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blueinkedfrost) wrote2013-08-27 10:09 pm
blueinkedfrost) wrote2013-08-27 10:09 pm
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THE WAY WE LIVE NOW by Anthony Trollope
Amazing how the commercial satire is still tremendously relevant.
When Melmotte sat down Fisker made his speech, and it was fluent, fast, and florid. Without giving it word for word, which would be tedious, I could not adequately set before the reader's eye the speaker's pleasing picture of world-wide commercial love and harmony which was to be produced by a railway from Salt Lake City to Vera Cruz, nor explain the extent of gratitude from the world at large which might be claimed by, and would finally be accorded to, the great firms of Melmotte & Co. of London, and Fisker, Montague, and Montague of San Francisco. Mr. Fisker's arms were waved gracefully about. His head was turned now this way and now that, but never towards his plate. It was very well done. But there was more faith in one ponderous word from Mr. Melmotte's mouth than in all the American's oratory.
There was not one of them then present who had not after some fashion been given to understand that his fortune was to be made, not by the construction of the railway, but by the floating of the railway shares. They had all whispered to each other their convictions on this head. Even Montague did not beguile himself into an idea that he was really a director in a company to be employed in the making and working of a railway. People out of doors were to be advertised into buying shares, and they who were so to say indoors were to have the privilege of manufacturing the shares thus to be sold. That was to be their work, and they all knew it. But now, as there were eight of them collected together, they talked of humanity at large and of the coming harmony of nations.
If only Trollope's hard-hitting examination of the commercial deceit of his time was regarded as quaint a historical artefact today as the hats, moustaches, and crinolines!
Lady Carbury's adventures in the world of literary mediocrity have something of a tang of first-hand knowledge about them. Trollope writes pragmatically about literary effort, being a practical man himself (and producing very fine books such as this one). It's very difficult for a writer to write about a character who can write better than themselves, just as it's next to impossible for writers to write about characters who are cleverer than the writer. Trollope settles for choosing to write about a mediocre writer who's a reasonably interesting character.
This book was written after NINA BALATKA, which has a Jewish man as a sympathetic main characte. In this one, the character of Brehgert is one of the few decent people in the novel. He's stereotypically described and very much a secondary character, but he comes off well compared to most of the Christian characters--he's one of few in the novel who are fundamentally honest and decent, in spite of his exterior as an unhandsome fifty-one-year-old man. Anti-Semitism is depicted as an unpleasant reality of society.
The book presents women's limited choices of the era: to marry or not to marry, to sink or swim almost entirely at the choices of one's male relatives. Lady Carbury tries to support her worthless son Sir Felix and is harmed by him. Her daughter Henrietta suffers from her brother and can only escape through marriage--but to marry a peniless man would likely be even worse. The Longestaffe girls are unpleasant, selfish, shallow, anti-Semitic characters, but their desperation to be married is understandable in their situation.
Considering that this is Trollope's lengthiest novel, this is definitely another Trollope with a delightfully large number of interesting characters and interweaving subplots. The large number of extremely unscrupulous characters is wearying, but some of the side characters lift the novel, such as the two good men of different faiths and worldy roles, the wealthy Church of England bishop Yeld and the poor Catholic priest John Barham. Trollope is a writer with the ability to make virtue interesting and vice tedious - his SIR HARRY is a good example of a novel with a dreadfully boring villain of the piece.
(But Trollope's not always without power to give some grandeur to his pathetic villains - bankrupt Burgo Fitzgerald giving away the last contents of his wallet to a girl in need is a very memorable moment.)
Sir Felix Carbury is a depiction of a sociopath, not that the word was used in that era - a man who's described as incapable of caring for anyone, shallow and superficial and completely selfish, beyond all empathy. A convincing depiction of that personality type. But it's significant that Melmotte, who's even worse, gets no such description of his internal processes. He's a realistic character--there are financiers of his stripe today. Thinking of Bernard Madoff, Melmotte's not just plausible but ridiculously prescient. He's believable without the writer needing to sink into the sordid mire of his nature.
And thinking again of the real-life Melmottes, I'm very sorry to say that Trollope's own account of this novel as an exaggerated satire in his Autobiography was overly optimistic. However, he was justly pleased with this work, except for the weaker love triangle involving Hetta Carbury and her shallow suitor Paul Montague.
