KEPT IN THE DARK by Anthony Trollope
Sep. 27th, 2013 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blueinkedfrostThis is another novel that deals with the inner problems of a marriage, the personal lives and concerns and complexities of men and women. It seems most similar to IS HE POPENJOY? but on the whole is less successful. It's also similar to HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT in that it deals with fault and forgiveness, but lacks the layers of lively and complex subplots.
Cecilia Holt was engaged to baronet Sir Francis Geraldine but broke the engagement, fearing his inattention to her, his lack of literary taste, and his more serious bad qualities. He told all and sundry that it was he to jilt her rather than vice versa. Then Cecilia meets the much more suitable Mr Western while travelling on the Continent and becomes engaged to him - but his personality flaw is to be unforgiving of personal insults, and he does not know of her former engagement. Additionally, he himself was once jilted and heartbroken by another woman; and he considers Sir Francis to be a swindler. When the truth comes out after the Westerns' marriage, Western is so disturbed at the undisclosed former engagement that he leaves his wife.
Cecilia is a fairly interesting lead female character with her personality faults explored; she's indisputably more complicated than Mary from POPENJOY. There's more than general purity and goodness with only one or two distinguishing traits going on here. She's proud, a touch pretentious about her artistic tastes, lacks self-awareness, and is a coward when it comes to telling her partner a truth he would wish to know.
There are a lot of unpleasant characters in this novel who behave unpleasantly; the Westerns both have significant personal flaws, Cecilia's poisonous former friends are worse, and the baronet is worse still. About the only truly good people in the novel are Cecilia's mother, who's ineffective despite her selflessness, and Western's sister Lady Grant. Lady Grant is, perhaps, a little too good to be real - in which I complain in the opposite direction about the characterisation. Complexity is praiseworthy, but it took me some time to begin to have sympathy for this pack of grotesquerie.
The most poisonous of Cecilia's friends, Francesca Altifiorla, is also a hypocritical feminist - considered hypocritical on the grounds that she is willing to marry. On the other hand, at least the narrator suggests that there's a "vague glimmering" of truth in her ideas in that matrimony is disadvantageous to many women in this era.
Western's desire for an "innocent" bride (ie. without a previous engagement) comes across as probably more reprehensible to a modern eye than the story attempts to depict, especially considering the double standard that he was also previously engaged. (Though it was not his fault that his engagement was broken.) But Western's actions are certainly culpable, and illustrate the power a husband has over his wife in these times. He chooses to separate suddenly without asking for explanation; it's cruel and proud to act so even though he does not choose to exercise his full legal power.
In fact Western's actions remind one of the stories they tell of Ruskin on his wedding night - extreme, irrational behaviour. The tone Western takes about the previous engagement almost makes the reader wonder if he's really suspecting premarital sex rather than just the secret of the engagement kept from him. ("Kept in the dark" is a very consistent motif here - tiresomely so.) I found Western much less sympathetic than Louis Trevelyan of HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT, since Trevelyan seemed to develop a pathological mental illness and Western is compos mentis and responsible for his actions. Events in the marriage follow a similar course to POPENJOY when a baby is impending as an aid to reconciliation.
Ultimately an ending of reasonable satisfaction is achieved. This is a thin book compared to other of Trollope's novels, published in the last years of his life. It's more remarkable for showing his work ethic than any especial writing trait.
Cecilia Holt was engaged to baronet Sir Francis Geraldine but broke the engagement, fearing his inattention to her, his lack of literary taste, and his more serious bad qualities. He told all and sundry that it was he to jilt her rather than vice versa. Then Cecilia meets the much more suitable Mr Western while travelling on the Continent and becomes engaged to him - but his personality flaw is to be unforgiving of personal insults, and he does not know of her former engagement. Additionally, he himself was once jilted and heartbroken by another woman; and he considers Sir Francis to be a swindler. When the truth comes out after the Westerns' marriage, Western is so disturbed at the undisclosed former engagement that he leaves his wife.
Cecilia is a fairly interesting lead female character with her personality faults explored; she's indisputably more complicated than Mary from POPENJOY. There's more than general purity and goodness with only one or two distinguishing traits going on here. She's proud, a touch pretentious about her artistic tastes, lacks self-awareness, and is a coward when it comes to telling her partner a truth he would wish to know.
There are a lot of unpleasant characters in this novel who behave unpleasantly; the Westerns both have significant personal flaws, Cecilia's poisonous former friends are worse, and the baronet is worse still. About the only truly good people in the novel are Cecilia's mother, who's ineffective despite her selflessness, and Western's sister Lady Grant. Lady Grant is, perhaps, a little too good to be real - in which I complain in the opposite direction about the characterisation. Complexity is praiseworthy, but it took me some time to begin to have sympathy for this pack of grotesquerie.
The most poisonous of Cecilia's friends, Francesca Altifiorla, is also a hypocritical feminist - considered hypocritical on the grounds that she is willing to marry. On the other hand, at least the narrator suggests that there's a "vague glimmering" of truth in her ideas in that matrimony is disadvantageous to many women in this era.
Western's desire for an "innocent" bride (ie. without a previous engagement) comes across as probably more reprehensible to a modern eye than the story attempts to depict, especially considering the double standard that he was also previously engaged. (Though it was not his fault that his engagement was broken.) But Western's actions are certainly culpable, and illustrate the power a husband has over his wife in these times. He chooses to separate suddenly without asking for explanation; it's cruel and proud to act so even though he does not choose to exercise his full legal power.
In fact Western's actions remind one of the stories they tell of Ruskin on his wedding night - extreme, irrational behaviour. The tone Western takes about the previous engagement almost makes the reader wonder if he's really suspecting premarital sex rather than just the secret of the engagement kept from him. ("Kept in the dark" is a very consistent motif here - tiresomely so.) I found Western much less sympathetic than Louis Trevelyan of HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT, since Trevelyan seemed to develop a pathological mental illness and Western is compos mentis and responsible for his actions. Events in the marriage follow a similar course to POPENJOY when a baby is impending as an aid to reconciliation.
Ultimately an ending of reasonable satisfaction is achieved. This is a thin book compared to other of Trollope's novels, published in the last years of his life. It's more remarkable for showing his work ethic than any especial writing trait.
