Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Source of book: I own this.

 This was this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. One of the things I enjoy about this club is that I end up reading interesting books that I never would have discovered on my own. I hadn’t heard of either this book (which just came out) and wasn’t familiar with James McBride, although a few of his other books sound familiar. However, I rather enjoyed it, as did other members of our club, making it one of the most universally loved selections since I joined the club. 

 James McBride has apparently written a number of other books, often with historical settings, and was awarded a National Humanities medal by President Obama. I dare say I will be putting his other books on my reading list.

 I’m not even sure what to call Deacon King Kong. It is literary fiction, in my opinion. But it is such a weird blend of pathos and humor that it defies categorization. It is a thoughtful book, but with elements of slapstick and magical realism. It makes a pair of suicides seem like a sacrament - a baptism. It makes a potential affair seem good for the characters. It has killer red ants, killer hooch, and mysterious cheese. And, more than anything, it has a bunch of memorable characters, any of which could be the center of their own story. 

 Set in the Brooklyn projects in 1969, the book starts and centers around a bizarre incident. “Sportcoat,” an old man who lost his wife a few years back and has spiraled into alcoholism, shoots the ear off the local drug dealer, a young man named Deems, who was once Sportcoat’s protege in the local baseball team. From there, the past and present swirl around the fallout from that incident, drawing in gangsters, cops, smugglers, an ancient artifact, and a few old secrets. Sportcoat is the deacon of the title - a deacon of Five Ends Baptist Church who prefers the illicit hooch King Kong to any commercial preparation. 

 As it turns out, there are connections to The Elephant, the last in a line of Italian smugglers. Why did his dad fund the construction of the church, including an epic mural of Christ on the side? Deems, in turn, is the pivot point of a drug war. And why did Sportcoat’s wife Hettie end up floating in the harbor? And what happened to the Christmas Fund money she kept but never told anyone where? 

 McBride brings in an honest Irish cop trying to make it alive to retirement, a dying gangster whose daughter runs a bagel shop, the delightful maintenance man for the building, Hot Sausage, and so many more. 

 I hesitate to describe the book more than that, because the plot is fun and full of surprises (although I figured out a few things ahead of time.) I recommend reading it for yourself. 

 McBride’s writing is outstanding - one of the comments in our club meeting was that from the first few pages, you really feel like you are there. The sights and sounds and smells and social dynamics really come alive. One person who had lived in New York City concurred with the reality of the area described - McBride grew up there, the son of an African American preacher and a Jewish-Polish mother - the daughter of a rabbi. The thing is, McBride doesn’t actually spend a whole lot of words on descriptions: he manages to create the picture without obviously doing so. Also a feature of his style is that he can take shootings and drugs and booze and gangsters and add the humor and slapstick without it feeling like a parody. It’s as much a part of the world he creates as the ghost of Hettie. 

 There are lots of good lines, a few of which I jotted down. 

 The first is an incident that is pretty hilarious, but has almost nothing to do with the rest of the plot: an explanation of how the red ants came to Brooklyn. Hector, the Colombian immigrant, gets too big for his britches, and dumps his wife and kids back home. She tearfully agrees to a divorce, and packs him lunch. When he opens it back in Brooklyn, he finds it full of the red ants, and a note saying “Adios motherfucker...we know you ain’t sending no pesos!” The ants establish themselves, and become part of the yearly life of the projects. This leads into a fantastic sentence in which the ants become

 

...a sole phenomenon in the Republic of Brooklyn, where cats hollered like people, dogs eat their own feces, aunties chain-smoked and died at age 102, a kid named Spike Lee saw God, the ghosts of the departed Dodgers soaked up all possibility of new hope, and penniless desperation ruled the lives of the suckers too black or too poor to leave, while in Manhattan the buses ran on time, the lights never went out, the death of a single white child in a traffic accident was a page one story, while phony versions of black and Latino life ruled the Broadway roost, making white writers rich — West Side Story, Porgy & Bess, Purlie Victorious — and on it went, the whole business of the white man's reality lumping together like a giant, lopsided snowball, the Great American Myth, the Big Apple, the Big Kahuna, the City That Never Sleeps, while the blacks and Latinos who cleaned the apartments and dragged out the trash and made the music and filled the jails with sorrows slept the sleep of the invisible and functioned as local color.

 

I’m not the only reviewer to have noticed that line. It’s arguably the most memorable line in the book.

 The missing Christmas Fund money is not only a big motivation for Sportcoat, it puzzles everyone in the church. Hettie never did disclose its location, and it never does appear. (Sorry about the spoiler.) Did she simply pocket the money herself? It seems possible. Is it hiding somewhere in the church? Also possible. What isn’t a mystery is why she kept it herself. 

 

“She ain’t supposed to walk around with the Christmas box.”

“She had to hide it someplace after she collected for it. Normally she hid it at church. But she didn’t always have time to wait for church to empty out. Sometimes folks would linger eating fish dinners or the pastor would preach overtime or some such thing and she had to go home, so she brung it home with her.”

“Why didn’t she lock it in the pastor’s office?”

“What fool would keep money ‘round a pastor?” Rufus asked. 

Sportcoat nodded knowingly.  

 

I have been a part of a number of churches in my lifetime, and one thing I can say is that I agree with Rufus. And, interestingly, one of the best ways to tell if a pastor is honorable about money is how careful he is to distance himself from the money. The honorable ones keep as far away as possible from it, delegating the financial stuff to someone independent. (Or at least as independent as possible in a small church.) It makes a difference. 

 Another interesting observation comes from the old, retired gangster, the Governor, talking about his deceased brother. (Who was also an artifact smuggler - he found a cave of stolen Nazi treasures including, in a fictional incident, the Venus of Willendorf. This artifact is in the book, although clearly the whole episode is fiction, not fact.) 

 

“He had an apartment in the Village the size of a rugby field. Full of fancy things. I never asked. He had no kids, so I figured it wasn’t anything. My poppa couldn’t stand Macy. He used to say, ‘Macy likes boys.’ I told Poppa, ‘There was a priest at Saint Andrews who’s said to like boys.’ But he didn’t want to hear it. I was a young man back then, fast on my feet and a bit of a wanker, but even then I knew the difference between a sick man who likes children and a man sweet on men.” 

 

This is a distinction lost on a lot of people in my Fundie former tribe, alas. 