Marie Melmotte's character development makes her very interesting as a female protagonist--and she's another one of the few characters in the novel who's nice and decent. She's loving, ingenious, and blossoms out into cleverness and courage in the course of the story. Her eventual love interest needed *much* more character development to make him equal to Marie; it would have been nicer if she'd wed an honest, interesting man who respected her and helped her continue her character development.
Winifrid Hurtle's a well-written character of a more morally ambiguous stamp. Trollope's talents as a writer can't help making her sympathetic to the reader by understanding her situation and giving her complexities. It's difficult to believe in a character as a true villain if they're kicked in the teeth by life on a regular basis (or could be so at a moment's notice), and Mrs Hurtle's actions in quest of a husband are understandable. There are some good female friendships and women standing up for each other in this novel; Winifrid Hurtle's relationship with her landlady and her efforts to help Ruby Ruggles are two examples of this, as well as Marie and Hetta Carbury's interactions.
Dolly Longestaffe is an excellent, though minor, character. Trollope singled him out rather proudly in his Autobiography, and I think Dolly is an enjoyable character. Like the rest of his family, he's anti-Semitic, but he is otherwise well-intentioned, irresponsible, and through the novel actually has some character growth into better habits through the help of others. Lord Nidderdale also has an interesting gentlemanly streak that makes him likeable despite his indolence.
Religion in this novel is an interesting thread--more interesting than it seems at first glance. The charcters Bishop Yeld and Father Barham are the characters who are explicitly religious, and at first they seem to have little to do with the main threads of the story. Yeld exists to be a minor character who is well-off, worldly, pragmatic, and good; Barham exists as a contrast, and to serve as a negative example against proselytising and to show Melmotte's increasing boorishness. Both roles seem to contribute minimally to the story.
Melmotte is ambiguously Jewish. His wife has Jewish features and is described in gossip as a 'Bohemian Jewess'; his daughter Marie (his wife's stepdaughter) was told to regard herself as Jewish for some years in her childhood, before the family converted to Christianity out of expedience.
Finally, Brehgert is explicitly Jewish: honest, true, and stereotypically described when it comes to physical features and profession. Here's a quote, from the point of view of the shallow, selfish Georgiana Longstaffe:
She could understand that it was a plain-spoken and truth-telling letter. Not that she, to herself, gave it praise for those virtues; but that it imbued her unconsciously with a thorough belief. She was apt to suspect deceit in other people;—but it did not occur to her that Mr. Brehgert had written a single word with an attempt to deceive her. But the single-minded genuine honesty of the letter was altogether thrown away upon her. She never said to herself, as she read it, that she might safely trust herself to this man, though he were a Jew, though greasy and like a butcher, though over fifty and with a family, because he was an honest man.
The Christian official clergy are set against each other, one who has no doctrine but much practicality, and the other with all the doctrine and little practicality. Bishop Yeld has money, lives richly, helps the poor, and has no doctrine:
He did live as a nobleman, and was very popular. Among the poor around him he was idolized, and by such clergy of his diocese as were not enthusiastic in their theology either on the one side or on the other, he was regarded as a model bishop...it was observed of him that he never spoke of his faith, or entered into arguments with men as to the reasons on which he had based it.
Despite Yeld's local good works, he's powerless in the matter of Melmotte. He gives little practical help to those affected by Melmotte and his individual good works can't change anything outside his doorstep.
Father Barham is the opposite. Poor, doctrinally devoted, and an inveterate proselytiser. Yet they were both eminently good men, Trollope states. Barham's the one who plays a slight role in the Melmotte plot: he wanders without invitation into Melmotte's dining room to ask him about his religion, since Melmotte's hypocritically donated to both the Church of England and the Catholic Church to win a seat in Parliament. Melmotte's very rude to him, in a way that also rams home Melmotte's characterisation (although it's rather repetitive and unnecessary at that point in the story).
Neither Barham's nor Yeld's religious practices have any relevance to Melmotte's actions--and by extension those of men similar to him. Nor is the Longestaffe family's anti-Semitism, partially motivated by religion, anything other than contemptible. It's possible that the minor Jewish characters are guided by their religion to some positive ends, but it's not explored.
The effect of the plot is that religion is ignored--and where it's not ignored, it's useless. Barham achieves little to nothing by being faithful to his doctrine, despite the purity of his ideals; Yeld achieves decent things outside of a doctrine that he doesn't believe, but can only contribute on a small scale. This Melmotte-dominated world is unpleasant and agnostic, and the novel cannot argue a point that religion would improve anything about it. It's an interesting take on religion through religion's absence.
