Needing a good novel to occupy my attention, I happened across Anthony Trollope’s The Duke’s Children. It has turned out to be a good book for me to read right now. Trollope is gentle with his characters:– he makes you see their deepest motivations; and he shows you when they lie to themselves or misjudge the people around them; but he is gentle with them, and you feel that you want to know them. In his autobiography, Trollope writes that his characters lived for him, or that he lived with them, and that he liked them. He had enough affection for them that he sometimes couldn’t kill them off even when the plot demanded it, and the same characters appear in novel after novel because (he says) he liked them that much.
I don’t read Trollope for his prose style; his prose is adequate but sometimes the seams show. Nor do I read Trollope for his plots, for his plots can be a little too creaky. But I do find myself caring for his characters. I still get upset when I think about the ending of The Small House at Allington, because I cared about the characters.
Too many novelists (especially recently) do not treat their characters well:– they treat their characters as disposable entertainment modules, or as commodities, or as inferior beings, or as superstructure upon which to hang a plot, a concept, or a philosophy. Too often this is the way the world treats real human beings:– as disposable, or as commodities, or as inferior beings, or as superstructure on which to hang political power. I suspect the real reason I wanted to read Trollope right now is because of the ongoing presidential election campaign, in which the candidates seem to treat the United States populace as mere pawns, things to be polled, bought, and moved about on a political chessboard; this political campaign is not being gentle with anyone.
Hi Dan,
Don’t know if you would be interested, but Anthony Trollope’s niece (great-great if I remember right) is a writer as well. Her name is Joanna Trollope. Most of her books are strictly chick-lit, but some of them aren’t and she seems to treat her characters like real people too.
Hi Kim — I dhad heard of Joanna Trollope, but haven’t yet read anything by her. Thanks for the recommendation — I’ll look for her in the library.
I also learned recently that Anthony Trollope’s mother first turned to writing when she was fifty years old and needed the money to support her family. She wrote 114 books, and made a good living at it, before she retired. So perhaps there is hope that some of us middle-aged folk might actually write a book before we die.
There’s always hope!
Helen Hooven Santmyer didn’t publish a novel until she was 88. (the title of which is “And Ladies of the Club”) She died two years later at age 90, so she got it in just in the nick of time.