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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: February Book Group - The Warden
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Well Googled, Brenda (you got there before me)!
The little church (St. Cuthbert's) is indeed marked on the city plan, opposite the Bishop's Palace, and above the gate (so Trollope tells us) leading into the Cathedral Close. The actual parish is tiny, of course, although this sort of thing was not uncommon in mediaeval England.
But....what real-life church might have been Trollope's inspiration?
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Somebody somewhere must have created a map of Barchester town, I say to myself. And behold, the power of the Google! You can click on the maps to biggify them.
Here is a larger discussion of Barsetshire's geography.
And this image is especially fine.
All these links are a free click.
Thank you, Brenda. I shall print out a couple of them to tuck into my books.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Barsetshire always seems to me to be a quite small county, and none the worse for that, IMNSHO.
I wonder how it was affected by those wretched and egregious local government 'changes' of the 1970s?
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
You know there is probably someone who has written the new Chronicles of Barsetshire, analyzing those very points. What to do when somebody wants to rent the steeple for a cell phone tower? The hijinks ensue when a female Dean arrives!
If nobody -has- written these, then somebody -should-.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
<snip>But....what real-life church might have been Trollope's inspiration?
I guessed this one and Wikipedia thinks I was right.
[ 07. February 2018, 20:00: Message edited by: BroJames ]
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
You know there is probably someone who has written the new Chronicles of Barsetshire, analyzing those very points. What to do when somebody wants to rent the steeple for a cell phone tower? The hijinks ensue when a female Dean arrives!
If nobody -has- written these, then somebody -should-.
I think that's pretty much what Catherine Fox set out to do -- with Lindchester rather than Barsetshire, of course, but she's very consciously using Trollope as her model. Female Dean and all.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Thank you, BroJames - I think that's it.
Rather a neat little place, no?
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Oh, heavens. The hero of this novel was married at St. Swithin's. The grandfather of the bride was attached to the church in some way.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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MaryLouise
Shipmate
# 18697
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Posted
I've tended to think of Trollope as quite parochial and very grounded in English country life (that imagined Barsetshire) but in fact he was quite an anomaly as a Victorian because he travelled so widely, to the West Indies, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and the United States.
His two volumes on his 1877 journey around South Africa show him revising his ideas on Empire because he detested the nostalgia in the Cape Colony for slavery and thought self-rule for black South Africans was the best way forward. He had a very astute eye for character and place -- not the sparkle you find in the letters of Lady Anne Barnard written from the Cape, but his comments on the Kimberley Diamond Fields show us a tent city created almost overnight on the empty veld.
[ 08. February 2018, 04:41: Message edited by: MaryLouise ]
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“As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots.”
-- Ivy Compton-Burnett
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
Trollope himself said that Barset was Somerset, while Barchester was Winchester.
He only got round to drawing up a map of the place when he was working on Framley Parsonage, and even then his map doesn't always agree with what he wrote, so I doubt if it's possible to create an exact map that would be consistent with all the books.
But I agree that it's fun to try.
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
From the lack of recent posts on this thread, I wonder if people are about ready to start discussing the book?
So if anyone wants to say No, no, not yet! could they please do so in the next day or so. Thanks!
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
I'm only about half-way through, but start discussing at any time. I've read it before (and watched the BBC series), so I'm not concerned about spoilers.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I finished it awhile back and I'm good to go anytime.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I'm happy to start discussing it too.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
Right, here are a few questions for people to consider and respond to; feel free to add others or to ignore them completely - they're only there to get the discussion going!
There are no right answers! These may not even be the right questions...
1. What do you think are the major themes in The Warden?
2. Trollope frequently uses authorial asides to speak directly to his readers. Does this affect your enjoyment of the story?
3. Is The Warden a religious book?
4. How do you respond to the mock-Dickens novel The Almshouse which Bold encounters on his journey to London
5. Have you read any other of Trollope's books, and if so what did you think of them?
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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Fuzzipeg
Shipmate
# 10107
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Posted
I discovered Phineas Finn when I was 18 and then read all the political novels and the Barset ones, one after the other but I haven't managed to read one since. You have encouraged me to have another stab at The Warden. Especially MaryLouise's comment....Trollope in Lent seems a good idea.
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http://foodybooze.blogspot.co.za
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
After reading all the of Barchester books (in the 90s) I discovered The Vicar of Bullhampton in my sister's former bedroom at my parents' home. I read it while visiting and then looked for a copy for myself, but it seemed to have been unavailable.
