Longer Than Expected

Still taking a break. I'm (mostly) moved in and getting settled, but this thorny thesis won't write itself. I've decided to extend my break from blogging--and, I'm afraid, from reading--until it gets done. Priorities have been set, and as it turns out The Brothers Karamazov is a little dull.

I suppose I'll begin reading at lightspeed as soon as this little season in my life is over. I should be back to reading and blogging toward the end of March. I'll just have to catch up after that.

Taking a Break

Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I have to do the following:

1) Meet a returning husband in Virginia
2) Visit family in two different states in the Midwest
3) Return to Texas and make a quick visiting tour in three different cities
4) Move to Hawaii
5) Unpack, get settled into a new home, buy furniture, buy a car
6) Finish drafting my thesis
7) Lose five pounds
8) Take a breath

After which point, I will know just how that polar bear feels.

For these reasons, I've decided that it's prudent to take a break from blogging. I checked my reading list the other day. We're going on the sixth week of 2008, and I've read nine books on my hopeful list. The next book looming in my future is The Brothers Karamazov, and I think I'll spend my non-blogging time trying to get through that one. The version I have (translation by the inimitable Constance Garrett) is 870 pages. That should be a project in and of itself, so I might have to accept some time limitations and just read.

Any thoughts and prayers will be greatly welcomed.

The Ever-Astounding Potential for Errors in English

Slipperly

From Bethany's "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks.

Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

Barchester Towers is one of those books that I started reading only because it was on my reading list for the year, but I was certain--after only a chapter or two--that it would prove to be a painful chore. For one, it promised early on to be in a style characteristic of Victorian literature and in the same class as Dickens (whom I deplore). It's wordy, often long-winded (over 400 pages), and is filled with what looked like Victorian stereotypes of what husbands and wives should be: excessively patriarchal men who rule their home and quiet, meek women who fit the bill of the "domestic goddess" (always and only in the home). Ick.

I'm happy to say that I was completely wrong about this book.

What appeared to be Victorian stereotypes were actually Trollope's very clever plays on these stereotypes. Yes, there are occasionally stereotypes, but to some extent the hint of them is inevitable. Trollope was a man of his day and could only write with the material available to him. At the same time, he is definitely having fun with the people of Barchester.

The plot is quite complex at times. In essence, it all revolves around the arrival of a new bishop in Barchester, a man that the other clergymen of the community find to be completely inappropriate. Perhaps a better description would be to say that they find his wife to be completely inappropriate. While we are verging on a rather obvious reversal of the expected system, Trollope does not make it quite that easy. Yes, the new bishop is "petticoated," and his wife is little more than a harridan; but she pretty much gets away with it, and Trollope lets her behavior rest as a kind of example of reality. The truth is that the expected stereotype does not exist, and Trollope makes that quite clear in the story.

Most of the other characters function as a take on what someone should be but really isn't. There is Dr Grantly, the archdeacon, who in spite of his religious requirements is petty, vindictive, demanding, and manipulative at times. (And this man is considered a protagonist.) His wife is an example of good behavior, but she definitely isn't meek and lowly. She is shrewd and quite clever when it comes to dealing with the people around her. There are the Stanhopes, who are the prime example of English clergy gone bad, and yet there really isn't much of a punishment for them. The end of their story is much like the beginning, in that they return to the place from whence they came (Italy) without having changed much and certainly without having improved.

In short, if Barchester Towers is stereotypical, it is in the sense that it stereotypes absurdity. There really is no excessively or impossibly honorable portrayal of the clergy in this book. Trollope isn't mocking them by any means (and he makes this clear in his introduction), but he is showing his reader that to stereotype them as humble and unambitious is to make them something other than human. In this sense, Trollope might be a little ahead of his time. It was actually quite refreshing in places and utterly amusing in others. Trollope has a genius for dry humor, and I found myself giggling all the way through. Even more astonishing, I found myself getting caught up in the political complexities of selecting people for open posts in the clerical community and siding with one character against another. What made this so fascinating is that it was never a simple "one or the other side" kind of a feeling. As the story and the characters developed, I sensed that I was shifting in my own allegiances among characters based largely on the reality that a person's character is so much more than black or white.

Most of the characters are examples of less-than-exemplary behavior, with the exception of one female character, who has saved all of Victorian literature for me. Just when I thought that all literature of this period produced such ridiculous females as Elsie Dinsmore, along comes Eleanor Bold to change my perception. Eleanor is bright, lovely, intelligent, and devoted to her family, but not foolishly so. More than this, however, she actually has a personality. She is articulate and stands up for herself with intelligence. She is a widow and makes it quite clear that while she respects her family, she acknowledges no right on their part to make decisions for her, especially regarding a future marriage. Never is she overbearing or waspish, and she functions as the right kind of counterpart for the bishop's maneuvering wife. And, in the end, Eleanor marries exactly the kind of man that she should marry: an intelligent, thoughtful man who respects her sparkling personality and whom she can respect in turn, because he gives her the space to be herself. Now, this is the kind of Victorian female that I can admire.

There are those moments of effusion that make Barchester Towers distinctly Victorian (I mean, honestly, what's up with all the weeping and sighing?), but on the whole this is a very refreshing read. Two thumbs up and a big recommendation, especially for people who enjoy the literature of the era. I understand that this book is but one in a series that Trollope wrote about the characters, so I might have to check out others. If this one is any indication of Trollope's skill, they will be worth the time.