Ayala's Angel

by Anthony Trollope, Julian Thompson-Furnival (Editor)

This is Trollope's eightieth tale. Though it is the work of an older man, it is perhaps the brightest and freshest novel he ever wrote. The story of a young woman forced to choose a husband from among three unsavory men, the novel is remarkable for its wealth of minor characters and it
romantic exuberance.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Victorian, Literature, Romance, British Literature, 19th Century

655 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1881

About the author

Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day.

Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_...

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ayala's Angel is Anthony Trollope's final novel and it deals with one of his favorite themes: marriage.
Trollope is on the side of love but in his books and in this one in particular, Trollope makes clear that in Victorian times poverty or wealth had a huge impact on who one could marry and if one could marry at all. Through some wonderful characters Trollope also shows that life in general and the "marriage market", in particular, was much more difficult for women than for men. Men could have lives without marriage but for most women, life was all about marriage and they were completely dependent on men for their financial welfare, be he father, brother, cousin or husband. This all sounds so serious, but Trollope deals with all of this with a great deal of wit and humor.

Finding the right partner has different meanings for the different characters in this novel in which we follow the story of no less than 5 people falling in love and/or making bids for their marriage choices. For some, marriage is all about love and for some who are poor it's about marrying into a wealthy family even without love; in fact, even if the future spouse is disliked. In almost all cases marriage is a financial transaction; an attempt to buy a spouse or to woo a rich man or woman and then, more importantly, to woo the wealthy father or uncle who would provide financially for the happy couple. With our 5 characters we have every permutation of love vs. money.

Our title character, Ayala, marriage is all about love. She dreams of an "angel," an impossible ideal. She cares not a wit about money. She is wooed by 3 different men all of whom she rejects because none of them are her angel. Tom is her first and most fervent lover and makes about a dozen bids for her hand and tries to buy her love with diamonds and promises of impossible riches. Neither her nor his family can understand why Ayala refuses him and all of his wealth. Such an impractical girl! It's nice watching Ayala's ideas about love mature over the course of this novel.

We also have the Twingles who are a fabulously wealthy family . One fantastic character is the irascible but generally kind Mr. Twingle who must deal with his 3 children plus 2 nieces (Ayala and her sister) and all the suitors who call on him for the hand of one of the girls. These are the 4 couples we follow throughout the novel. The shenanigans of the 2 Twingle daughters and their suitors as well as his 2 nieces often infuriates him. One, Ayala, won't marry any of her suitors; one man only wants his money, and another is an artist and makes no money at all which infuriates Mr.Twingle. Another daughter is married but he cannot get the couple to move out of his house and live off of the monies he has provided them. All of this and more drives him to his den where "he is soothed by counting his millions."

There are many other interesting and delightful characters in this lengthy novel who interact with our characters. Some of them believe they know what is best for any given character re: whom they should or should not marry and some attempt to help or to hinder marriages going forward. This all great fun but and a good read, but by the final third of this novel many of the machinations became repetitive especially Tom's continued bids for Ayala's hand which would elicit groans from me ("Again?") and the continued ins and outs of the other 4 couples became a bit wearing. Some editing would have tightened up this novel and improved it. Perhaps the editors did not want to erase one word in the last of Trollope's novels . This started out as a 5 star read for me but lost 1 star due to the dragged out final third. Still, this was an engrossing, good-hearted and entertaining read.

For first time Trollope readers I would suggest The Eustace Diamonds or Can You Forgive Her? .

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a thoroughly fantastic novel - one of my favourites by Anthony Trollope, with rich characterisation, a great plot and wonderful love stories. Reading this was such an utter joy.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, that was fun! I laughed out loud a lot. The Trollope Society has been discussing this one on their Big Read Zoom discussions. One of the members noted that there are some darker themes bubbling under the surface here. This is undoubtedly true but the tone is quite light and amusing on the whole. Much more in the Barsetshire line, I’d say.

On the death of their artistic, free-spirited parents, Lucy and Ayala Dormer are penniless and so Ayala is sent to live with her aunt who is married to a wealthy stockbroker and baronet, Sir Thomas Tringle, while Lucy is sent to live with another uncle and aunt in a penny-pinching house on Kingsbury Crescent. Neither Aunt Emmeline nor Uncle Reginald consult either girl as to where they want to be sent. (Wouldn’t they want to be together after the death of their beloved parents??) Ayala soon runs into trouble with her Tringle cousins. Tom Tringle Jr falls in love with her and pursues her indefatigably even though she finds him repulsive. (I mean, he kinda is… but somehow slightly endearing too.) Ayala is saucy to her elder female cousin Augusta and is soon at odds with the whole house, except for Sir Thomas who is often off in the City coddling his millions. Aunt Emmeline devises a plan to switch the girls. She exiles Ayala to Kingsbury Crescent and brings Lucy into favor at Queen’s Gate.

