Last Chronicle of Barset

Anthony Trollope's The Last Chronicle of Barset has the distinction of being my last book of 2017 and my first book of 2018. Weighing in at 861 pages, I started reading it on Nov 18 and managed to finish it in 7 weeks with the holidays and holiday reading thrown in there for good measure.

As you might have guessed by the title, this is the last of 6 novels in the Barsetshire series, and I have to say that I was sad to say goodbye to the villagers, squires, clerics, lawyers, wives, and servants that I've come to know and love since I started on the series with The Warden, back in November of 2010. I think when I reread the series--and believe me, I will!--I will endeavor to do it in less than 7 years!

I also found that I enjoyed the books more as I progressed through the series. I know that book 2, Barchester Towers, is considered to be the crown jewel of the series, but it was not my favorite. Perhaps being more familiar with the characters and their lives with each book helped, but I really think book 6 is the best. Such a rich collection of characters--I think Josiah Crawley and Lily Dale are two of the most frustrating, and fascinating, characters ever developed. Their obstinacy is maddening, and yet I could definitely see the world from their point of view. They couldn't be more different--one is a dour killjoy and the other is a warm and witty woman, but they defy social convention and will not bend to make their road easier.

I couldn't help wishing that Trollope had written a 7th book in the series in which he married off Jane Crawley to Johnny Eames. Maybe there's some Trollope fan fiction out there that finally gives Johnny a wife--if ever a man should be married, he is it.

I found myself mentally picturing Lord Grantham from Downton Abbey (as played by Hugh Bonneville) for Archdeacon Grantley--I find it not at all strange and very amusing that Julian Fellowes borrowed the name Crawley from Trollope's Barchester series and gave it to the lords of the manor! And Mrs. Grantley's ways of handling the Archdeacon are definitely aligned with Cora's.

Finally, I think that one of the reasons I liked this final book so much is the mystery around how Mr. Crawley got the cheque in the first place. I think that more than the other novel, this one had a super strong plot line off of which the other branches could comfortably hang. It was a perfectly constructed novel, and immensely satisfying to read.

I would absolutely love it if the BBC did a TV series of the entire Barchester series. There is a version from 1982, but it only goes through the first 2 books.

Framley Parsonage

Well, I finally finished Framley Parsonage, fourth novel in the Anthony Trollope Barsetshire series.  I've been reading it all month, and I chose April to read it in because April 24 was the bicentennial of Trollope's birth.  I actually liked it very much until the ending.  My problem is that I found the final 20 pages to be unrelentingly tedious.

Trollope resolved the main story thread, that of Mark Robarts' financial difficulties and the romance between Lucy Robarts and Lord Ludovic, very nicely in chapter 46, "Lady Lofton's Request," but then he went on with two more seemingly endless chapters, neatly tying off and tucking in all the other loose story threads.  I think the other threads could've been dealt with in two pages, and if so, I would have come away from the book satisfied and happy.  As it is, all I can remember is how desperately boring I found the final stage of the book.

Perhaps I am more of a modern reader than I think I am, but I tend to like stories that aren't totally put to bed at the end.  And, in a series like this, the stories don't need to be completely resolved because we're presumably going to encounter some of the characters again in the subsequent novels.

Anyway, enough grousing.

I've blogged twice about the book before.
Characters you can relate to
First impressions

I found myself thinking about George Eliot's Middlemarch a good deal whilst reading Framley Parsonage.   Mark Robarts finds himself head over heels in debt, just as Dr. Lydgate does in Middlemarch.  The way they get into debt is much different and how their wives react couldn't be more different, but the moral and ethical dilemmas that both men face were similar.

I also couldn't help thinking about Gaskell's My Lady Ludlow when I read about Lady Lofton, and I kept on picturing Francesca Annis as she appeared as Lady Ludlow in the Cranford BBC series.

I recently heard that Julian Fellowes, who has blessed us with Downton Abbey, is going to be doing an adaptation of Dr. Thorne--the third novel in the series--and I hope that he makes it a double feature, and continues Dr. Thorne's story through to its logical conclusion in Framley Parsonage. My dear Dr. Thorne doesn't shown up in Framley Parsonage until the last third, but I enjoy his character so much that I did a little happy dance when he did make it on the scene.  I think there's quite enough material in these two books for at least a good six episodes of a mini-series.  And I don't think Fellowes could resist bringing Lucy Robarts to the screen--the only problem would be that she would steal the show from Mary Thorne, Dr. Thorne's niece, and the heroine of Dr. Thorne.

My prediction for who could play Miss Dunstable, one of my favorite characters in both books, is the incomparable Emma Thompson.

Framley Parsonage is part of my 2015 Back to the Classics challenge, filling the 19th century category.