If you’re reading this…

It appears that rumours of the death of the printed page have been somewhat exaggerated. Research has found that reading comprehension is greater when the medium is a printed version rather than a Kindle version. This, of course, is great news for readers of Trollope who must keep up with events in multiple plot-lines and subplots over a substantial (or in the case of The last Chronicle of Barset, very substantial) period.

The research indicates that readers of the electronic page tend to skim read, homing in on keywords. Could you imagine skimming through the Barsetshire novels for Mrs Proudie? You’d find yourself skipping through Dr Thorne and The Small House at Allington in which she features very little.

Also, readers tend to only get through about 60% of a digital article, which means this paragraph is probably wasted.

For more information on the findings go to The Washington Post article below and skim read a little over halfway through that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/08/21/why-you-might-want-to-ditch-your-e-reader-and-go-back-to-printed-books/

Finishing a Good Book – Like Losing a Friend

An interesting thought-piece from Christina Wehner about Game Theory and Jane Austen’s work as proposed in Jane Austen:Game Theorist by Michael Suk-Young Chwe. Christina mentions that she was reading Trollope’s The Way We Live Now concurrently with Chwe’s book. I would have thought that Melmotte in The Way We Live Now is a classic example of a applied game theory, making strategic moves almost like a chess-player to win the game and make a fortune in railroad speculation.

Of course, Trollope also identified, like Austen, that the matrimonial game was played for the highest of stakes by almost all his female heroines, reflecting the need in Victorian society for women to make a good marriage to secure their futures. One thinks of Arabella Trefoil in The American Senator and her machinations to ensnare Lord Rufford, as a bigger catch than John Morton, who she already had “in the bag”.

Of course, the game was not only crucial to Victorian women, but, as Trollope observed, to Victorian men. The upkeep of estates was expensive and no longer was land the guarantee of income that it had been in pre-industrial England. Thus, the sons of titled landowners were obliged to play the game and seek financially advantageous alliances with the daughters of the nouveau riches merchant class and even those who made their money through trade. “He must marry money.” That terrible refrain of Lady Gresham about her son Frank who is to inherit the impoverished Greshambury estate in Dr Thorne.

Perhap Chwe could extend his study to incorporate Trollope’s novels?

Christina Wehner

Reading is a very companionable occupation. One can never feel alone while reading. It’s like making friends (hopefully good friends). As a result of this friendship, I am always conscious of regret whenever I finish a really good or engaging book. It’s like saying goodbye to a friend who is about to take a tour around the world.

Sometimes, the regret is because the book is very long and it took my several months to read it. This happened to me earlier in the year when I finished Don Quixote for the first time. I had all the memories of reading it in hospital waiting rooms and by my bedside and even though I was conscious of the desire to finish it – which always increases the closer you get to the end – when I actually achieved my goal it was bittersweet. I didn’t want to lay it aside, it felt…

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More mayhem in Trollope

Having shown Trollope’s penchant for including murder in his plots, it is only proper to continue the crime-related theme in honour of Crime Fest 2014 and mention that he also included several unsuccessful attempted murders in addition to the one in The Landleaguers mentioned yesterday.

Indeed, the first attempted murder is in only his second novel, The Kellys and the O’Kellys – another Irish crime scene! Here we see Barry Lynch attempt to kill his sister Anty to get his hands on her money.

However, once again it is love, or frustrated love that more often provides the spur for other attempted murders in Trollope’s novels. In Phineas Redux, Mr Kennedy tries to shoot Phineas Finn, whom he believes to be responsible for his wife’s continued refusal to return to him. And it is maternal love, however misguided, that drives Lady Lovel to make a similar attempt on the life of Daniel Thwaite, her daughter’s would-be suitor, whom she considers unsuitable (pun intended) in Lady Anna.

There are also a number of violent assaults, such as that by Frank Gresham with a horse-whip on Mr Moffat, who jilted his sister Augusta in Dr Thorne, which, while perhaps not attempts at murder, are contrary to the popular misconception of Trollope as a teller of genteel Victorian tales.

Anthony Trollope, Crime Writer

To mark the first day of the Crime Fest 2014 in Bristol, I think it proper to correct the misapprehension that Trollope was an author of cozy tales of the Victorian upper middle class.

His first novel is far away from the serenity of pastoral Barsetshire. In the wilds of Ballycloran in County Leitrim in Ireland, Thady Macdermot murders Myles Ussher for seducing his sister Feemy and is hanged for his crime in an almost gothic drama, The Macdermots of Ballycloran. Trollope said of this novel, “As to plot itself, I do not know that I ever made one so good”.

Now many people would argue that Trollope’s strength as a writer was in creating believable characters rather than plot. Indeed, weak plotting would have precluded him from membership of the club of Golden Age mystery writers. That is, if his penchant for authorial nudges didn’t cause him to reveal whodunnit before half the book was complete. But in an age where crime fiction is driven more by character than plot, surely Trollope could hold up his head?

In fact, murder features regularly in Trollope’s novels.

It provides the wellspring for the unfolding story of Mary Thorne in Dr Thorne, the third Barsetshire chronicle. She is the illegitimate daughter of Henry Thorne (the Doctor’s wastrel brother) and Mary Scatcherd. Before the start of the novel, Mary’s brother Roger beats Henry to death for seducing and abandoning his sister. This back-story and its concealment drives much of the narrative thrust of the tale.

Wrongful accusations of murder and the trial and acquittal of innocent heroes also feature in Trollope’s novels. In Phineas Redux, Phineas Finn is tried for the murder of his bitter political enemy Mr Bonteen and only saved by the timely intervention of Madame Max Goesler, who discovered evidence to implicate the sinister Reverend Emilius. Step forward fiction’s first woman detective?

Similarly, Sam Brattle is wrongly accused of the murder of Farmer Trumbell and his innocence demonstrated by the eponymous Vicar of Bulhampton.

But it is in Ireland where Trollope concentrates his murders. Here the mother of Kate O’Hara pushes Fred Neville over the cliffs after he gets Kate pregnant but will not marry her in An Eye For An Eye. (You may notice something of a recurring theme here!) Finally, the Irish novel, The Landleaguers, sees not one but two witnesses in the trial of Pat Carroll murdered to prevent them testifying against him. Indeed, in addition to the killings of Florian Jones and Terry Carroll, the Landleaguers also make an attempt on the life of Captain Clayton, making it the bloodiest of Trollope’s novels.

While seven murders over the course of 48 novels is hardly the sort of body-count to trouble the average serial killer in today’s fiction, it is rather more than might be expected from a determinedly unsensational Victorian novelist like Trollope.

Dr Thorne continues on BBC Radio 4 tomorrow

The Radio 4 dramatisation of Dr Thorne, the third book of The Barchester Chronicles continues tomorrow at 3pm.

In the meantime, you can listen to a programme on Trollope’s life presented by Michael Symmons Roberts who adapted Dr Thorne for broadcast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03qf7r5

 

Trollope’s Dr Thorne Today

The first instalment of the BBC’s adaptation of the third in Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles starts this afternoon.

Follow the link to the BBC iplayer where you can listen to the first episode of Dr Thorne if you miss it when it is broadcast at 3pm today on Radio 4.

Trollope’s Dr Thorne on Radio 4

The BBC begins its three part radio dramatisation of Dr Thorne on Sunday 4th May at 3pm.  This is the third novel in the series of BBC productions of the complete Barchester Chronicles. For those who want to hear more about adapting the novels for the radio you can follow the link to hear Michael Symmons Roberts, who adapted The Warden talk about what was involved.