Susan Gerstein's Blog - Posts Tagged "palliser-novels"
Trollope and Politics
The Presidential election coming up this November continues to produce an atmosphere in this country the likes of which have not been experienced in our lifetime, perhaps ever. There are historians and students of American political life who claim that a similar kind of rage, ugly public outbursts, polarization and insults have occurred in the 19th century; that the Know Nothing party in the middle of that century was along the lines of the current Republican candidate and his mindless, enraged followers; but certainly in the nearly sixty years I had lived in the United States nothing like this had ever happened. More importantly: nothing like this would have been imaginable. Donald Trump’s primary campaign, begun more than a year ago, was initially treated as a joke; today he had engulfed and is the nominee for President of one of the two major political parties of the most powerful country on Earth, a country that is assumed to be a force for the good in a troubled world. An ignorant, vicious fool had gathered an angry, “know nothing”, anarchist and often violent segment of the electorate that worship his crude appeal to their worst instincts. – At this moment, the only hope civilization has is that come November, his adherents will prove to be a minimal presence at the polls and that Trumpism will be soundly beaten by a sane electorate and disappear into history and ridicule as did the Know Nothings of long ago.
This is all very painful, and to take my mind off current events I retreat into re-reading books I have loved in the past, as anyone reading my posts would guess by now. After finding wonderful parallels to the Trump candidacy in Anthony Trollope's "The Way We Live Now", I am now deeply into his Palliser novels, the so-called “political novels”, six volumes of which had been written over a period from the mid 1860s to 1879 and take place in London and various parts of Great Britain. These books abound in detailed descriptions of parliamentary fights between the Conservative and the Progressive forces about monetary policy, the ballot -- at first for propertied men, then for all men, and finally for universal suffrage; they depict the slow grinding of wheels that lead, step by step, to achieving results that are ultimately beneficial to the country. They depict the lazy, venal and roguish among the politicians, but they also depict the dedicated, the hard working and the idealistic, with the latter group ultimately winning its goals. The position of women who at this period are debarred from the vote and from all roles in public life are front and center in the narrative. There are, as in all civilized political processes, steps forward, and sometimes steps backward. Democracy is messy and slow. Achieving change needs dedicated work and a push from the electorate, but it comes eventually. During the changes of and in government, during the impassioned arguments ongoing in Parliament and the private and public enmities among the various factions and individuals, the tone remains civilized. If there are insults intended, they are cloaked in flowery language that allows the participants to reverse themselves and re-align with each other as needed. It is a great pleasure to follow this process a century and a half later, for much of it is very familiar and much feels as far away as King Arthur’s time.
It is also personally fascinating how different the books seem to me now than they did thirty or so years ago on first reading. Then I paid minimal attention to the political content and vastly more to the private lives of the protagonists. Politics was a mere background to the affairs of Lady Glencora, her husband Plantagenet Palliser, Phineas Finn, Madame Max Goesler, Laura Standish, her brother Chiltern, her disastrous marriage – all still fascinating, but now somehow what goes on in Parliament has become more important.
I am just finishing the second volume, “Phineas Finn”, so I have a long way to go, and I am sure to have more to say about this series of books, but meanwhile I am immensely grateful that once again I have managed to come up with the right antidote to “current events”. Surely I will still be reading about the Pallisers et. al. come November when we go to the polls here and hope to soundly defeat the forces of unreason and bigotry.
This is all very painful, and to take my mind off current events I retreat into re-reading books I have loved in the past, as anyone reading my posts would guess by now. After finding wonderful parallels to the Trump candidacy in Anthony Trollope's "The Way We Live Now", I am now deeply into his Palliser novels, the so-called “political novels”, six volumes of which had been written over a period from the mid 1860s to 1879 and take place in London and various parts of Great Britain. These books abound in detailed descriptions of parliamentary fights between the Conservative and the Progressive forces about monetary policy, the ballot -- at first for propertied men, then for all men, and finally for universal suffrage; they depict the slow grinding of wheels that lead, step by step, to achieving results that are ultimately beneficial to the country. They depict the lazy, venal and roguish among the politicians, but they also depict the dedicated, the hard working and the idealistic, with the latter group ultimately winning its goals. The position of women who at this period are debarred from the vote and from all roles in public life are front and center in the narrative. There are, as in all civilized political processes, steps forward, and sometimes steps backward. Democracy is messy and slow. Achieving change needs dedicated work and a push from the electorate, but it comes eventually. During the changes of and in government, during the impassioned arguments ongoing in Parliament and the private and public enmities among the various factions and individuals, the tone remains civilized. If there are insults intended, they are cloaked in flowery language that allows the participants to reverse themselves and re-align with each other as needed. It is a great pleasure to follow this process a century and a half later, for much of it is very familiar and much feels as far away as King Arthur’s time.
It is also personally fascinating how different the books seem to me now than they did thirty or so years ago on first reading. Then I paid minimal attention to the political content and vastly more to the private lives of the protagonists. Politics was a mere background to the affairs of Lady Glencora, her husband Plantagenet Palliser, Phineas Finn, Madame Max Goesler, Laura Standish, her brother Chiltern, her disastrous marriage – all still fascinating, but now somehow what goes on in Parliament has become more important.
I am just finishing the second volume, “Phineas Finn”, so I have a long way to go, and I am sure to have more to say about this series of books, but meanwhile I am immensely grateful that once again I have managed to come up with the right antidote to “current events”. Surely I will still be reading about the Pallisers et. al. come November when we go to the polls here and hope to soundly defeat the forces of unreason and bigotry.
