He Knew He Was Right
Registered by GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 10/19/2007
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
Another Trollope novel! I picked up this hefty paperback at Borders recently; I'd enjoyed a miniseries adaptation of the story a while back, but hadn't read the book, so this was my chance to catch up. [This is one of the stand-alone novels, not part of a series - though there are a couple of references to characters from the "Palliser" and "Barchester" books, as most of Trollope's stories take place in the same fictional universe.]
This book's unusual in that it addresses the topic of an insanely possessive spouse - not in a melodramatic sense but in an all too believable way. And I was pleased to find that, even though the husband had immense power over his wife at that place and time, the emphasis in this story was on the injustice of the husband's jealousy, and there was much more sympathy than I'd have expected towards the plight of the wife. [Even so, there's plenty of room for discussion of Victorian attitudes towards marriage!]
As usual in Trollope's books, there are several subplots going at once, most of them involving who's going to marry whom, as a nice counterpoint to the central question of whether the Trevelyan marriage will survive. While I still prefer some of the "Barchester" books to this one, I did enjoy it, and recommend it.
This book's unusual in that it addresses the topic of an insanely possessive spouse - not in a melodramatic sense but in an all too believable way. And I was pleased to find that, even though the husband had immense power over his wife at that place and time, the emphasis in this story was on the injustice of the husband's jealousy, and there was much more sympathy than I'd have expected towards the plight of the wife. [Even so, there's plenty of room for discussion of Victorian attitudes towards marriage!]
As usual in Trollope's books, there are several subplots going at once, most of them involving who's going to marry whom, as a nice counterpoint to the central question of whether the Trevelyan marriage will survive. While I still prefer some of the "Barchester" books to this one, I did enjoy it, and recommend it.
Journal Entry 2 by GoryDetails at Mill Creek Rd in Port Jefferson, New York USA on Sunday, September 21, 2008