 Another perceptive passage concerning sex is between the Irish cop and the wife of the pastor of Five Ends Baptist. She is in a loveless marriage, to an older man who she married before she understood what she was doing. As a divorce attorney, this rings true. 

 

She had been seventeen when she wed a man twelve years older than her. He had seemed to have purpose but turned out to have none, other than an affinity for football games and the ability to pretend to be what he was not, to pretend to feel things he did not feel, to make jokes out of things that did not work for him, and like too many men she knew, daydream about meeting some lovely young thing from the choir, preferably at three a.m., in the choir pew. She didn’t hate her husband. She just didn’t know him.

 

This one too was fascinating. Sister Gee (the pastor’s wife) is pressed for information by Potts, the Irish cop, after an incident in which the hapless Earl tries to put a hit on Sportcoat, but ends up bonked by a wayward bottle, then set on the subway back home by Sister Gee and a young gentle giant from the church. 

 

“You should have called us.”

“Why we got to have the police around every time we has a simple party? Y’all don’t watch out for us. Y’all watch over us. I don’t see y’all out there standing over the white folks in Park Slope when they has their block parties.” 

 

In recent years, as cell phone video has made it increasingly obvious even to this sheltered white guy that our experience with the police is vastly different from the experience of non-whites, McBride calls it straight. “To Protect and Serve,” as the LAPD motto goes, is directed at whites. The police protect “us” from “them.” And serve “us” at the expense of “them.” It’s a heartbreaking state of affairs. 

 

In a conversation later in the book, Potts can’t quite understand why the Five Ends folks are so obsessed with that Christmas Club money. 

 

“You were talking about the church money. It’s got nothing to do with this trouble.”

“It’s got everything to do with it. That Christmas Club money is all we can control. We can’t stop these drug dealers from selling poison in front of our houses. Or make the city stop sending our kids to lousy schools. We can’t stop folks from blaming us for everything gone wrong in New York, or stop the army from calling our suns to Vietnam after them Vietcong done cut the white soldiers’ toenails too short to walk. But the little nickels and dimes we saved up so we can give our kids ten minutes of love at Christmastime, that’s ours to control. What’s wrong with that?”

 

Although Potts isn’t quite getting it, he is falling in love with Sister Gee, and he flounders trying to express his concern for the danger she is in. After all, the drug bigwig wants to put the hit on Sportcoat; and, since the hapless Earl failed, is sending in his big gun: Harold Dean. 

 

He wanted to say, “He’s a killer and I don’t want him near you.” But he had no idea what her reaction would be. He didn’t even know what Harold Dean looked like. He had no information other than an FBI report with no photo, only the vaguest description that he was a negro who was “armed and extremely dangerous.” 

 

Dang, that’s some good satire. And it particularly hits home because “Harold Dean” is actually Haroldeen, a young woman. The whole “hey, he looked like the suspect” is problematic for the reason above. It seems the “all black people look alike” trope is alive and well in law enforcement, alas.

 [Side note: years ago, when I saw the Harlem Globetrotters, one of the jokes was that the big “clown prince” guy borrowed a purse from an older woman in the front row. When the referee told him to give it back, he said he couldn’t, because he wasn’t sure who he took it from. It was some woman. What woman? A white woman. Which one? He didn’t know, because they all looked alike…]

 Anyway, Potts keeps harping on “he’s dangerous.” Sister Gee is ready with a great response:

 

“Nothing in this world is dangerous unless white folks says it is,” she said flatly. “Danger here. Danger there. We don’t need you to tell us about danger in these projects. We don’t need you to say what the world is to us.”

 

Preach it. And Potts really is trying to get it, which makes him better than a whole lot of people in our country. 

 I have to end with a humorous bit. It would take too long to explain the characters and the situation, but suffice it to say that rumor has it that Hot Sausage was killed in a gun battle. (He was only injured, don’t worry.) 

 

Joaquin, several spots behind them, looked strangely sad. “I borrowed twelve dollars from Sausage,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t pay it back.”

“God, you are cheap,” Miss Izi said. She was standing a good five people ahead of her ex-husband and stepped out of line to address him. “You’re so tight with money your ass squeaks when you walk.” 

 

This book was a lot of fun, thoughtful and perceptive, and packed with great characters. I’m definitely planning to add some more James McBride books to my list. 

 

***

 

Just for fun, here is the list of books that our book club has read. At least the ones I have read too. Most of these were read for the club, but a few were ones I read previously - those posts pre-date the club discussion - and some I read afterward, because I missed the discussion. 

 

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Bad News by Edward St. Aubyn

Circe by Madeline Miller

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Calypso by David Sedaris

The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

There There by Tommy Orange

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Educated by Tara Westover

Stiff by Mary Roach

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Artemis by Andy Weir

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

 

The Hundred Days by Patrick O'Brian

Source of book: I own this.

This book is number 19 in the Aubrey/Maturin series of novels about the British Navy during and after the Napoleonic Wars. I have read all of the previous books, and reviewed the last few for my blog. Because I do not duplicate all of the background information in each post, it is probably best to read them in order. And by all means, read the books in the correct order, as a particular adventure will often be stretched across several books.

The Letter of Marque

The Nutmeg of Consolation

The Thirteen Gun Salute

The Truelove

The Wine Dark Sea

The Commodore

The Yellow Admiral

Also: SPOILER ALERT! 

***

Sorry, but in order to discuss this book properly, there must be spoilers. 

First, an historical one. Napoleon escaped from exile at Elba, and embarked on a last effort to conquer Europe. This period, between his escape and Waterloo is now referred to as the “Hundred Days,” hence the title of this book, which is set during that period. 

The book, however, does not focus on the land battles, but instead follows the intrigues and skirmishes in the Mediterranean. In the confusion in French politics, the French navy and its officers find themselves in a pickle: do they declare loyalty to King Louis XVIII or follow Napoleon? Or do nothing, hoping to see one party win first? To pick the wrong horse, so to speak, could mean the end of a career or worse…

In addition, there were numerous ships under construction in various Mediterranean ports that could be of use to either the Royal forces (who were nominally allies of Britain) or Napoleon’s imperial navy. 

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are thus dispatched to the Mediterranean to disrupt anything which would benefit Napoleon, and protect the shipping of England’s allies. 

The book essentially begins and ends with death. First is the sudden and unexpected death of Stephen’s wife, Diana, in a carriage accident. (Along with Jack’s mother-in-law.) This kind of catches everyone off guard, as Diana has been a beloved central character since the second book in the series. 

