Dear Serial Readers,
Only four more installments--we're on the final month of this novel. I'd like to settle on the next serial very soon, so that those who need to get started, or at least get a hold of a copy of the novel, can do so before May 25, when I'll launch the first post. So--the next Trollope (The Last Chronicle at Barset) or Romola or Wives and Daughters or Little Dorrit? Another way to consider the question: stay with Dickens or Trollope, or try another (in this instance, a woman) writer--Eliot or Gaskell?
This week's three chapters were for me as dull as dishwater, or rather, as dull as a dreary, claustrophobic marriage, as the small realm of London lodgers (although I did find this the most interesting portion), and as Johnny Eames's decidedly mixed promotion to personal secretary. Since I tend to find Trollope's female characters more satisfying, this episode too was a rather plodding reading experience, much like the scenes depicted. I was interested in Julia's comment about how the narrator's interventions suggest elastic temporalities. But this installment seemed to me about narrow spaces and the burdens of ordinary time in a bad marriage or an office job.
The narrator's comments only reinforce that Crosbie now has sufficient punishment for jilting Lily. But this is no surprise! Nor is Johnny Eames's dubious promotion as Sir Raffle's personal secretary, and his suspended desires--not wanting Amelia Roper but not quite wanting to relinquish her to Cradell (despite what he says). Indeed, the narrator remarks that Johnny is "still floundering in the ignorance of his hobbledehoyhood"--perhaps the most protracted state of suspended maturation ever!
This novel certainly makes the alternatives to marriage far more appealing--or at least, the Dale women, who are on the brink of emptying out the "Small House" for a new home, seem to have a better prospect than the Crosbies with their overfurnished rooms or the Lupexes in their cramped lodgings. Although Trollope dwells primarily on Crosbie's marital misery, the narrator does allow that "he was better off than his wife, for she had no office to which she could betake herself"--although that office is no picnic for Crosbie either. That Alexandrina seems determined not to have a baby reinforces the impression that this is a loveless marriage in body and spirit.
Okay, I get why Crosbie has to be punished, but why Johnny Eames? Why is he stalled in his marriage plot or his career as a clerk? He seems convinced that Lily will not accept him, despite all the support and encouragement he's received from her uncle and the earl.
I feel relief I'm past this installment, and look forward to chapters 49-51 and the return of the Dale women next time. Like cold gray days in spring, these unengaging episodes by contrast make reading other story lines and scenes more pleasurable.
Serially suspended,
Susan
3 comments:
Yes, a dull section. I am not sure I think that Eames is quite being punished, but it is odd how mixed his promotion is--I can imagine he'll be getting Sir Raffle Buffle's slippers pretty soon. So, that led me into a fantasy of an upcoming solution to this problem: he gets fired or quits, and in a fit of pique at Raffle Buffle's stupidity, Lord De Guest will get Johnny some happy countryside job, so that Johnny and Lily can live happily at the Small House. That's my current ending suggestion. I'll write Trollope.
It hadn't sunk in to my brain that their are two Amelias--Miss Roper and Alexandrina's sister Mrs. Gazebee. That's a bit odd, but I can't really think of any connection, other than their opposing attitudes toward broken engagements--opposing because they are on opposite sides of the breakup or potential breakup.
I do like the end of the middle chapter, where Eames seems to have grown enough to say to Mrs. Lupex about the new connection between Cradell and Amelia (who do deserve each other): "Changes are so pleasant sometimes! Don't you think so? I do."
And, like our Serial Leader, I'm pleased to be beyond these chapters and to change back to Allington.
I've been attending a conference about the "pursuit of happiness" in the 19th century, and I have to say it has colored my reading of this week's installment. Trollope doesn't present much opportunity for happiness--or joy--or pleasure--in the cold marriage and unpleasant office situations he describes.
One issue that arose during the conference was the big philosophical question of whether virtue is a precondition to happiness or whether happiness is a precondition to virtue, and this seems like a question that is at the heart of Crosbie's reflections and ruminations about life with Alexandrina instead of Lily. And of course he seems to have forfeited both virtue and happiness through his bad actions.
The issue of happiness aside, I was interested this week in the passage in which Lupex shares his "wisdom" with Craddel and Eames. According to Lupex, life is "a very queer thing.... I'm not denying that success in life will depend upon good conduct--of course it does; but, then, how often good conduct comes from success?" (p. 474). He continues to characterize life as a "game" and a "match" that is lost. I had flashbacks of Robert Browning's Andrea del Sarto, who also laments his lack of success as a painter, when I read this. But it also prompted me to think about other 19th century works that characterize life as a game or a gamble. I'm thinking here of George Eliot's Daniel Deronda. As for Small House, I'm still trying to decide what weight to give Lupex's words. Is this a profound "truth" placed in the mouth of an unlikely character? Or is this the gin and water speaking? Either way, I feel that the presence of this passage has functioned to guide my thinking about the actions of the novel.
Like everyone else, I'm also looking forward to moving out of the confining London scene!
My vote is for Little Dorrit or Wives & Daughters. If the consensus is Last Chronicle, though, I'd try to play a little Trollope catch-up & then join you all midway through!
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