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Wednesday on wednesday
Dec. 11th, 2024 04:19 pmCurrently re-reading: Phineas Redux, by Anthony Trollope. For such an old book the political parts feel very current in many ways: there's a lot in there about the demands of party loyalty over ideological consistency, on the ability of a politician with sufficient support to push at constitutionality... I guess some things don't really change. Nonetheless I think this is one for my favorite of the Palliser novels.
I actually do like Phineas Finn as a protagonist even though sometimes he stretches the bounds of credibility -- he's both SO unlucky and SO lucky, and both in completely melodramatic ways. He is so talented! So many women love him! And yet he just cannot catch a break (until, of course, the end of the book, when everything works out for him.) There is something of the woobie Gary Stu about him, maybe. He's certainly not the worst male protagonist in Trollope, though -- and overall I feel like the characters in this book are pretty good. So far there has not been much dead weight. It helps I guess that Trollope had three novels worth of characters to play with, and a lot of the cast have returned especially from Phineas Finn and The Eustace Diamonds. And once he's introduced the new characters he puts the romance plots to the side for most of the first volume in any case to handle the election and the change of government.
I had forgotten how really dreadfully petty Glencora can be, but I love her anyway.
I actually do like Phineas Finn as a protagonist even though sometimes he stretches the bounds of credibility -- he's both SO unlucky and SO lucky, and both in completely melodramatic ways. He is so talented! So many women love him! And yet he just cannot catch a break (until, of course, the end of the book, when everything works out for him.) There is something of the woobie Gary Stu about him, maybe. He's certainly not the worst male protagonist in Trollope, though -- and overall I feel like the characters in this book are pretty good. So far there has not been much dead weight. It helps I guess that Trollope had three novels worth of characters to play with, and a lot of the cast have returned especially from Phineas Finn and The Eustace Diamonds. And once he's introduced the new characters he puts the romance plots to the side for most of the first volume in any case to handle the election and the change of government.
I had forgotten how really dreadfully petty Glencora can be, but I love her anyway.