When Melmotte sat down Fisker made his speech, and it was fluent, fast, and florid. Without giving it word for word, which would be tedious, I could not adequately set before the reader's eye the speaker's pleasing picture of world-wide commercial love and harmony which was to be produced by a railway from Salt Lake City to Vera Cruz, nor explain the extent of gratitude from the world at large which might be claimed by, and would finally be accorded to, the great firms of Melmotte & Co. of London, and Fisker, Montague, and Montague of San Francisco. Mr. Fisker's arms were waved gracefully about. His head was turned now this way and now that, but never towards his plate. It was very well done. But there was more faith in one ponderous word from Mr. Melmotte's mouth than in all the American's oratory.
There was not one of them then present who had not after some fashion been given to understand that his fortune was to be made, not by the construction of the railway, but by the floating of the railway shares. They had all whispered to each other their convictions on this head. Even Montague did not beguile himself into an idea that he was really a director in a company to be employed in the making and working of a railway. People out of doors were to be advertised into buying shares, and they who were so to say indoors were to have the privilege of manufacturing the shares thus to be sold. That was to be their work, and they all knew it. But now, as there were eight of them collected together, they talked of humanity at large and of the coming harmony of nations.
If only Trollope's hard-hitting examination of the commercial deceit of his time was regarded as quaint a historical artefact today as the hats, moustaches, and crinolines!
Lady Carbury's adventures in the world of literary mediocrity have something of a tang of first-hand knowledge about them. Trollope writes pragmatically about literary effort, being a practical man himself (and producing very fine books such as this one). It's very difficult for a writer to write about a character who can write better than themselves, just as it's next to impossible for writers to write about characters who are cleverer than the writer. Trollope settles for choosing to write about a mediocre writer who's a reasonably interesting character.
This book was written after NINA BALATKA, which has a Jewish man as a sympathetic main characte. In this one, the character of Brehgert is one of the few decent people in the novel. He's stereotypically described and very much a secondary character, but he comes off well compared to most of the Christian characters--he's one of few in the novel who are fundamentally honest and decent, in spite of his exterior as an unhandsome fifty-one-year-old man. Anti-Semitism is depicted as an unpleasant reality of society.
The book presents women's limited choices of the era: to marry or not to marry, to sink or swim almost entirely at the choices of one's male relatives. Lady Carbury tries to support her worthless son Sir Felix and is harmed by him. Her daughter Henrietta suffers from her brother and can only escape through marriage--but to marry a peniless man would likely be even worse. The Longestaffe girls are unpleasant, selfish, shallow, anti-Semitic characters, but their desperation to be married is understandable in their situation.
Considering that this is Trollope's lengthiest novel, this is definitely another Trollope with a delightfully large number of interesting characters and interweaving subplots. The large number of extremely unscrupulous characters is wearying, but some of the side characters lift the novel, such as the two good men of different faiths and worldy roles, the wealthy Church of England bishop Yeld and the poor Catholic priest John Barham. Trollope is a writer with the ability to make virtue interesting and vice tedious - his SIR HARRY is a good example of a novel with a dreadfully boring villain of the piece.
(But Trollope's not always without power to give some grandeur to his pathetic villains - bankrupt Burgo Fitzgerald giving away the last contents of his wallet to a girl in need is a very memorable moment.)
Sir Felix Carbury is a depiction of a sociopath, not that the word was used in that era - a man who's described as incapable of caring for anyone, shallow and superficial and completely selfish, beyond all empathy. A convincing depiction of that personality type. But it's significant that Melmotte, who's even worse, gets no such description of his internal processes. He's a realistic character--there are financiers of his stripe today. Thinking of Bernard Madoff, Melmotte's not just plausible but ridiculously prescient. He's believable without the writer needing to sink into the sordid mire of his nature.
And thinking again of the real-life Melmottes, I'm very sorry to say that Trollope's own account of this novel as an exaggerated satire in his Autobiography was overly optimistic. However, he was justly pleased with this work, except for the weaker love triangle involving Hetta Carbury and her shallow suitor Paul Montague.
Marie Melmotte's character development makes her very interesting as a female protagonist--and she's another one of the few characters in the novel who's nice and decent. She's loving, ingenious, and blossoms out into cleverness and courage in the course of the story. Her eventual love interest needed *much* more character development to make him equal to Marie; it would have been nicer if she'd wed an honest, interesting man who respected her and helped her continue her character development.