Many years later, when my sister died unexpectedly, I looked for her copy when cleaning out her home. (My parents had since sold their home and moved, and subsequently passed on, so my sister had all of her possessions in her own home by that time.) It was there, and it was one of the few things I took with me.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
The one I have read most recently is the very different The Way We Live Now.
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Rossweisse
High Church Valkyrie
# 2349
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Posted
I've read the Palliser novels, and some of the other Barchester books. I enjoy the authorial asides; in Trollope, it's part of the charm.
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
It's interesting that the apparent villain - John Bold, I suppose - actually behaves rather well, whereas the Archdeacon berates and insults the Warden, all in the name of the Church.
Tom Towers, of course, seems to be almost beyond redemption.
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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Net Spinster
Shipmate
# 16058
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
After reading all the of Barchester books (in the 90s) I discovered The Vicar of Bullhampton in my sister's former bedroom at my parents' home. I read it while visiting and then looked for a copy for myself, but it seemed to have been unavailable.
The Vicar of Bullhampton is a good read. The situation of Carry Brattle would be different nowadays (she would less likely face being sent to a Magdalene laundry or the equivalent) but the various attitudes towards her would still be there.
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spinner of webs
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Yes, Dr. John Bold is indeed a rather engaging villain, though he is really only seen as such by the Archdeacon and his friends.
Tom Towers is, of course, alive and well, and working for Certain Tabloids (rather than an up-market paper, should such an odd entity still exist in the UK).
.
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.
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/SPOILER ALERT/
I'm rather sorry that Trollope didn't see fit to include Bold in later stories...
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by andras:
3. Is The Warden a religious book?
No. It's a book about clergy. In the same way the Palliser novels (particularly The Eustace Diamonds and Can You Forgive Her?) are not political books, just books about politicians.
My favourite bit of Trollope is when Lizzie Eustance, the pseud, actually tries reading Shelley rather than just enthusing about his poetry. But I never liked Shelley.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by andras:
Trollope frequently uses authorial asides to speak directly to his readers. Does this affect your enjoyment of the story?
It's been fashionable to object to Trollope's use of authorial asides as if Trollope is trying to write like Henry James and hasn't worked out how yet. He isn't trying to write like Henry James. Trollope has no interest in making us forget that we're reading a work of fiction.
quote:
Is The Warden a religious book?
I don't think it's more religious than Austen's Mansfield Park. It's not preaching for conversion. On the other hand, it is in favour of humility and charity, both in the characters whom Trollope commends and in the way Trollope depicts them.
quote:
How do you respond to the mock-Dickens novel The Almshouse which Bold encounters on his journey to London
Yes, that's unmistakeably Dickens. That's as fair as satire gets.
Obviously it's an anti-manifesto for Trollope: this is how I am not writing the Warden. In particular, I am not writing characters who are wholly good or wholly bad.
quote:
Have you read any other of Trollope's books, and if so what did you think of them?[/b]
All of the Barchester series, the first of the Palliser series (Can you Forgive Her), The Way we Live Now, and Orley Farm.
Some of the later ones could do a bit with editing down.
Trollope's obvious difference from Dickens is that he hardly ever sees characters as wholly good or wholly bad. There are some outright villains - Slope perhaps, but one can usually see how they've ended up that way.
I think he's one of the least unjudgemental of novelists. You get novelists like George Eliot who are highly moral, but who condemn their characters for any transgressions; and novelists who don't condemn their characters because they aren't deeply interested in the morality of their situation. But Trollope is deeply interested in writing about morality without condemning his characters. The worst he'll often say is that a particular character isn't a favourite.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
I don’t think that’s at all fair to George Eliot. Who does she condemn in adam Bede or Sials Market?
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I love the authorial asides, specially the bit where Trolope says something like 'I didn't hear all the conversation, which is just as well as I don't want to have to write a three-volume novel'
Another thing is 'showing not telling' something that anyone whose ever done a creative writing class will have heard a lot about. I think telling has its place, I liked the way we were clearly told what the characters of the three archdeacon's was, and then there is the scene when Bold visits where those characters are neatly illustrated.
I don't think Bold is the villan as such. He is someone doing the wrong thing from the best of motives. I've come across a few of those in my time.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
That alone shows you how much more subtle he was than Dickens. Who always favored painting in black and white.
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ACK
Shipmate
# 16756
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Posted
I got into Trollope thanks to the TV series of Barchester, and in my late teens/early twenties, read most of the Barchester stories and Palliser/Phinius Finn stories. Then not read any more until re-reading 'The Warden' now.
