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THE LANDLEAGUERS by Anthony Trollope
Oct. 8th, 2013 11:28 pmThis is a novel that returns to Ireland - like the Irish novels of Trollope's early career - to discuss the Landleaguers, and political and religious tensions between Catholic and Protestant, Irish Home Rule and landholders.
It's very sad that Trollope broke his orderly habits by publishing this as a work in progress and then failed to finish it because mortality intervened. He deservedly prided himself on his exceptional work ethic. There's this depressing quote from Trollope's son in the AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
In the summer of 1882 he began his last novel, The Landleaguers, which, as stated above, was unfinished when he died. This book was a cause of anxiety to him. He could not rid his mind of the fact that he had a story already in the course of publication, but which he had not yet completed. In no other case, except Framley Parsonage, did my father publish even the first number of any novel before he had fully completed the whole tale.
Notes are given by his son on the intended ending. The people you'd guess are married to the other people you'd guess and some of the people who've committed crimes do not get away with it. Trollope's novels are the sort more about journey than destination.
The Jones family suffer from the political troubles in Ireland - Protestant Mr Jones of Castle Morony; Frank Jones his son and heir; Edith and Ada his young pretty daughters, both interested in dashing Captain Yorke Clayton; and Florian his youngest son, recently converted to Catholicism. Frank Jones is pursuing American Rachel O'Mahony, who is pursuing a singing career while her naive father tries and fails at politics.
Florian's part in the plot begins as a sort of Boys' Own Adventure story, though it's taken very seriously - an unusual vein for Trollope. There's the trope of the child for whom everything is the most important thing in the world that will determine the entire course of their lives (a trope that became a trope because it's how most children feel, being unable to assess the length of the future), the secret that must be kept at all costs, and Trollope combines these concepts with religion and conversion. Which goes to show that even in a book he wasn't able to finish because of human mortality, Trollope was writing something different and innovative. But unfortunately this storyline is brought to a rather speedy close.
This novel has been criticised for being more tract than story, but I didn't find this critique quite on the mark - many characters are strongly defined and their interplay and personal growth is given primacy. The secondary love affair is not particularly strong, but it's connected to a strong general plot of a family suffering; and Rachel O'Mahony is excellent. It's true, though, that the lower-class Irish characters are very shallowly characterised. The failure comes across more as if the writer did not bother to create interesting characters with understandable reasons among that group, but not so much as if the writer overexaggerated villainous actions to create strawpeople. The narrator breaks the illusion and steps into the open admitting his bent on several occasions such as this one:
For myself, I do most cordially agree with the policy of him in whose place Lord Frederick had this day suffered,—as far as his conduct in Ireland can be read from that which he did and from that which he spoke. As far as he had agreed with the Government in their measure for interfering with the price paid for land in the country,—for putting up a new law devised by themselves in lieu of that time-honoured law by which property has ever been protected in England,—I disagree. Of my disagreement no one will take notice;—but my story cannot be written without expressing it.
Crude according to the current fashion in writing, but honest. When the narrator lapses into floods of teal deer, this is not very interesting. The diatribe is less interesting than the novel portions; the novel portions are more than shallow props for the diatribe. There are murders which in other writers would seem melodramatic but come across with strong verisimiltude here - even though Trollope has no sympathy for unlawful rebels against English rule.
In this novel Trollope comes around to the idea that ignorance is not a virtue in a woman, or at least expresses the arguments fairly.( Read more... )
Overall, it's interesting to speculate on what Trollope would have done with this novel if he'd had the chance to finish and edit. Maybe some of the politics would be cut out (one can only hope - it's great that this novel is a unique Trollope, but the uniqueness isn't very good). Given its length of forty-nine chapters out of a projected length of sixty, one wonders what additional complications would've been introduced into the plot to keep the pacing high in the final stretch. Interesting and recommended for any Trollope completist.
It's very sad that Trollope broke his orderly habits by publishing this as a work in progress and then failed to finish it because mortality intervened. He deservedly prided himself on his exceptional work ethic. There's this depressing quote from Trollope's son in the AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
In the summer of 1882 he began his last novel, The Landleaguers, which, as stated above, was unfinished when he died. This book was a cause of anxiety to him. He could not rid his mind of the fact that he had a story already in the course of publication, but which he had not yet completed. In no other case, except Framley Parsonage, did my father publish even the first number of any novel before he had fully completed the whole tale.
Notes are given by his son on the intended ending. The people you'd guess are married to the other people you'd guess and some of the people who've committed crimes do not get away with it. Trollope's novels are the sort more about journey than destination.
The Jones family suffer from the political troubles in Ireland - Protestant Mr Jones of Castle Morony; Frank Jones his son and heir; Edith and Ada his young pretty daughters, both interested in dashing Captain Yorke Clayton; and Florian his youngest son, recently converted to Catholicism. Frank Jones is pursuing American Rachel O'Mahony, who is pursuing a singing career while her naive father tries and fails at politics.
Florian's part in the plot begins as a sort of Boys' Own Adventure story, though it's taken very seriously - an unusual vein for Trollope. There's the trope of the child for whom everything is the most important thing in the world that will determine the entire course of their lives (a trope that became a trope because it's how most children feel, being unable to assess the length of the future), the secret that must be kept at all costs, and Trollope combines these concepts with religion and conversion. Which goes to show that even in a book he wasn't able to finish because of human mortality, Trollope was writing something different and innovative. But unfortunately this storyline is brought to a rather speedy close.
This novel has been criticised for being more tract than story, but I didn't find this critique quite on the mark - many characters are strongly defined and their interplay and personal growth is given primacy. The secondary love affair is not particularly strong, but it's connected to a strong general plot of a family suffering; and Rachel O'Mahony is excellent. It's true, though, that the lower-class Irish characters are very shallowly characterised. The failure comes across more as if the writer did not bother to create interesting characters with understandable reasons among that group, but not so much as if the writer overexaggerated villainous actions to create strawpeople. The narrator breaks the illusion and steps into the open admitting his bent on several occasions such as this one:
For myself, I do most cordially agree with the policy of him in whose place Lord Frederick had this day suffered,—as far as his conduct in Ireland can be read from that which he did and from that which he spoke. As far as he had agreed with the Government in their measure for interfering with the price paid for land in the country,—for putting up a new law devised by themselves in lieu of that time-honoured law by which property has ever been protected in England,—I disagree. Of my disagreement no one will take notice;—but my story cannot be written without expressing it.
Crude according to the current fashion in writing, but honest. When the narrator lapses into floods of teal deer, this is not very interesting. The diatribe is less interesting than the novel portions; the novel portions are more than shallow props for the diatribe. There are murders which in other writers would seem melodramatic but come across with strong verisimiltude here - even though Trollope has no sympathy for unlawful rebels against English rule.
In this novel Trollope comes around to the idea that ignorance is not a virtue in a woman, or at least expresses the arguments fairly.( Read more... )
Overall, it's interesting to speculate on what Trollope would have done with this novel if he'd had the chance to finish and edit. Maybe some of the politics would be cut out (one can only hope - it's great that this novel is a unique Trollope, but the uniqueness isn't very good). Given its length of forty-nine chapters out of a projected length of sixty, one wonders what additional complications would've been introduced into the plot to keep the pacing high in the final stretch. Interesting and recommended for any Trollope completist.