Near the end of the book, Aubrey’s coxswain, Barrett Bonden, is killed in action. Bonden has been a supporting character since the very beginning, so his loss is also keenly felt. The hazards of war, though.

The Hundred Days contains a number of related yet distinct episodes. There is the rescue of an ambushed convoy, intelligence intrigue, an extended land trip in Algeria by Stephen, and a dramatic capture of a gold transport. 

In addition to the central friendship of Maturin and Aubrey, an additional character makes his appearance as a companion and contrast to Maturin. Amos Jacob is a Jewish physician and spy who signs on to the voyage, ostensibly as an assistant to Maturin, but really because he speaks multiple languages (crucially Arabic and Turkish) and has contacts throughout the Mediterranean. He is also a Cainite, which leads to some rather interesting conversations in the book. Jacob is a strong character, filling a role which had been missing in the series since Mr. Martin retired to a land career.  

The episode on land is a rather interesting one. Stephen and Jacob are tasked with convincing the Dey of Algiers to withhold the cash payment to Islamic mercenaries planning to delay the Russian forces from joining England in battle against Napoleon. This ends up completely differently from how everyone expects, because immediately prior to Amos and Stephen’s arrival, the present Dey is strangled, and Omar Pasha takes his place. (This is a fictional character, not to be confused with the historical Omar Pasha - I had to look that up to be sure.) Stephen and the Dey have a hunting trip together, which seems to go well, but Jacob finds out from a source that the Dey has sent the money despite promising not to. At that point, it becomes a race against time to intercept the shipment. 

I also enjoyed the mock “battle” between Aubrey’s ships and the ship of a rival French captain. This captain has appeared before in the books, and he and Aubrey have a cordial relationship despite fighting on opposite sides. The French captain faces a dilemma, because he has no love for Napoleon, but his commanding officer has picked the side of Napoleon. Aubrey proposes a way to save face. He will “attack” the French ship - firing blanks - and the French ship will fire back in kind. After that, the French ship will surrender, realizing that it is outnumbered and outgunned. (Both quite true.) Thus, Aubrey can win the “battle” with no bloodshed on either side. 

I thought The Hundred Days was one of the better plotted books, with a clearer focus and theme. Not that there is anything wrong with the narratives which stretch over two or three books, but as a single book, this one held together well. 

There are a few quotes worth mentioning. First is the reference to the Kasbah (Casbah) of Algiers. I think this calls for both a picture and a song, don’t you think? 

By toufik Lerari from Nice, France - Casbah - Algiers, CC BY-SA 2.0

This is part of the palace itself. The whole compound is in disrepair, alas, although some restoration has been done. 

The second comes in a discussion between the Dey’s rather disingenuous vizier and Stephen, after Stephen raises the question of the mercenary payment. 

Surely, my dear sir, a man of your egregious perspicacity cannot believe these wild tales? His Highness is a most orthodox Sunnite, while the agitators in Herzegovina and those parts, of whom I have heard quite often, are violent Shiites; and they have turned to a notorious Shiite sheikh in Morocco. For them to ask the orthodox Dey to help them at this point passes belief: it is as though a band of Calvinists were to beg for the assistance of the Vatican. 

While there is obviously some truth here (and the Calvinism reference is amusing), the vizier neglects to mention that supposed enemies make common cause all the time. It is the nature of politics, so to speak. 

The other great line is in a discussion between Jacob and Maturin. Prior to leaving Algiers, Maturin has discovered two Irish children who were captured and enslaved. He purchases them, intending to house them in the ambassador’s home until he can arrange transportation back to Ireland. The ambassador’s wife refuses, which infuriates Maturin. 

“Listen, Amos: did you ever read an author who said, ‘Never underestimate a woman’s capacity for jealousy, however illogical or inconsistent or indeed self-defeating’?”

“I do not think so: but the notion is fairly wide-spread among those who think of men and women as belonging to two different nations; and who wish to be profound.” 

I have experienced too many irrationally jealous men to buy into this version of gender essentialism, and thus agree with Amos on this one. 

I am almost done with these books, sadly, and will likely have to find a new series to read. I highly recommend them as literary historical fiction. O’Brian has created truly memorable characters, with an admirable depth and complexity. His moral dilemmas are also true to life - and the time in which the books are set. Also impressive is the way that his characters age throughout the books, both physically and emotionally. 

Trans Atlantic by Colum McCann

Source of book: I own this. 

Every year, for the last quite a few, I have participated in a 10 kilometer run, the annual Rock to Pier race. My wife started it, the same way she got me into running as an adult. (I ran a bit as a teen, but not competitively.) Namely, she started doing it, and encouraged me to join in. Rock to Pier is run from Morro Rock (at Morro Bay, California) to Cayucos Pier, roughly 6.2 miles away. On the beach, at low tide, early in the morning. In other words, as fun of a run as you will find. The fact that they run it in July, when it is hot as Hades in Bakersfield, but is usually a cloudy 55 at race time in Morro Bay is a real bonus. All this to say that this weekend was spent at the beach. Which means I needed a beach read. 

I haven’t always been consistent in what I read at the beach. Some years, I have just brought whatever I was already reading. Last year, I did it right, and brought a P. G. Wodehouse book (Cocktail Time) - which is ALWAYS a good choice for light beach reading. Another year, I brought a Camus, which was perhaps a bit heavy for the occasion. Sometimes, my book is too big for a single weekend, as in the case when I started The Irregulars, about Roald Dahl’s spy work. 

Anyway, this time, I selected as my beach read a book that I happened to pick up used, by an author I enjoyed last time. (Definitely consider reading Let the Great World Spin. It is excellent.) This book is shorter, and rather different, but it showcases McCann’s wonderful writing and creative conceptualization. 

Colum McCann was born and grew up in Ireland, but immigrated to the United States, and has lived in New York for most of his career. You can tell that his heart is in both places, though, the country of his origin, and his adopted country. While Let the Great World Spin has an Irish connection, Trans Atlantic is explicitly about the connections between the two worlds. The first half of the book tells of three historical crossings between North America and Ireland, each of which had profound consequences for history. These three narratives are told from the point of view of three historical characters - with a bit of artistic license. The second half of the book is purely fictional, telling of four generations of women and their connections to Ireland and the New World. These narratives intersect with the historical narratives, although this doesn’t become clear until later in the book. In this sense, I spent the first half of the book trying to figure out how McCann was going to make sense of all the seemingly unconnected stories. I am not entirely sure he pulled off what he was intending, but I’m also not sure it matters. The book was thoroughly enjoyable and fascinating throughout, whether or not it truly gelled as a whole. McCann is a skilled writer, and a compelling storyteller, and that carries the book. 