I need to re-read more.
It was my teens last time I saw 'The Barchester Chronicles', but I still had Nigel Hawthorne's voice in my head when I read the Archdeacon's lines. (Although he might have sounded more like Appleby than Grantly). I guess I'll have my favourite actor's voice in my head when I get around to re-reading 'Barchester Towers' with the Odious Mr Slope.
I like Trollope's chatty style. I think my favourite was 'Dr Thorne'. If I recall rightly, early on in that book, he tells you the ending, to stop you worrying unduly. (Though I might be mixing it up with 'The Princess Bride'). I like that his stories are character driven, inviting us to spend some time with these people.
I got the feeling he was not very happy with his portrayal of Grantly in 'The Warden', when he feels the need to tell us we have not seen him at his best. Bold, as the antagonist, is a sympathetic character, and Grantly's attempts to stamp on him, do not not do Grantly any favours. The antagonists in 'Barchester Towers', show Grantly in a better light, if I recall rightly.
I agree, it is more about people involved in religion, rather than being about religion.
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'It's the only thing that worries me about going to Heaven. Would I ever get used to the height.' Norman Clegg
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
That alone shows you how much more subtle he was than Dickens. Who always favored painting in black and white.
It's true. However, sometimes black and white is the better choice as with Bridget Riley or Schindler's List.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
I don’t think that’s at all fair to George Eliot. Who does she condemn in adam Bede or Sials Market?
But I do love her comment in Adam Bede that Methodism, like asthma, appears to run in families!
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ACK:
(snipped!)
I like Trollope's chatty style. I think my favourite was 'Dr Thorne'. If I recall rightly, early on in that book, he tells you the ending, to stop you worrying unduly. (Though I might be mixing it up with 'The Princess Bride'). I like that his stories are character driven, inviting us to spend some time with these people.
I got the feeling he was not very happy with his portrayal of Grantly in 'The Warden', when he feels the need to tell us we have not seen him at his best. Bold, as the antagonist, is a sympathetic character, and Grantly's attempts to stamp on him, do not not do Grantly any favours. The antagonists in 'Barchester Towers', show Grantly in a better light, if I recall rightly.
I agree, it is more about people involved in religion, rather than being about religion.
I certainly think that it was a slip to show the Archdeacon reading Rabelais, something that we never see him doing again.
There's a hard side to the Archdeacon, and Trollope doesn't tiptoe around it. In the Last Chronicles (spoiler alert for those who've not read it!) he sets about disinheriting his son, who he fears is about to make a foolish marriage, and does it at once because he knows he won't be able to do it after he's said his evening prayers. But he does change his mind later on...
I think the most devastating of Trollope's asides is also in the Last Chronicles, where the Bishop goes to the cathedral to pray after his ghastly wife's death, and Trollope suggests he is praying that he should not be glad she is dead. Ouch!
As regards deliberately giving the outcome of the plot away at the beginning, that of course is exactly what the Chorus does in Romeo and Juliet!
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
I think what really struck me about The Warden, on this re-read after 20-some years, is the gray areas, the moral ambiguity.
It's a really great little problem Trollope has set up here, because I think it seems obvious to the modern reader that John Bold is right -- the terms of the original bequest are NOT being upheld, and it's wrong for the Warden to be living in relative luxury in comparison to the poverty of the twelve old men. But by making the Warden so obviously a good and decent fellow, and Bold, while well-meaning, quite insensitive and sometimes unkind, our sympathies are with the person who is, on the surface of it, benefitting from a miscarriage of justice. I found it quite interesting and complex to set it up like this.
It's interesting, too, that it is a novel about people for whom the church is the central institution in their lives, but actual faith in God doesn't seem to come into it a whole lot. The Warden seems the likeliest person to be genuinely religious, but even with him, it's his personal kindness and his love of music that are the defining characteristics, not his piety. When he resigns the position, there's a sense that he's doing what he believes is right at personal cost to himself, which is certainly a moral position -- but it's also telling that what really motivates him is not a firm belief that it's wrong for the warden of the hospital to prosper in this way (he seems quite OK with someone else taking the position and getting the salary that he's giving up) but that he doesn't like to be the target of the public disapproval that comes with it.