The rest of the story plays out from here as Lucy, Ayala, and the three Tringle children pursue love or are pursued by it and run into various scrapes. Ayala is beautiful and has several men at her feet. She keeps refusing them all because she has an idealized knight in shining armor in her mind whom she calls her Angel of Light. Tom, similarly, has found his ideal in Ayala and neither of them is willing to give up his or her ideal. I can easily see that Trollope himself may have been remembering his own youthful days in writing Tom. But how does he so successfully write a young girl’s dreams of love? He’s a master! Ayala is young and fairly stupid in how she goes about things. Fortunately she gets there in the end. Lucy’s story and love interest are much less developed, which is my biggest quibble with the novel. I liked Lucy better than Ayala.

However, this novel has one of my new favorite Trollope characters, Colonel Jonathan Stubbs! He is a hoot! I loved him. He is self-professedly ugly but has considerable charm, common sense, and spunk. He strikes me somewhat as a foil in Trollope’s oeuvre to Phineas Finn, who succeeds in Parliament (at least early on) because he is handsome and women want to support him. Colonel Stubbs has just as much charm but much more sense than Phineas Finn. (Though I do think Phineas gets the better woman by FAR in the end.) I’m well on my way to being a Trollope novel completist so it’s fun to think about his work as an (almost) whole now.

Definitely recommend this Trollope for some good laughs, some endearing characters (Sir Thomas! His children are positively absurd!), and some annoying-but-enjoyable-to-poke-fun-at characters.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another delightful Trollope, where two orphaned sisters, Ayala and Lucy, get moved back and forth between aunts and uncles, and a variety of courtships ensue. The heroine Ayala has a vision of her "angel of light" perfect man, which interferes with her ability to see him clearly in the flesh when meeting him. She is very clear in her mind when her suitors prove not to have angelic ways, and finally figures out how angels and humans can coexist. Lucy has an easier time of it, knowing all along who Mr. Right is for her. I really enjoyed their Uncle Tom, with his millions, being confronted with prospective suitors for his daughters and nieces, and responding with complete frankness always. Trollope's humor is wonderful, and I am happy he was so prolific.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ayala's Angel by Anthony Trollope is delightful. Although he was older when he wrote this book (his 80th book!), the story and characters are sweet. Ayala and her sister Lucy are orphaned and taken off to their aunts and uncles. Ayala goes at first to the wealthy family and Lucy to the poorer one. Thus begins their trials in pursuit of love and marriage. Ayala is blocked in her quest by her vision of an "angel"-an impossible dream of a creature above everything and everyone. The story, which chronicles a number of other romantic entanglements as well, depicts Ayala's maturation from a somewhat silly girl into a (more) mature woman.

Some of Trollope's visions of women got on my nerves but for the most part I was struck by how, while so much has changed in the last 100+ years, so much remains the same. The people while dressed differently, speaking differently, and living differently, still seem to have much the same characteristics as people today and given fresh clothes and a different style of speaking would be very much the same people we know now.

As always, Trollope's prose is beautifully soothing, with a rhythm of its own that I have loved for years. Both in the ways his world differs from ours and in the ways it remains the same, I loved this book.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Reread Review

Despite neglecting Goodreads for several years now, after rereading Ayala’s Angel in September I had to come on here and adjust my rating, in fact I am not really sure why it was only four stars on my last read! This time there were none of the slight irritants I had with Ayala that seemed to have bothered me on the first reading and although I always love the way Trollope writes his women, on a reread it was very much the male characters who I found so endearing and humorous. The strong male characters were something I had remarked upon previously but this time I just felt for the stubborn, simple and occasionally frustrating Tom, loved Colonel Stubbs even more with his ‘ugly’ face and love of poetry and adored Sir Thomas who just wants to be left in peace to manage his money, but is constantly forced to direct and intercede in those around him, being both grumpy and generous as his whim takes him. This time I realized that there are no politics either secular or clerical in the novel and that this is very simply a novel of money, class and relationships. It is so readable, full of life, often funny and just an utterly delightful read! Out of Trollope’s forty-seven novels this would be in my top five and if you are unsure where to go next with Trollope or whether to start him at all, I would recommend this novel as a good one to choose!


First Read

Ayala’s Angel is very much about love and romance and finding the perfect person to marry, almost to the point where our ‘heroine’ Ayala’s obsession with finding the man who personifies the ‘Angel of light’ could get wearing. As this is a Trollope novel though, filled with humor and wit and pointed but light commentary on the necessity of marrying for money and position or for love, then wearing was not my own experience.

Ayala and her sister Lucy are orphaned and then separated so they can be taken in by their mothers remaining siblings. The Tringles are fabulously wealthy, the Dosett’s far from it so the fate of the sisters seems as though it will be as similarly diverse. Both girls are independent minded and have ideas about their futures and as such various problems ensue as the novel progresses with hurt feelings, broken hearts, wounded pride and willfulness all abounding. Of course as this is Trollope there is also a vast amount of humor and some brilliant character sketches. Ayala as the main character can verge on the irritating with her continual references to the ‘Angel’ but Trollope manages to hold onto our sympathies by showing her as simply following her feelings. Rather than being swayed by what societal expectations are for a poor girl such as she and being bullied into marriages she does not want, she stands her ground.