McCann selected three historical events, all of which are - in my opinion - underrated and underappreciated. I suspect that McCann thought so too - and his short interview at the end of the paperback edition I own supports that surmise. 

The first in the book (although chronologically second) is the first transatlantic non-stop aircraft flight. And NO, IT WAS NOT LINDBERGH! (Sorry, I’m a bit of an airplane buff - my dad worked in aviation most of my childhood in addition to flying as an amateur pilot.) Lindburgh gets credit mostly because he - and his aircraft - were photogenic. And his kid was kidnapped and murdered. He was, to be sure, the first to fly solo across the Atlantic, but he did so a full EIGHT YEARS after Alcock and Brown did so - and several others made the trip in various aircraft and airships. (Also often lost to memory is that Lindbergh was an open Nazi, who was rebuked by FDR for his pro-Nazi propaganda efforts.) Anyway, Alcock and Brown made the crossing from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919, winning the prize for the first successful effort, and also bringing the first airmail from North America to Europe. 

The second crossing in the book is the first chronologically: the trip that Frederick Douglass made to Ireland to lecture and gather support for abolition. In 1938, the enslaved Douglass escaped and fled to New York, where he became a free man. Well, sort of. He was still, legally, a slave in the South. He was also vulnerable to being captured by slave catchers from the South working in the North - his life literally depended on his being able to escape from those who would enslave him again. Seven years later, in 1845, he would travel to Ireland and England to lecture. His letters reveal the sense of profound relief he felt on setting foot in Ireland, where he was legally a free man. McCann describes the tour of Ireland from the point of view of Douglass. While he does draw on the letters Douglass himself wrote, he also is clear that the book is fiction, and the individual incidents are not historical. This section of the book is also fantastic, in my view. Douglass arrived during the Potato Famine, and got to see first hand the crushing poverty and starvation. And, as McCann points out, the famine was far more complicated than just a potato blight. During the famine, Ireland literally produced enough food to feed twice its population. But the food was exported, leaving the locals to starve. Factors in this were the centuries-long oppression of Ireland by England. English landlords owned much of the land - even though they lived back in England. The food was exported for a profit (to the landlords, not the tenants) to feed England’s livestock, colonial armies, and territories. Laissez-faire economic policies allowed the wealthy to seek profits literally at the expense of Irish lives, and caused food prices to soar beyond the ability of the working poor - tenants of the gentry - to pay. A million died, and a million more emigrated - reducing Ireland’s population by 25%. The Famine stands as a sobering example of how unregulated capitalism can fail vulnerable people, while enriching the wealthy. It literally killed the most people in Europe in the 19th Century other than the Napoleonic Wars. The Famine also led to mass migration to the United States, causing the first major immigration panic (very similar to that of today.) 

The third historical crossing that McCann uses in the book is one which occurred during my lifetime. I confess, it didn’t really mean much to me at the time, mostly because its significance wouldn’t become apparent until years - decades - later. The Good Friday Agreement, which brought an unprecedented peace to Ireland, has turned out, in retrospect, to have been one of the great triumphs of diplomacy of the 20th Century. While many deserve credit for making it happen, Senator George Mitchell was a key figure, chairing the talks, and making numerous trips across the Atlantic to facilitate the peace process. McCann chooses to tell the story of the final week of that negotiation from the perspective of Mitchell. 

A bit of my own experience here. I grew up during the Troubles. They were a constant background during my entire minority. They also served as the sole remaining example of Catholic/Protestant warfare. And also a graphic example of the fact that no conflict is either purely religious. Politics and religion are always intertwined, and the Irish Troubles were as much about hundreds of years of oppression and abuse by England and the tension between wealthy Brits who plundered Ireland as about any doctrinal differences. In fact, I suspect most of those involved at the street level could have really told you any meaningful differences in doctrine. It was always us versus them and hate and history and politics. In my late teens, I read a few early Tom Clancy books. (Before he became a brand…) One of those was Patriot Games, about the Irish conflict. It was the start, for me, of learning nuance in political/religious conflict, and, in my opinion, it is the best written of Clancy’s books. Also, during the time of the agreements, I discovered (after a childhood of hostility toward secular music) U2, and their refreshingly Christian take on violence and conflict. 

After these three historical episodes, McCann turns to the lives of four generations of women who come into the other stories. It starts with Lily, a servant girl in an Irish household (with a rather dark past), who decides, inspired by her meeting with Douglass, to take a boat to America. Once she arrives, she finds (like most Irish immigrants) that she is viewed as a “white n----r,” and less than the “native” white population. She has a child out of wedlock, he is killed in the Civil War, and she ends up marrying a Norweigian immigrant and having a family with him. Her daughter, Emily, becomes a journalist, despite the sexism of the times. (She ends up being forced into an affair with a married man to get her articles published, only for him to claim he wrote all her stuff.) With a daughter by this creep, she flees to Canada, and establishes her own career. She is there when Alcock and Brown take off on their historic flight, and her teenage daughter, Lottie, takes pictures. Later, Lottie meets an Irishman when they travel to interview Brown, and she marries him, settling in Ireland. An elderly Lottie later meets Mitchell at a tennis match. Lottie’s daughter Hannah completes the story, telling of her son’s death at the hands of some group or another during the Troubles, and her eventual loss of the family property due to debt and the changing of the times. 

The point of the book is definitely not the plot. I don’t feel I am giving away any spoilers, because there are no real surprises in that sense. The history is easy enough to know, and the specifics of the women’s stories are more about the psychology than the incidents. McCann emphasizes the question of belonging. Is Lily Irish, or is she American? And what does that even mean? Is she Catholic, Atheist, or Protestant? And what is the meaning of that for her anyway? And, for that matter, where is the meaning of her life: her mother forced into prostitution, her abandonment by the father of her child, the death of her husband in an accident, her success in a man’s world. Emily, likewise, must find her place. She leaves the United States for Canada, just as she leaves the rural Midwest for the big city. When her daughter remains in Ireland, while she returns, who is she? Lottie too has her questions. She chooses Ireland, but will always be “the American.” Of the four, Hannah is the least conflicted internally - she is of her land. But she is losing that land, and that connection. Where will she go? That question is left unanswered, but it is hinted that she may make the move back to North America and take her chances in her old age. 