It's all really very interesting and complex and nuanced, and because it's been so long since I read Trollope I forgot how well he does that.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pigwidgeon:
After reading all the of Barchester books (in the 90s) I discovered The Vicar of Bullhampton in my sister's former bedroom at my parents' home. I read it while visiting and then looked for a copy for myself, but it seemed to have been unavailable.
The Vicar of Bullhampton is available at abebooks.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Trollope's obvious difference from Dickens is that he hardly ever sees characters as wholly good or wholly bad. There are some outright villains - Slope perhaps, but one can usually see how they've ended up that way.
Trollope said that an author should be kind to his characters because he created them.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
Slope ended up in charge of a church 'in the vicinity of the New Road, and became known to fame as one of the most eloquent preachers and pious clergymen in that part of the metropolis.'
Double ouch!
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
But by making the Warden so obviously a good and decent fellow, and Bold, while well-meaning, quite insensitive and sometimes unkind, our sympathies are with the person who is, on the surface of it, benefitting from a miscarriage of justice. I found it quite interesting and complex to set it up like this.
There's another Trollope novel - I won't say which because mild spoiler - which is built around the same kind of situation: the more unpleasant people have justice on their side.
quote:
It's interesting, too, that it is a novel about people for whom the church is the central institution in their lives, but actual faith in God doesn't seem to come into it a whole lot. The Warden seems the likeliest person to be genuinely religious, but even with him, it's his personal kindness and his love of music that are the defining characteristics, not his piety.
I feel it's not so much that they don't have faith. Trollope is primarily interested in the consequences of the church being a worldly institution. I think it's more that he doesn't think it's his business as a novelist to describe what goes on between a character and God.
quote:
it's also telling that what really motivates him is not a firm belief that it's wrong for the warden of the hospital to prosper in this way (he seems quite OK with someone else taking the position and getting the salary that he's giving up)
More I think that Harding wouldn't venture to judge another person for holding the warden's position; he just can't reconcile it with his own conscience.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
It's also telling that what really motivates him is not a firm belief that it's wrong for the warden of the hospital to prosper in this way (he seems quite OK with someone else taking the position and getting the salary that he's giving up)
More I think that Harding wouldn't venture to judge another person for holding the warden's position; he just can't reconcile it with his own conscience.
That's certainly the most charitable interpretation, but it did seem to me that Warden Harding's conscience didn't really kick in until he was excoriated in the press for enjoying the benefits of his position -- the fear of public censure seemed to me to motivate him at least as much as the sense that he was actually doing anything wrong.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Yes, if we imagine that nobody made any accusations the Warden would be happy to continue as he has always done. He would never have changed on his own initiative.
All of Trollope (indeed, all the Victorian novelists) are also up for free at Gutenberg.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
In a sense I think it's the Julius Caesar dilemma as Shakespeare expounds it: it may be right and even necessary that a bad situation (or even a bad person) should be removed, but what comes in its place may be no better, and may well be worse.
'Always keep ahold of Nurse...'
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Trollope's obvious difference from Dickens is that he hardly ever sees characters as wholly good or wholly bad. There are some outright villains - Slope perhaps, but one can usually see how they've ended up that way.
Trollope said that an author should be kind to his characters because he created them.
Moo
I don't suppose you know where he said that?
In fact you can see in his own work that he doesn't quite hold by that himself; one could not and have any kind of a plot. You have to be mean to your characters, but in the right way. Eleanor, for instance, really does have a hard time of it. Is it a spoiler, to refer to developments in her life in the next book?
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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andras
Shipmate
# 2065
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Trollope's obvious difference from Dickens is that he hardly ever sees characters as wholly good or wholly bad. There are some outright villains - Slope perhaps, but one can usually see how they've ended up that way.
Trollope said that an author should be kind to his characters because he created them.
Moo
I don't suppose you know where he said that?
In fact you can see in his own work that he doesn't quite hold by that himself; one could not and have any kind of a plot. You have to be mean to your characters, but in the right way. Eleanor, for instance, really does have a hard time of it. Is it a spoiler, to refer to developments in her life in the next book?
I can see that we're going to get on to Barchester Towers some time next year, but we've already had so many references to what happens in it that I wouldn't worry too much!
Poor Lily Dale in The Small House at Allington has a pretty rough time of it too. I think she's lovely, though really she's a little too priggish for my taste - but then, oh so many Victorian lasses are depicted that way!
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
Posts: 544 | From: Tregaron | Registered: Dec 2001
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
One thing that seems to be becoming evident is that The Warden really does need to be read as a prologue to the rest of the Barchester Chronicles!
