"The Prime Minister" by Anthony Trollope

This is the fifth in Trollope's 'Palliser' series of political novels, following on from:

• Can You Forgive Her?
• Phineas Finn
• The Eustace Diamonds
• Phineas Redux

Once again it stars the wonderfully wayward Lady Glencora, now the Duchess of Omnium, and her husband the Duke, who used to be Plantagenet Palliser when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and has now been kicked upstairs into the Other Place. It also features Irish adventurer MP Phineas Finn and that splendid little minx Lady Eustace.

But the plot revolves around Emily Wharton and her perverse attempt to marry Ferdinand Lopez. Emily's father opposes the match on the grounds that Lopez is not an English gentleman and that too little is known of his antecedents. It is taken for granted that Lopez, who keeps a coach and pairs and is known to banker Mills Happerton, is wealthy although no one can say where the source of his wealth resides. But Emily is obstinate and gets her own way, with predictable consequences. Lopez immediately puts pressure on Emily to extract money from her barrister father so he can keep his rather dodgy speculations afloat.

There are predictable consequences. Emily and her family are tormented by the unscrupulous blackguard. In the end, the rascal is ruined, together with his rather lower class business partner; Lopez commits suicide. Emily is free to marry her original love, the suitable boy next door but she, feeling herself defiled and worthless by her contact with the rogue, is determined to stay a widow in perpetual self-punishment.

I've spoiled it. But Trollope doesn't seem to be interested in suspense. In Phineas Redux, which revolves around a murder, he tells us whodunnit almost as soon as the crime is committed. and in this book there are no surprises. Lopez, characterised as a villain from the start, is a villain. His suicide happens three quarters of the way through the book, leaving a full quarter for the loose ends to be resolved.

In fairness, there is a second plot which is intertwined with the first. The Duke of Omnium, Plantagenet Palliser, becomes Prime Minister of a coalition government. Lady Glencora is in her element, arranging massive house parties. But the Duke hates it. He is too honourable for politics, particularly the sometimes messy task of keeping a coalition together. He is far too thin-skinned; once the People's Banner gets his knife into him he squirms with every word. He can't even smile at people and the parties Glencora organises are often without him, the star attraction, because he is working quietly in his study. It is this exploration of character that Trollope is most interested in. But without the Lopez story, the book would be very heavy and slow. Like all the others, it is 80 chapters long. By his uneven plotting, Trollope undermines the momentum of his book and leaves some parts very slow indeed.

It is also a vehicle for Trollope, who probably thought he was a great liberal reformer, to parade his class snobbery and casual racism.

The Palliser series is concluded in The Duke's Children in which the Duke's political beliefs are tersted when his children threaten to make unsuitable marriages.

Beautifully written, great characters but some bits drag out interminably. October 2015; 691 pages

"Can you forgive her?" by Anthony Trollope

The strange thing about the title of this first of Trollope's six Palliser novels is that it is quite easy to forgive Alice for her oscillating back and forth between two possible husbands (which is what Trollope wants you to forgive in her) but much less easy to forgive her for her hypocritical puritanical prudery. But I am getting ahead of myself.

This story revolves around three women (and Trollope is far better than Dickens at portraying real women).

• Alice Vavasor can't decide whether to marry goody two shoes John Grey (there is a point at which Alice's father says that he thinks it is John's goodness that irks Kate and I nodded in agreement at this point) or scarred villain (straight out of melodrama) George Vavasor, her wicked cousin. George is busy ruining himself in his ambition to become an MP for a Metropolitan seat; the costs of the election are far beyond his means and he becomes increasingly wicked in his efforts to obtain money.
• Lady Glencora wanted to marry handsome but impecunious devil Burgo Fitzgerald with whom she was head over heels in love but her important relations pressurised her into marrying dry stick MP Plantagenet Palliser, heir to the Duke of Omnium and a likely candidate to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer. But Burgo keeps tempting her to run away with him and she is very unhappy in her marriage and contemplating ruining her reputation by becoming Burgo's mistress.
• Mrs Greenow, Alice's Aunt and a wealthy widow, flirts with Mr Cheesacre, a rich farmer who can never avoid telling everyone how well-to-do he is and penniless and mendacious soldier 'Captain' Bellfield. This story ends differently from the other two and gives the novel a welcome counterpoint of comedy; a lot of humour is wrung from the rivalry of Cheesacre and Bellfield, particularly from the pretensions of the former.

So, the eternal dilemma for all women: bad boy to have fun with or nice boy for security?

This is a very weighty book. 770 pages takes commitment! But Trollope can write some brilliant nuanced characters (apart from Alice who is a pious pain in the posterior). Lady Glencora is a delight as a spoilt little heiress who chatters away endlessly, has tantrums, refuses to like people she dislikes (and tells them to their faces) and just longs to be naughty. I adored the trip with Plantagenet in which she opposes everyhting he proposes, just for the devilment of being awkward. George is a delight as he plans more and more moustache-twirling evil (whilst never straying too far from the paths of credibility) in his desperation to raise money: I particularly love his self-hatred as he is driven into the depths. Mr Palliser is a delight as he gradually becomes more and more human; at the start he has impeccable courtesy, he is dedicated to his politics and he is ridiculously honourable but before the end his sacrifices and sufferings have made him considerate (as opposed to just courteous) and thoughtful. Alice's father, widowed when Alice was a baby, resents having to work in the Court of Chancery signing papers for three days a week during term time for £800 per year (£500 pa is enough for a comfortable private income) but will not relinquish the job for a pension of £400 pa; he dines at his club every night so that Alice seems to have brought herself up. Lady Macleod keeps talking about the 'advantage' of knowing and being even distantly related to the nobility. And Mr Cheesacre, as I have written above, is a most marvellous comic creation.

There are moments of wonderfully dry humour. After Glencora's first trip to a casino, when Mr Palliser was very angry at Alice for allowing her to go, he agrees to accompany her a second time, at which Alice looks at him and says to Lady G: "Perhaps I shall be forgiven when someone sees how difficult it is to manage you."

It is well-plotted too. The first part of the novel is a little slow but once we have got the measure of the characters their intermingled stories keeps things going. There are 40 chapters in each of two volumes and almost every chapter has a neat dramatic arc. And the Greenow/ Cheesacre/ Bellfield comedy leavens the dough considerably. There were certainly moments when I didn't know what was going to happen next and could scarcely wait to find out.

Trollope wrote 47 novels (and other work)!!!! I have read The Warden, first in the Barsetshire tales of clerical sheenanigans, and now this. I enjoyed The Warden and now I very much want to read the rest of the Palliser series. Great fun. May 2015; 770 pages

I have now read and enjoyed the next books in the series:

• Phineas Finn: a poor Irishman becomes an MP and tries to marry money to support this career
• The Eustace Diamonds: Scheming, lying minx Lizzie Eustace tries to hang on to her diamonds and trap a second husband; a great female character
• Phineas Redux: Phineas is tried for murder; Trollope writes his own spoiler and forfeits lots of possible tension.
• The Prime Minister: Mr Palliser, now the Duke of Omnium, becomes Prime Minister and yet another scoundrel marries yet another gentlewoman; perhaps this book has the greatest rotter but again Trollope forfeits a great deal of tension by resolving the main plot too early.
• The Duke's Children: Two of Mr Palliser's children threaten to make unsuitable marriages; will the Duke allow them?

But of all the books, Can You Forgive Her? has the best comic scenes.