This is where I must say that I really love McCann’s writing. His descriptions are economical yet evocative. In both of his books, I found even the minor characters to be intriguing, human, and well drawn. He rarely dwells on the successful sorts, but gives a human look to those who struggle. For this reason, his descriptions of both urban Dublin and rural Ireland, both with crushing poverty and desperation, are shockingly real. The little details, the chance conversation, the smells: it comes to life with his prose. 

On a related note, McCann has an eye for those who truly live their religion. The radical priest in Let the Great World Spin is one of the most memorable characters I can think of, to be sure. But in this book, the Quakers and the devout Irish Catholics (not the powerful, but the kind) are drawn with a nuance - and they become perhaps the most inspirational characters in the book. As McCann notes, it is those who dwell on the outskirts of society for various reasons, who understand empathy and human decency. The ones not quite accepted by the mainstream, the dissenters, those who marry outside race and class, those motivated by a love for neighbor and an abhorrence of oppressive hierarchies. 

This may all sound more serious and dark than the book is. It actually is a good beach or summer read, with a lot of optimism mixed with the realities of human nature. McCann has a knack for writing literary fiction that becomes a page turner because of character and story, not a thriller plot. You can’t wait to find out what happens not because it is a mystery or action adventure (not that there is anything wrong with that!) but because you care about the characters and want to find out how their lives turn out. 

I’ll end with the ending line in the book, which I love:

We have to admire the world for not ending on us. 

McCann has a knack for the final line. Let the Great World Spin ends with “The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.” It is this weird optimism, in the face of tragedy and hardship, that characterizes McCann’s writing. Life is hard, and often tragic. But it is, in its own way, beautiful, and the very fact that life goes on is admirable.  

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Source of book: I own this.

A Gentleman in Moscow was one of last year’s book selections for our book club. I was unable to attend that meeting (although my wife did), so I never got around to reading it. However, she convinced me that it was really good, so I took it along on one of our trips last month. 

 

First of all, my wife was, as usual, right. The writing is fantastic. There have been a few books I have read recently in which there were some passages that made me wince. Even books by serious authors. But this book was unique in that I kept finding myself letting scenes wash over me, and basking in the glow of the language. Towles is just a straight-up good writer.

A number of critics have been less rosy about the book, and, after I finished it, I read a few of the reivews. I think the problem is that critics want the book to be...a different book. They want it to have a deeper, darker theme, be more “realistic” about Soviet Russia, to tackle problems. Or something like that.

This is not what this book is at all, and it doesn’t need to be. And it is not what the author intended. As he put it, in answer to the question, “Does the book have a central theme?”

I certainly hope not. In crafting a novel, I do not have an essential message I am trying to communicate. Rather, I hope to create a work of art that, while being satisfyingly cohesive, contains such a richness of images, ideas, and personalities that it can prompt varied responses from reader to reader, and from reading to reading.

In essence, I want to gather together a pile of brightly colored shards of glass. But rather than assemble these shards into a mosaic with a fixed image, I want to drop them into the bottom of a kaleidoscope where, thanks to a glint of sunlight and the interplay of mirrors, they render an intricate beauty which the reader can reconfigure by the slightest turn of the wrist.

I think that is a fine description. And a good example of Towles’ way with words.

With a few exceptions, the book takes place in an extremely limited environment. Count Alexander Rostov, a Russian aristocrat, is saved from the firing squad by his reputation as a revolutionary poet. (It turns out - spoiler - that he didn’t even write the poem.) Given his life, he is deprived of his liberty: he is to spend the rest of his life living in the Metropol hotel in Moscow, and essentially become a “former person,” with no identity. Evicted from his posh lodgings and confined to a former storage room on a top floor, his life changes dramatically. But the 30 year old Count takes it in stride, and finds a life for himself. He becomes the head waiter at the ritzy restaurant - after all, his greatest skill is in making seating charts and pairing wines - and forms friendships with staff, visitors, and foreign diplomats. Oh, and a young girl who later leaves her own daughter in the care of the Count.

The book unfolds over more than three decades: from 1922 through 1954. Towles chose an interesting, symmetric form for the book. In the first half of the book, the timeframe doubles each chapter. So the first section is one day after his arrest, the next two days, and so on, eventually giving a 15 year gap. At that point in the story, the narrative takes a dramatic turn, when young Sofia is dropped off by her mother - who never returns. From that point on, the reverse applies, with the times shrinking as they approach the final denouement.

Towles has said that he typically spends a couple years carefully outlining and plotting his books, followed by a rather rapid writing process. After this, of course, careful editing and revision is done, to polish the final product. I think this shows. I didn’t notice any plot holes, and nearly everything mentioned turns out to be important later. In this sense, Towles uses the careful technique of a mystery writer, but applies it to literary fiction.

There are so many things to mention, I am sure I will forget a lot of what I wanted to say as I was reading. (It doesn’t help that it is harder to take notes while traveling, or that it was hard to put the book down to do so.) However, I will do my best to hit some highlights.

First of all, the characters are great. They are memorable, believable, and human. I am a particular fan of books with good character-driven plots anyway. (My favorite Victorian is Anthony Trollope - true fans will understand why.) Count Rostov is, perhaps, a good bit better than the average aristocrat (and particularly than, say, the sort you find in most Russian novels), but he is no saint. He is as suave as they come, though, and is pretty admirable in the way he adapts to dramatically changed circumstances. I found him to be one of the more enjoyable characters I can remember from the last few years of reading.

There are others, too. Rostov’s friend, Mishka, the nervous, obsessive, and literary person never quite at home in the Soviet machine, despite his socialist beliefs. He is Rostov’s one friend from his youth - they were an interesting pair: Rostov the aristocrat, and Mishka the commoner.

The other members of the Triumvirate - Andrey, the maître d’ of the restaurant (without whom, the hotel would not run), and Emile, the cantankerous head chef - are also delightful. The whole idea of the behind-the-scenes meetings of Rostov, Andrey, and Emile to plan out the important dinner parties for visiting dignitaries - while sampling the creative cooking of Emile - was genius. As was their choice of the name.

The three main female characters are also interesting. Nina first appears as a precocious young girl. She befriends Rostov, and the two of them explore the bowels of the hotel using Nina’s pass key. Nina is studious and appears to have a bright future, but something goes wrong and her husband is sent to the gulag. She pursues him, leaving her daughter Sofia behind.

