Goddesses in the Pages

Lately, I've had a pretty good run with finding entertaining books at the library. I seem to have a theme going--I've read three books in a row about women in difficult circumstances finding their way in the world. At least, two of them were on that theme, and I suppose you could count the last one, too. Although it was what I think is called a Regency romance and considerably more light-hearted than the other two, its heroine did bump up against a very rigid social structure; the humor in the story came from the way in which she consistently ignored attempts to bring her to account.

I found Maeve Binchy's A Week in Winter on a St. Patrick's Day display shelf celebrating Irish writers. I liked the only other book of hers that I've read, Nights of Rain and Stars, a story about a group of people vacationing in Greece, and the premise of A Week in Winter--a woman setting up a hotel on the west coast of Ireland--sounded promising. No War and Peace grand strokes, just a domestic drama about relationships, starting over, and figuring out how to make things work. The characters included several capable women whose disarming ability to overcome obstacles provided much of the impetus of the story. My only quarrel with the book was its structure, for having gotten to know the main characters, I was thrown off by the introduction of a whole new set of people, the first week's guests at the hotel, whose stories made up the last part of the novel. Do hotels like this really exist in the west of Ireland? If so, I'd love to go to one.

The second book I read was Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I believe I saw the first part of a PBS series based on this book some years ago, and I somehow had the impression that it was a more staid tale than either Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but I didn't really have that right. It's the story of a woman escaping an abusive husband in a time and place that didn't make it easy for a woman to assert her rights. While it includes some harrowing episodes and many instances of the restrictions placed on women (and men) by Victorian society, it's surprisingly fresh and contemporary in its treatment of characters and relationships. Overall, it's a little less dark than either of the more famous works by Miss Bronte's sisters, having a more optimistic and even (at times) humorous outlook despite the seriousness of its theme. This novel should be better known than it is, I think.

Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy is much like the other two books I've read by this author: light, frothy, and entertaining, with an engaging heroine who does pretty much as she pleases just about all the time. Reading it so soon after the Bronte book was a study in contrasts as I thought about the nearly insurmountable difficulties faced by Helen Huntingdon in the latter compared with the ease with which Sophy Stanton-Lacy sails through life, driving her phaeton at a blistering clip through Hyde Park and rearranging the lives of everyone she comes in contact with. Well, they say it takes all kinds, and I believe it.

Heyer's book did have some ground to it: there's an affecting account of the illness of one Sophy's young cousins that brings the story down to earth a bit and an episode in which another cousin nearly comes to grief at the hands of a moneylender. I was surprised at the anti-Semitism expressed in the book. It may have been historically accurate, but it was jarring to see it so unabashedly displayed and was at rather at odds with the light-hearted tone of the story. And while there were some delightfully comical passages in the early part of the book (and some very droll characters), I will admit to liking Sophy better before she grazed her friend Lord Charlbury with a bullet, however good her intentions may have been. Also, the effect of a headstrong heroine is somewhat spoiled when she ends up being bossed around by her fiance. All of that strategizing and larking about, merely to end up a submissive wife? It was much more fun to watch her boss him around.

If I had to name presiding goddesses for each of these books, I would mention Hestia and Demeter for A Week in Winter (lots of descriptions of food and domestic comforts), Demeter and Persephone in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Helen embodies both of them), and Aphrodite (in a particularly mischievous bent) in The Grand Sophy. I'd gladly read more books by any of these authors and only wish Miss Bronte had been more prolific.

Reading Trollope for Fun and Profit

I haven't figured out whether Anthony Trollope is a Low High Victorian or a High Low Victorian (and anyway, does it signify?), but whatever he is, he's entertaining. Last year I read the first of his Palliser novels, Can You Forgive Her?, a seriocomic tale of love, marriage, and politics in 19th-century Britain. The independently wealthy protagonist in that novel is urged by her cousin to marry the cousin's brother, an unscrupulous sort with designs on a seat in Parliament, while the man who really loves her tries to save her. Complications ensue, and despite the novel's length, it's lively from beginning to end.

I picked up the second Palliser novel, Phineas Finn, the other day and initially found it slow going. It concerns a young Irishman convinced by his friends to stand for a seat in Parliament, to the chagrin of his father, his law mentor, and even his landlady's shrewd husband, who all believe he should settle down to a legal career instead of throwing himself away as an MP (Trollope apparently thought very little of politicians). In the initial chapters we see Phineas thinking things over, deciding to stand for his district, and winning the seat. I wasn't bowled over by any of this, probably because several of the characters think so poorly of the enterprise that it's hard to get excited about Phineas's success. He seems to be in for a dull time of it.

Things only get lively when romantic feelings start to affect Phineas's decisions, and he begins to pursue the lovely but apparently unattainable Lady Laura Standish. Her n'er-do-well brother, Oswald, is in love with the charming and intelligent Violet Effingham, Lady Laura's great friend, who is smart enough to have turned him down three times by the end of Chapter 19. Trollope does not bring Lady Laura onstage until Chapter 4, and Violet appears a bit later. I'm trying to figure out his delay in bringing them out, as the story drags until the factors of love and attraction come into play. I'm still reading the novel, so I should probably hold off on an opinion, but it almost seems that, despite trying to write about politics, Trollope finds his interest in intimate relations between people more compelling.

As in Can You Forgive Her?, Phineas Finn's female characters are full of complicated and conflicting emotions; unable to satisfy their own political ambitions, they strive to find a scope for their abilities through the men in their lives. Despite the constricted roles society allots them, the women are fascinating, fully formed characters, making the best (or worst) of their chances within their own sphere. Phineas is shown to be quite in awe of Lady Laura, deferring to her suggestions over and against the advice of seasoned men like his own father. Yet Lady Laura, in choosing an advantageous match over romance, soon finds herself in a stifling marriage (the type of mistake narrowly avoided by Alice Vavasor in Can You Forgive Her?). While Trollope's heroines are likable and sympathetic, they are not all-wise and all-seeing; both his men and women make serious blunders that sometimes hurt others.

Lady Laura and Kate Vavasor (Alice's cousin) are maddeningly blind to the faults of beloved but unworthy brothers whose ambitions they promote at the expense of their own happiness and the happiness of their friends. Violet and Alice are both pressured to marry the brother of their closest friend even though doing so offers a good chance of misery for the prospective wife. Even Oswald seems more aware of his unworthiness to have Violet than his sister is, despite her affection for her friend. The political becomes personal as independent-minded women attempt to achieve ends they see as desirable through matrimonial alliances. Zeus and Hera, power and prestige, keep surging to the forefront, while Aphrodite continually tries to upstage them. It's entertaining but also a bit sad.

Phineas is an appealing character, inexperienced and a little brash but quick to learn. His good intentions often rub up against self interest, and their collision with his romantic inclinations drives the story. Can You Forgive Her? ended rather better than you might expect for several of the characters. In Phineas Finn, Lady Laura has already committed to a loveless marriage, Phineas has unwisely accrued a debt from a luckless friend, and others seem poised for either salvation or perdition. Trollope has painted his characters in such realistic colors that it's hard to predict how it all will end. I've already laughed out loud over some of his more wry observations. Like this one --

Violet: 'I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth, and all that kind of thing.'
Lady Laura: 'You want to be flattered without plain flattery.'
Violet: 'Of course I do. A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.'

I've also observed that 19th century or 21st, Britain or America, politics, love, and ambition don't really seem to have changed much. If Trollope is to be believed.