The Small House at Allington--chaps 7-9 (Nov 1862)

Dear Serial Readers,

Julia's comment about the illustrations reminded me of a few I found on the internet. This one (see sidebar) comes with the caption, "The Beginning of Troubles," the title of Chapter 7. However, I thought the usual format for the installments in The Cornhill was a Millais illustration as a frontispiece at the start of the set of three chapters, but not necessarily for the chapter that opens the monthly segment. In any case, any thoughts about where this image (see sidebar) matches the narrative?

This week's portion makes me think of simultaneity--how the narrator points out the mental states of characters at the same time as their external behavior and as ongoing conditions that we readers are able to see, thanks to the narrator's reflections. But how well are characters able to comprehend the mental states of their companions? Trollope provides different instances of simultaneity here. To provide one of many examples: we learn about Crosbie's "melancholy fits" and his concern about his pinched finances given his impending marriage. Then the narrator shifts to Lily at the "Small House," with the question, "And what was the state of Lily's mind at the same moment...?" So we're primed to think of correspondences in this way too.

Then there are the narrator's interventions, his thoughts on the players and actions in the story he's unfolding. This narrator has such presence in the novel, as some of you have pointed out! He has no pity for the "Mrs Boyces," he lets us know, and he thinks there's some lurking aggression behind the polite phrase, "It is nice of you to come early," delivered by Lily to Mrs Eames before the other guests have arrived for the party. These too might be considered a kind of simultaneity, a running commentary on characters and their actions (whether internal or external) as they occur.

I was thinking of other kinds of simultaneities too even beyond the installment. In this issue (as well as the previous two) of The Cornhill, George Eliot's serial novel Romola was also appearing. How did readers juggle the simultaneity of different plot lines and casts of characters, one in a contemporary English country setting, the other in late 15th-century Florence?

What else are you reading now? What is the simultaneity of your reading practice these days?

For next week, chapters 10-12.

Simultaneously Serial,
Susan

The Small House at Allington--chaps 1-3 (Sept 1862)

Dear Serial Readers,

One of Trollope's stylistic features is his narrator's addresses to readers--there are many of them even in this first installment. Trollope uses "I" and "we" as if to suggest that the narrator and reader are partners in this telling/hearing of story. The second sentence of the novel begins "Our story...." Much of the first two chapters is exposition, backstory: who are the Dales and why a "small" house at Allington? Trollope delights as much here with establishing his characters ("our Christopher Dale") as places, particularly that titular "Small House."

By the third chapter, I have the decided impression that one character stands out among the rest--Lily Dale, with her "spice of obstinacy" as a hallmark of Trollope's most endearing heroines such as Glencora Palliser or Madame Max. And the narrator is determined that the reader should know at this early stage that "my story will be nothing to him [generic male reader] if he doe not love Lily Dale." What about women readers who love Lily? Aren't they more legion than the presumed men readers? Besides her spicy obstinacy, we learn that she is "queen of the croquet ground" and likes to use slangy vulgar language, much to her more restrained or refined sister Bell's dismay.

Does this portrait of the two Dale sisters living as poorer relations, with their mother, on the Dale estate remind anyone of a Jane Austen novel? But updated--how? Clearly two marriage plots are underway--Bell and Dr Crofts, and then Lily and, well, two possibilities--Johnny Eames and Mr. Crosbie. I couldn't help but think that Lily's complaining about this "mere clerk" may be a telltale sign that she will come to revise this estimation. That there will be more than one suitor also seems evident by the narrator's insistence on the heroes as cut into fragments, with Crosbie as one such "fraction of a hero." Or does this kind of division suggest a different kind of hero, one who is more ordinary than loomingly extraordinary?

Next time, chapters 4-6. After this week, I plan to read on Sundays and post Sundays or Mondays. Looking forward to your comments on this inaugural episode! If you just get your copy, say, next week, you can easily catch up.

Question: If this were a WOVEL (see sidebar item and NPR story), what direction would you like to see the courtship plots take?

Yours in Trollopiana,
Serial Susan