Sofia is every bit as smart as her mother, but quieter and less assertive. This makes it easier for her to blend in with Soviet values. It is Sofia, more than Nina, who changes Rostov and gives his life purpose.

The final woman is Anna, the actress. When we first meet her, she is young and at the height of her fame. She is also overbearing and arrogant, and doesn’t come off well. Nonetheless, she decides to have a fling with the Count, only to get completely pissed off when he picks up the clothes she has flung on the floor. (Apparently, Towles based part of this on an incident involving her own parents…) She comes around, however, and the two of them have an ongoing affair (if that is what you call a relationship between two unmarried people) for the rest of the book. Although first impressions are negative, she grows as a character, just like the Count. In fact, the two of them essentially grow together, losing their egos and adapting to the changes of life. (Let’s just say that it isn’t easy going from beautiful starlet to senior citizen actress - few have done it.)

Speaking of the affair, hats off to Towles for his understated sex scenes. I have mentioned this before, but I think it is brutally difficult to pull off a sexy sex scene in a novel. A horrible one? Sure. Or even a humorous one. But one that is actually sexy is harder. In my opinion, the more graphic, the worse it usually turns out. Sex is a heck of a lot of fun. But it is, in a way, kind of ooky if you think about the mechanics. Hence the difficulty of writing it well. The best part about Towles’ writing in this case is that he focused on the emotional component of what starts out as a purely physical one night stand. The fallout for both characters is what matters, and forms a believable foundation for what becomes - as it turns out - a pretty epic romance.

I should also mention the villain of the book: “The Bishop.” This is the nickname given to a bolshevik who starts out as a waiter, before being promoted all the way to hotel manager, despite his lack of ability. Towles shows a deft touch here, because one comes to loathe The Bishop before one even realizes he is a bolshevik stooge. He embodies all the annoying qualities of bad waiting - he is there when you don’t want him, isn’t there when you want him, pushes expensive wines and entrees despite their unsuitability together, misses social cues, and makes a blundering nuisance of himself. One or two of these are excusable in a basic restaurant - and I don’t nitpick college students trying to pay their way, or friendly diner waitresses who face rather different expectations. But all of these, in a waiter in a fine restaurant? From a person who exudes arrogance and refuses to learn? That’s unforgivable. This is why you know what kind of a person The Bishop is right from the start. That he turns out to be the worst kind of Soviet stool pigeon can be inferred from his character.

The minor characters fill things out well. The seamstress Marina, who becomes Rostov’s confidant and co-conspirator. Osip, the mucky-muck in the secret police (which changes names throughout the book, of course) who forms a bond with Rostov after he asks Rostov to tutor him in French. Richard Vanderwhile, the American diplomat. Abram, the handyman and beekeeper. And others.

I decided to include one scene from the book in this post, just because I think it is outstanding. Sofia has become a concert pianist, and will be performing. Marina has made her a dress which Rostov, being old school, doesn’t particularly approve - it is backless. He figures Anna is to blame.

“This dressless dress. No doubt it was drawn from one of your convenient magazines.”

Before Anna could respond, Marina stomped her foot.

“This was my doing!”

Startled by the seamstress’s tone, the Count saw with some trepidation that while one of her eyes had rolled toward the ceiling in exasperation, the other was bearing down on him like a cannonball.

“It is a dress of my design,” she said, “fashioned from my handiwork for my Sofia.”

Recognizing that he may have unintentionally insulted an artist, the Count adopted a more conciliatory tone.

“It is unquestionably a beautiful dress, Marina. One of the finest I have ever seen; and I have seen many find dresses in my time.” Here the Count gave an awkward little laugh in the hopes of clearing the air and then continued in a tone of fellowship and common sense. “But after months of preparation, Sofia will be performing Rachmaninov at the Palais Garnier. Wouldn’t it be a pity if, instead of listening to her play, the audience was staring at her back?”

“Perhaps we should drape her in sackcloth,” suggested the seamstress. “To ensure that the audience is not distracted.”

“I would never counsel sackcloth,” protested the Count. “But there is such a thing as moderation, even within the bounds of glamour.”

Marina stomped her foot again.

“Enough! We have no interest in your scruples, Alexander Ilyich. Just because you witnessed the Comet of 1812, does not mean that Sofia must wear a petticoat and a bustle.”

Later, Anna can’t resist rubbing it in.

“Is it true?” asked Anna, as she and the Count walked down the hallway after the fitting.

“Is what true?”

“Did you really see the Comet of 1812?”

This is just one well conceived scene, and one which fits in with the characterization. These are exactly the lines which Marina, Anna, and Rostov would have said, and by the time they appear in the book, they form additional examples of the characterization already apparent. I think this is one sign of good artistry: the characters aren’t there to do the motions of the plot. Rather, they act in accordance with who they are, in the world the author creates for them to act.

I greatly enjoyed this book, and strongly recommend it. No, it isn’t intended to have a deep message. But it is a literary work - a work of art, beautiful for what it is, not for its lack of a message. And really, there are themes in this book. Themes like loyalty, friendship, mutual compromise, adaptation, and so on. As Towles puts it, each reader may discover different ideas and gems in the book. And that is what good art does.

***

There are two scenes involving music. The first is where Rostov discovers to his surprise that Sofia has been taking piano lessons from the resident conductor (a man grossly underutilized by the Bolsheviks.) She is playing a Chopin nocturne. Specifically this one:

Definitely a beautiful choice.

Another fascinating scene involves Sofia’s choice of a piece for a competition. While everyone else chooses Russian composers, she goes with...Mozart - his first Piano Sonata, written when he was still a teen. It is an interesting choice, but it works for her, and she launches her career.

***

If you want to read a completely different take on Soviet Russia, you might try The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - a writer mentioned in A Gentleman in Moscow.

Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope

Source of book: I own this.

Regular readers of my blog know that my favorite Victorian author is Anthony Trollope. I try to read one of his books every year. Past reads since I started writing about them are:

Barsetshire Chronicles:

The Barchester Chronicles (BBC miniseries based on the first two books, The Warden and Barchester Towers)

Dr. Thorne

Framley Parsonage

The Small House at Allington

The Last Chronicle of Barset

Other books:

He Knew He Was Right

Cousin Henry

The Claverings

These are not, of course, the only Trollope novels I have read. These are the ones I have read since I started blogging in 2010. I should mention Castle Richmond and The Bertrams as particularly excellent books.

