moreblogsforyou.com

Anthony Trollope – An Amazing Writer

Anthony Trollope has become my second favorite author. After quickly going through all of my favorite author, Jane Austen’s novels, I hungered for more in the same vein. Dickens, Thackeray, James, Wharton are all excellent writers but still were not, for me, quite what I was searching for. Then came Trollope.

It is surprising that Trollope does not get the star treatment that Austen does. All of her books have been made into movies, with 3 or 4 remakes of each. Trollope, with over 40 novels to his name, has movies of only “The Barchester Chronicles“, “The Way We Live Now“, “He Knew He Was Right” and the series “The Pallisers“. And yet, his stories, of romance, travel and morality, have a very similar draw as do Austen’s.

The BBC series, The Pallisers, based on the 6 “Palliser” books, “Can You
Forgive Her?”, “Phineas Finn”, “The Eustace Diamonds”, “Phineas Redux”, “The Prime Minister”, and “The Duke’s Children” was shown on TV on PBS in the late 70’s I think. I watched then, each 50 minute episode for 26 weeks every Sunday night and became immediately enraptured. I hadn’t heard of it or seen it on TV until, during the late 90’s, I started searching eBay and found the 26 disc set was available for sale. Of course, it was one of my first purchases from that source.

Now, from the previous paragraph, you can guess that I am an older woman. Even so, these stories that Trollope tells are timeless. Although some may think that politeness and morality are virtues no more, there are still some of you out there that care about treating others with respect and maintaining a sense of dignity and integrity in our own lives.

I am not an expert on literature or someone who analyzes and dissects characters in novels. I just really love to travel back to a simpler, kinder world, where individuals had similar problems dealing with each other as we do today, and yet they, many times, would handle their issues differently. Books are the time machine of the mind and what a way to travel!

I have recently finished reading all of Trollope’s novels and decided I would start reading them again and write about what I learn from each of his stories. I’m starting with my favorite “An Eye for An Eye”. What I remember thinking about this book, is that if each mother gave this to her daughter to read around the age of 10-12, there would be no need for birth control for unmarried teenage girls. Girls would understand how precious they are and would not allow themselves to be treated disrespectfully. We’ll see if I have the same impression during this second read.

Ann Robins