Winifrid Hurtle's a well-written character of a more morally ambiguous stamp. Trollope's talents as a writer can't help making her sympathetic to the reader by understanding her situation and giving her complexities. It's difficult to believe in a character as a true villain if they're kicked in the teeth by life on a regular basis (or could be so at a moment's notice), and Mrs Hurtle's actions in quest of a husband are understandable. There are some good female friendships and women standing up for each other in this novel; Winifrid Hurtle's relationship with her landlady and her efforts to help Ruby Ruggles are two examples of this, as well as Marie and Hetta Carbury's interactions.
Dolly Longestaffe is an excellent, though minor, character. Trollope singled him out rather proudly in his Autobiography, and I think Dolly is an enjoyable character. Like the rest of his family, he's anti-Semitic, but he is otherwise well-intentioned, irresponsible, and through the novel actually has some character growth into better habits through the help of others. Lord Nidderdale also has an interesting gentlemanly streak that makes him likeable despite his indolence.
Religion in this novel is an interesting thread--more interesting than it seems at first glance. The charcters Bishop Yeld and Father Barham are the characters who are explicitly religious, and at first they seem to have little to do with the main threads of the story. Yeld exists to be a minor character who is well-off, worldly, pragmatic, and good; Barham exists as a contrast, and to serve as a negative example against proselytising and to show Melmotte's increasing boorishness. Both roles seem to contribute minimally to the story.
Melmotte is ambiguously Jewish. His wife has Jewish features and is described in gossip as a 'Bohemian Jewess'; his daughter Marie (his wife's stepdaughter) was told to regard herself as Jewish for some years in her childhood, before the family converted to Christianity out of expedience.
Finally, Brehgert is explicitly Jewish: honest, true, and stereotypically described when it comes to physical features and profession. Here's a quote, from the point of view of the shallow, selfish Georgiana Longstaffe:
She could understand that it was a plain-spoken and truth-telling letter. Not that she, to herself, gave it praise for those virtues; but that it imbued her unconsciously with a thorough belief. She was apt to suspect deceit in other people;—but it did not occur to her that Mr. Brehgert had written a single word with an attempt to deceive her. But the single-minded genuine honesty of the letter was altogether thrown away upon her. She never said to herself, as she read it, that she might safely trust herself to this man, though he were a Jew, though greasy and like a butcher, though over fifty and with a family, because he was an honest man.
The Christian official clergy are set against each other, one who has no doctrine but much practicality, and the other with all the doctrine and little practicality. Bishop Yeld has money, lives richly, helps the poor, and has no doctrine:
He did live as a nobleman, and was very popular. Among the poor around him he was idolized, and by such clergy of his diocese as were not enthusiastic in their theology either on the one side or on the other, he was regarded as a model bishop...it was observed of him that he never spoke of his faith, or entered into arguments with men as to the reasons on which he had based it.
Despite Yeld's local good works, he's powerless in the matter of Melmotte. He gives little practical help to those affected by Melmotte and his individual good works can't change anything outside his doorstep.
Father Barham is the opposite. Poor, doctrinally devoted, and an inveterate proselytiser. Yet they were both eminently good men, Trollope states. Barham's the one who plays a slight role in the Melmotte plot: he wanders without invitation into Melmotte's dining room to ask him about his religion, since Melmotte's hypocritically donated to both the Church of England and the Catholic Church to win a seat in Parliament. Melmotte's very rude to him, in a way that also rams home Melmotte's characterisation (although it's rather repetitive and unnecessary at that point in the story).
Neither Barham's nor Yeld's religious practices have any relevance to Melmotte's actions--and by extension those of men similar to him. Nor is the Longestaffe family's anti-Semitism, partially motivated by religion, anything other than contemptible. It's possible that the minor Jewish characters are guided by their religion to some positive ends, but it's not explored.
The effect of the plot is that religion is ignored--and where it's not ignored, it's useless. Barham achieves little to nothing by being faithful to his doctrine, despite the purity of his ideals; Yeld achieves decent things outside of a doctrine that he doesn't believe, but can only contribute on a small scale. This Melmotte-dominated world is unpleasant and agnostic, and the novel cannot argue a point that religion would improve anything about it. It's an interesting take on religion through religion's absence.