***

Orley Farm is one of Trollope’s stand-alone novels, and the last of the set of Dover paperbacks I was given in my teens by the husband of my violin teacher. Along with some Wodehouse and a few hardback Dickens, he gave me five Trollopes - I had never heard of him, but fell in love.

While Orley Farm had its moments, it was not my favorite of Trollope’s books. In large part, this stems from two factors. First, while Trollope is usually fairly gentle with his characters, writing few true villains, and making everyone human; in this case, he seemed more to dislike his characters than like them. For the most part, they are rather unlikeable, and it is difficult to really be in sympathy with them, the way one is in most of Trollope’s novels. It isn’t the presence of unpleasant characters so much as it is the lack of humanizing traits which are the problem. I found it uncharacteristically difficult to understand the motivations, and thus found many of the characters to be caricatures rather than the truly three dimensional inhabitants of the typical Trollopean world.

The second factor is somewhat related to the first. I feel that Trollope wrote this book more to complain about lawyers and the British legal system than to explore the psychology of his characters. Whatever Trollope is as an author, he isn’t Charles Dickens, and he isn’t particularly adept at the use of caricature in satire. Rather, Trollope’s strength as a satirical and social writer is his ability to humanize the victims of injustice - and especially injustice inflicted with good, reforming motivations. Thus, we can sympathize with Mr. Harding even as we may agree that he is the recipient of a sinecure that probably should be reformed. We can feel for Carrie Brattle, whose status as a “fallen woman” gives her no real chance at a decent life. We can even understand the loathsome Mrs. Proudie and her attempts to further her religious beliefs, even as we hate her methods - and even perhaps the substance of those beliefs. She is all the more real for being humanly understandable.

This was my biggest problem with Orley Farm. I had a hard time finding a character who was really fleshed out, particularly for the first half of the book.

A bit of background might help here. Trollope was the son of a failed barrister. His father never really made a good go of it in law, and was forever in debt. His mother, however, was a skilled writer. Her books aren’t much read today, and she wasn’t a world class author, but she was financially successful, and her books were indeed influential. Domestic Manners of the Americans was her most successful, and many of her observations about American arrogance and hypocrisy still ring true. She also wrote an anti-slavery novel which inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe, and an “industrial novel,” about class injustice in the age of the Industrial Revolution - another book which inspired more famous later authors. So, with her husband failing to make a living, it fell to Frances Trollope to support the family with writing.

Young Anthony eschewed the law, and went to work for the Postal Service, where he invented the pillar letter box, and found time to write. While he never studied law, he absorbed a large amount of knowledge about it, and his books generally get the legal details right. Although the British legal system of the Victorian Era is much different from the 21st Century American legal system. (I could write a whole post about all of the differences…)

What Anthony never seems to have understood about the law was the idea that the criminal law system is supposed to be biased in favor of the accused - in large part to counteract the power of the State. In theory (although not as often in practice), this should result in a very small number of false convictions - but should, by design, allow a number of guilty persons to go free. That this isn’t necessarily the case in practice is beside the point. Yes, money still tends to get one off, and impoverished people of color tend to be falsely convinced more often than wealthy whites. But the problem isn’t that we make it too easy for those horrid criminal defense lawyers to get people off.

But that is precisely the point Trollope wants to make. He honestly seems to believe that guilty people shouldn’t be defended, and that neutral witnesses shouldn’t ever have their credibility attacked. As a lawyer, this is an offensive idea. And in general, Trollope is so much more subtle than this, which is why I was disappointed.

The plot is basically this. (Spoiler alert!)

 

 My Dover paperback edition has the original J. E. Millais illustrations.

Sir Joseph Mason the elder was a wealthy man, with two major estates. After his first wife died, leaving a grown son, Sir Joseph remarried a young woman barely out of her teens - a woman who was beautiful but under challenging financial circumstances. She marries him out of need and pressure from her family, not love. They have a child together, and soon thereafter, Sir Joseph dies.

A last minute codicil to his will leaves Orley Farm - the lesser estate - to the infant. The previous will would have left everything, except for the small allowance to the widow required by law, to the older son. The question was, did young Lady Mason forge the codicil?

The first trial - the probate - takes place after the death, and is alluded to in the book. The real action occurs twenty-one years later, when the infant, Lucious, comes of age. He angers the son-in-law of the lawyer who worked for Sir Joseph. Said son-in-law, himself a lawyer, goes through the old documents and discovers evidence which may be in favor of a finding of forgery. He contacts Joseph Jr., the older son, and incites him to seek a prosecution of Lady Mason for perjury and forgery. That trial is the centerpiece of the story.

This being Trollope, the book is roughly 650 pages long, and pretty dense. It also has a number of subplots involving the periphery players. Lady Mason’s lawyer has domestic troubles because his neglected wife assumes he is having an affair with Lady Mason. Lady Mason’s neighbor and old friend, Sir Peregrine Orme, falls in love with her, while his son unsuccessfully pursues the daughter of a judge - she instead falls in love with an idealistic young barrister who ends up working on Lady Orme’s case. Even the witnesses have their own little dramas going. Everyone connected with the case is somehow involved in the story.

As usual with Trollope, the question isn’t really if Lady Mason is guilty. Rather, it is how each of the characters response to the situation. Including her. There is the legal question, of course: will a jury find her guilty? There is the moral case: what would real justice look like? And there is the social question: guilty or not, will she and her son lose their reputations?

So much about this is good. The book had some great moments in it. If only Trollope had allowed himself to actually understand how a lawyer could - and should - defend a guilty client. I think he was a bit blinded by his own upbringing. I wasn’t able to find out much of the circumstances of his father’s failure, but it is entirely possible that the idealistic Felix Graham is meant to be a stand-in for the elder Mr. Trollope. He is hopeless at the task of doing his best even when he doesn’t believe in his case. And he is advised that maybe he should pursue his writing instead. (Of course, in this particular world, he also is able to marry a wealthy woman.)

I think another factor here is that Trollope was by nature and inclination, a conservative. He preferred the High Church to the Low Church, was suspicious of reforms of all kinds, and staunchly supported the existing class system, even though he wasn’t a winner in that system. Thus, I think that he couldn’t - despite really making an effort - see the moral injustice inherent in giving property to one child while leaving the other destitute. Hey, Primogeniture has a long and storied history, even if it was brutal to younger children, and undoubtedly fed the unending wars of the last, well, millennia. After all, a bunch of younger sons without money, whose class meant they couldn’t make a living by working, with few prospects...hey, might as well go to war and try to win an award from the king, right? Trollope really does try. But he can’t quite go there. Rules is rules.

