As promised, here is the update on my Trollope rereadathon. This month I reread his second Barchester novel, Barchester Towers (1857), and I have So Many Thoughts. The first is that my possibly pre-emptive comparison of the triangular power dynamics of Trump, Musk and Vance with the novel’s Bishop Proudie, Mrs Proudie and the oleaginous Rev. Obadiah Slope, doesn’t work completely (I posited this in a Note a few days ago). It’s amusing to think of Musk in full Victorian dominatrix drag, but the fictional Bishop is no match for Trump, and the real life version isn’t funny at all.

Second, why Towers? No towers are mentioned in the plot and there is no stately pile in Trollope lore called the Towers. Perhaps someone has discerned why this novel is so titled: I haven’t read any Trollope criticism except the very out of date introduction in my very old edition, and it didn’t mention it either. So that’s a slight puzzle.

I admired the way Trollope rehabilitated Dr Grantly from the previous novel, The Warden, in which he is an interfering knowitall. At the opening of Barchester Towers Dr Grantly’s father, the outgoing Bishop of Barchester, is dying, and his son is widely expected to be in line to succeed him. But nothing can be done till the old man is dead, and time is running out for the present government, whose Prime Minister, in whose gift the bishopric lies, is pro-Grantly. Dr Grantly, genuinely affected by his father’s long-drawn-out illness, is horrified when he catches himself wondering how long his father will take to die and whether a telegram might reach the Prime Minister in time. He is truly penitent, he weeps, he is seen grieving by good old Mr Harding, who is the moral centre of this novel, and so Dr Grantly is fit to be placed on the side of the angels because he has put familial love ahead of personal ambition.

My edition (actually my husband’s edition, which he bought in his very early twenties after completing a maths degree, since he hadn’t actually read any from English Literature since he gave the subject up aged 16 to wallow in mathy waters. He cannot remember even finishing it) is illustrated very nicely by the English artist Edward Ardizzone. He is an odd choice to illustrate a satire populated by monsters, since Ardizzone specialised in cosy scenes and friendly, happy cheerful people, often in children’s books. He sweetens and sanitises, so his illustrations rather take the edge off Trollope’s more horrible creations.

My absolute favourite characters are the charming and irresponsibly indifferent Stanhope family, who care little about anybody or anything, except perhaps each other. The father is a lazy cleric who employs curates to do the work in his two parishes and lives in Italy catching butterflies and getting into debt. The mother lives to dress nicely, and is otherwise indolent. This is not the only Mansfield Park borrowing in Barchester Towers: the second Stanhope daughter is Madeline, la Signora Vesey Neroni, apparently still married to an Italian captain whom she has abandoned to lie on a sofa with a mysteriously disabled leg for the rest of her life, fascinating all who come near her. She and her charming but lazy brother Bertie are the Mary and Henry Crawford of Barchester Towers, with their elder sister Charlotte as their enabler. They manipulate all of Barchester society for their own amusement, and care nothing for the consequences. If they could be bothered to exert themselves they would be dangerous predators in this sleek, comfortable snug little town, but they can’t, and they slide off back to cheaper living in Italy.

The real predator is the Reverend Obadiah Slope, a man on the make who is currently enacting the role of a fervent Low Church clergyman. He really is ordained, but if it suited his purposes he could flip to Puseyite High Church smells and bells in a trice. He is a magnificent plotter and a fiend in his arrogant attacks on the Barchester clergy, determined to use his position as the Bishop’s chaplain, secretary, advisor and puppet-master, to rise as fast and as far as he can. But he over-reaches himself due to lust and pride, and we see the back of him too.

Most of all I enjoyed Trollope’s interpolations of himself into the narrative. He groans at how boring a bad preacher can be and how often he had endured terrible sermons in the Cathedral. He also grumbles at his editor for insisting on fifty more pages to conclude the novel (it was serialised) when any fool could see that the plot could be wrapped in five.

There are many more excellent satirical portraits, the Proudies being the most splendid, but that’s enough of a refresher for you. In March I shall revist Dr Thorne.