Did Trollope intend it to be a 'taster', as it were, or was it to be a 'stand alone' book?
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I am willing to bet that when The Warden was well received Trollope realized there was gold in them thar hills.
It is clear to me that Trollope has carefully set it up so that nobody is perfectly clean, except possibly the women who have no agency in this society anyway. Harding has been (we agree) incurious; Bold kicked over the wasp nest without thinking it through; the bishop is dominated by the archdeacon and the archdeacon himself is domineering. Nobody is criminal, but nobody's without stain.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
The women may have not much clout in The Warden, but wait until you meet Mrs. Proudie in the next book(s)...!! ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bishops Finger:
The women may have not much clout in The Warden, but wait until you meet Mrs. Proudie in the next book(s)...!!
IJ
As the Archdeacon would say, "Good Heavens!"
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
Indeed - and he has some quite Opprobrious Epithets in store for both her, and Mr. Slope....
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
IJ
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Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Trollope's obvious difference from Dickens is that he hardly ever sees characters as wholly good or wholly bad. There are some outright villains - Slope perhaps, but one can usually see how they've ended up that way.
Trollope said that an author should be kind to his characters because he created them.
Moo
I don't suppose you know where he said that?
In fact you can see in his own work that he doesn't quite hold by that himself; one could not and have any kind of a plot. You have to be mean to your characters, but in the right way.
I have read a tremendous amount of Trollope, and I don't recall where I read that. As someone said earlier, Trollope showed understanding (but not approval) of his bad characters, such as George Vavasour in Can You Forgive Her. The point is that, unlike Dickens, he was aware that his bad characters had motivations other than depravity.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Marama
Shipmate
# 330
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Posted
Is The Warden a religious book?
No, it’s a book about religious institutions, but not really about religion. As others have commented, Warden Harding does not really have theological or even ethical doubts about taking the stipend from Hiram’s charity, it’s the shame and embarrassment through the publicity which make him give up the post. On the other hand, one could see the posing of the main question (is it right to protest about an injustice (that the money from Hiram’s trust is not all being used for the purposes intended by the donor), when the resulting ‘reform’ benefits no-one, particularly the old men?) as a highly ethical one. The book is all about unintended consequences, the ambiguity of positions taken by just about everyone.
I was interested in Mary Louise’s comments about Trollope’s visit to South Africa. Before that journey he travelled to Australia and New Zealand, including a visit to the sugar country of northern Queensland. His comments on the use of Pacific indentured labour there are remarkably perceptive and complex: he notes that while British objections to South Sea Island labour were based on humanitarian fears, the opposition within Qld was on quite different grounds. Queenslanders were worried about the protection of white labour, and believed kanaka labour was a threat to their own standards. With this Trollope has little sympathy - 'The belief is as erroneous as it is vicious. It is in some sort a repetition of the infantile political economy which many years ago induced rural labourers in England to destroy threshing machines'. He was one of few contemporary observers to draw this distinction, and to realise that any alliance between the humanitarian and white labour motives for opposition to indenture must be fraught, to say the least.
Posts: 910 | From: Canberra | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
the fear of public censure seemed to me to motivate him at least as much as the sense that he was actually doing anything wrong.
I think Harding would be able to bear public censure if he felt he knew it was undeserved. He'd find it unpleasant, but he'd bear it. But what worries him particularly is the thought that the public might be correct.
I think Trollope's good at subtle moral psychology: someone like George Eliot might think that everyone should regard only their own interior conscience, and anything else is merely fear of censure; but to Trollope the two blur into each other.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Trollope's obvious difference from Dickens is that he hardly ever sees characters as wholly good or wholly bad. There are some outright villains - Slope perhaps, but one can usually see how they've ended up that way.
Trollope said that an author should be kind to his characters because he created them.
Moo
I don't suppose you know where he said that?
In fact you can see in his own work that he doesn't quite hold by that himself; one could not and have any kind of a plot. You have to be mean to your characters, but in the right way.
I have read a tremendous amount of Trollope, and I don't recall where I read that. As someone said earlier, Trollope showed understanding (but not approval) of his bad characters, such as George Vavasour in Can You Forgive Her. The point is that, unlike Dickens, he was aware that his bad characters had motivations other than depravity.
Moo
I know this as "An author must be an advocate for all his characters." My memory is failing me at the end of a long day. Perhaps it was purloined from Trollope. OTOH Terrence said that there was no new thing.
This is my first Trollope, and I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying it.
Posts: 758 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Nov 2016
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