I think this is ultimately why I had a hard time feeling the characters. Lady Mason is a great character, for the most part. But Trollope’s conservatism can’t allow her to truly stick to her guns. In a later (or earlier) era, she could have been the hero of the book. Likewise, Lucious is a real prick, and it is impossible to like him. I suspect Trollope didn’t want him to be a sympathetic victim - he somehow had to deserve tragedy. Thus, of the main players in the central drama, the most believable are those I would call the true villains. Mr. Dockwrath, the lawyer who stirs everything up in retaliation for losing his lease, ignores the advice of his much wiser wife, grubs for as much as he can get, and ultimately loses everything. He thoroughly deserves it. But he is also believable: I know people like that, and they often end the same way. Likewise, I know people like Joseph Mason the younger, consumed with a thirst for revenge because he feels cheated out of what he “deserves,” namely everything. But again, he is believable. He is still, 25 years later, pissed off at his father for refusing to “act his age” and remain a widower. Instead, he fell for the charming young lady (who he blames entirely for his father’s actions), with the result being an unwanted younger brother who might get some of the inheritance.

Some of the minor characters are really good. I liked Judge Stavely and his family - of all the people, I would most like to meet them in person. Faced with the fact that his daughter has fallen in love with a poor, unattractive, but intelligent man, he supports her, remembering his own courtship. I also liked the lawyer, Mr. Furnival. He is very imperfect, clearly, but very human - and a rather conscientious lawyer. I’d want to hire someone like him: aware of his limitations, devoted to seeing his clients’ cases through, quietly competent, and in no need of self-aggrandizement.

As in any Trollope novel, there is much good writing, and a number of memorable lines. Here are a few that stood out to me.

From the first chapter, where Trollope introduces the book:

It is not true that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet. Were it true, I should call this story ‘The Great Orley Farm Case.’ But who would ask for the ninth number of a serial work burthened with so very uncouth an appellation? Thence, and therefore, - Orley Farm.

I say so much at commencing in order that I may have an opportunity of explaining that this book of mine will not be devoted in any special way to rural delights. The name might lead to the idea that new precepts were to be given, in the pleasant guise of a novel, as to cream-cheeses, pigs with small bones, wheat sown in drills, or artificial manure. No such aspirations are mine.

Or, Mr. Furnival, giving the common - and true - lament of us lawyers:

‘We lawyers are very much abused now-a-days,’ said Mr. Furnival… ‘but I hardly know how the world would get on without us.’

There is a great scene involving Sir Joseph the younger and his wife. While he is extravagantly rich, she is a penny-pinching shrew. Their food is almost inedible, and they really can’t entertain, because she refuses to have proper and sufficient provender for the spread. Trollope describes their attempt at a Christmas dinner, and what followed.

And then they all went to church. Mrs. Mason would not on any account have missed church on Christmas-day or a Sunday. It was a cheap duty, and therefore rigidly performed.

There is another extended musing which is quite fun. I am reading a book on the intentional “moulding” of a wife - I wonder if Trollope was familiar with the facts or not - so this quote seems apropos. It also is percipient on a few timeless questions: is trying to turn a spouse into what you wish they were ever a good idea? And what is the real reason creeps like Roy Moore want to find much younger girls? Anyway, here is the quote, which comes after we are introduced to Felix Graham, and the “engagement” he is in with his ward - at the insistence of her father, when she was a mere child. She was not, in any meaningful sense, consulted.

In speaking of the character and antecedents of Felix Graham I have said that he was moulding a wife for himself. The idea of a wife thus moulded to fit a man’s own grooves, and educated to suit matrimonial purposes according to the exact views of the future husband was by no means original with him. Other men have moulded their wives, but I do not know that as a rule the practice has been found to answer. It is open, in the first place, to this objection, - that the moulder does not generally conceive such idea very early in life, and the idea when conceived must necessarily be carried out on a young girl. Such a plan is the result of much deliberate thought, and has generally arisen from long observation, on the part of the thinker, of the unhappiness arising from marriages in which there has been no moulding. Such a frame of mind comes upon a bachelor, perhaps about his thirty-fifth year, and then he goes to work with a girl of fourteen. The operation takes some ten years, at the end of which the moulded bride regards her lord as an old man. On the whole I think that the ordinary plan is the better, and even the safer. Dance with a girl three times, and if you like the light of her eye and the tone of voice with which she, breathless, answers your little questions about horseflesh and music - about affairs masculine and feminine - then take the leap in the dark. There is danger, no doubt; but the moulded wife is, I think, more dangerous.

Don’t get hung up on the Victorian nonsense - Trollope was a product of his time. Just enjoy the gentle snark.

My final quote is about Judge Stavely, after he has essentially opened the door to the possibility of Felix Graham marrying his daughter Madeleine.

But the judge was an odd man in many of the theories of his life. One of them, with reference to his children, was very odd, and altogether opposed to the usual practice of the world. It was this, - that they should be allowed, as far as was practicable, to do what they liked. Now the general opinion of the world is certainly quite the reverse - namely this, that children, as long as they are under the control of their parents, should be hindered and prevented in those things to which they are most inclined. Of course the world in general, in carrying out this practice, excuses it by an assertion, - made to themselves or others - that children customarily like those things which they ought not to like. But the judge had an idea quite opposed to this. Children, he said, if properly trained, would like those things which were good for them. Now it may be that he thought his daughter had been properly trained.

I am somewhat of this mindset. Coming from a religious tradition which is fundamentally authoritarian - and increasingly so - I have had my own bit of pressure (as an adult, by the way) to order my life, not according to what I want and believe is best for my family, but according to the preferences of others. Or, to be more accurate, I have been pressured to pressure my wife to conform to the expectations of others. Because in a patriarchal religious tradition, women face most of the expectations. I think Judge Staveley was ahead of his time in this idea that children are, when it comes to decisions about their future, entitled to choose their own lives.

I don’t want this review to sound too negative. While this isn’t my favorite Trollope book, it still is good, just flawed. If you haven’t discovered Trollope, I wouldn’t recommend this as a first book, because it lacks the best traits of his writing: psychological subtlety, sympathetic characters, and a wry distrust of convention even as he defends it. I’d go with the Barchester Chronicles, or perhaps with The Bertrams or Castle Richmond as starters.