rather some revealed villains who barely have personalities beyond general evil. (It turns out that Trollope's moralistic purpose would've been violated by writing them and in any way showing glamour to their existence.)
The eponymous character is a good man, but he seems ephemeral in comparison to the other main personalities of the novel, especially initially. He later gains more detailed characterisation.
Captain Walter Marrable came across as having some distinctly suspicious traits - making his entrance whilst complaining about his fate and protesting that a man should not complain in the midst of his complaining. His troubles were real, but he seemed a suspicious person. Very little from his point of view was revealed; this negative trait made him seem undesirable. His sympathetic moment came once when he told of his love for his cousin to the wealthier young woman he was expected to woo for personal advantage.
Now the traits of Squire Gilmore, Harry Gilmore, were much more interesting. He was a man whose character was devoted to being in love with Mary Lowther, and his reaction was passive and mournful when deprived of that love. He even seems to fall into a form of depression when Mary refuses his hand in marriage, making him another excursion into mental illness like HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT explored mania. He's a male character of a slightly uncommon type, and an instance that personality traits aren't limited by gender.
( Read more... )
The factual intrigues of the Marquis and Gilmore and their respective clergy were fascinating. I enjoyed the way that the Vicar's conduct in the feud and Carry Brattle's story mirrored each other as meditations on the way to reconcile religious teaching with modern life. And I was touched by the way that the Vicar and the Brattle family always make themselves worse off when they conciously choose not to follow their religion - specifically, the parts of it that I think are the good parts, the parts about doing unto others and turning the other cheek and welcoming sinners home. It's a moral, but it's convincing and laid on gently.
And there was something of a murder mystery! In a more realistic mode than Mary Elizabeth Braddon, a low-key, petty murder, and a young man one does not wish to be the guilty party. There's no grand adventures in detection, unfortunately, but rather some revealed villains who barely have personalities beyond general evil. (It turns out that Trollope's moralistic purpose would've been violated by writing them and in any way showing glamour to their existence.)
The eponymous character is a good man, but he seems ephemeral in comparison to the other main personalities of the novel, especially initially. He later gains more detailed characterisation.
Captain Walter Marrable came across as having some distinctly suspicious traits - making his entrance whilst complaining about his fate and protesting that a man should not complain in the midst of his complaining. His troubles were real, but he seemed a suspicious person. Very little from his point of view was revealed; this negative trait made him seem undesirable. His sympathetic moment came once when he told of his love for his cousin to the wealthier young woman he was expected to woo for personal advantage.
Now the traits of Squire Gilmore, Harry Gilmore, were much more interesting. He was a man whose character was devoted to being in love with Mary Lowther, and his reaction was passive and mournful when deprived of that love. He even seems to fall into a form of depression when Mary refuses his hand in marriage, making him another excursion into mental illness like HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT explored mania. He's a male character of a slightly uncommon type, and an instance that personality traits aren't limited by gender.
( Read more... )