Trollope always writes women so well giving them a strong voice and even stronger opinions. He also makes it clear he is aware of the difference in freedom of men and women at this time; Imogene Docimer says at one point to Frank, “Unless I marry I can be nobody. I can have no existence that I can call my own. I have no other way of pushing myself into the world’s notice. You are a man…You can live and eat and drink and go where you wish without being dependent on any one.” Imogene is poor but even the rich women have to use their wits and wiles to get what they want from their husbands.

Having said that there are some wonderful male characters in the novel. Mr. Tringle is a favorite, particularly in his disdain of Mr. Traffick and his complete exasperation with having to deal with quite so many ‘fools’, primarily his own children. Larry Twentyman and his wife, who goes hunting after just having had a baby are appealing and show that working women often had more freedom than the ‘ladies’ while Colonel Stubbs is utterly charming as is the somewhat feckless but ultimately romantic Frank Houston.

There is an element of fairytale in the novel, with the two ugly ‘stepsisters’ and the dream of the prince rushing in to save the ‘princess’ but humor and cynicism play far too large a part for this to be simply that. Trollope shows clearly how much harder it is for the women when it comes to marriage but without lecturing, using instead wit and fabulous female characters to illustrate but not berate. Utterly readable, he manages to entertain effortlessly through five hundred plus pages and leaves us entirely satisfied after the final page is turned.

Some favorite lines

‘there are men to whom a knack of fumbling their money in their pockets and of looking out from under penthouse brows over an expanse of waistcoat, gives an air of overweening pride which their true idiosyncrasies may not justify.’

‘Mr. Traffick valued $120,000 very highly, as do most men, and would have done much to keep it; but he believed that the best way of making sure of it would be by showing himself to be the master. “My own one,” he said, “you are really making an ass of yourself.”

‘Tom, moreover, had a waistcoat which would have itself been suicidal.’

‘At one period of the repast she was more than generally lively, because she felt herself called upon to warn her husband that an attack of the gout was imminent, and would be certainly produced instantaneously if he could not deny himself the delight of a certain diet which was going the round of the table. His lordship smiled and denied himself, -thinking, as he did so, whether another wife, plus the gout would or would not have been better for him.’

‘A man when he had just engaged himself to be married is as prone as ever to talk of other men “escaping,” feeling that, though other young ladies were no better than evils to be avoided, his young lady it to be regarded as almost a solitary instance of a blessing.’

‘There is always, on such occasions, a feeling of weakness, as though the man had been subdued, brought at length into a cage and tamed, as to be made fit for domestic purposes, and deprived of his ancient freedom amongst the woods;-whereas the girl feels herself to be the triumphant conqueror, who has successfully performed this great act of taming.’

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ayala's Angel is of my favorite Trollope novels, which says something. Part of the appeal of this book is the primary love story between Ayala Dormer, an impecunious orphan of about 18, and Colonel Jonathan Stubbs, the red-haired, homely, but attractive gentleman who loves her.

Ayala is attracted to the charming Colonel Stubbs from the moment she meets him in a ballroom in Rome, but Ayala has in her mind an Angel of Light, a man handsome above all others, a prince among men, a man of integrity and honesty, loving and caring, good humored and funny, powerful and respected.

Colonel Stubbs is all of this, except of course that he is not handsome and he has red hair (deeply disapproved of in the late 19th century.) And there is his name. Can an angel be called Jonathan Stubbs?

Ayala, whom I picture as played by Audrey Hepburn, is young and idealistic. She is pursued by two other men besides the colonel. One is her cousin Tom, rich (very, very rich) and foolish and wearing too many rings, which seems to be Ayala's primary reason for refusing him. Another is a less than intelligent Army captain of large fortune who ends up in difficulties after running away to Ostend with Tom's sister.

As in all Trollope novels there is a sub-plot, this one concerning Ayala's less spectacular but equally lovely younger sister, Lucy, and her poor but talented artist lover. And there is a running joke throughout the novel concerning the husband of one of Tom's sisters, who despite the large dowry he received with his wife, continues for months to live off her family. Will Tom's frustrated father be able to get rid of this obnoxious visitor?

Ayala's Angel is a medium-sized novel, at least among Trollope novels, and it is not littered with sub-plots and intertwining characters. It does have the hunting scene that is expected in a Trollope novel and it has the usual line-up of delightful humerous characters.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read enough of Trollope to realize that the travails of getting married constitutes one of his grand themes. In Ayala's Angel, we have no fewer than four couples who are trying to overcome the insuperable barrier of so and so many pounds per annum. (It seems that no gentleman got anything so mean as a regular salary: Everything was tied up in the funds and based on the interest on property.)

Trollope is perhaps more sympathetic than any other Victorian novelist on the difficulties of a girl making up her mind. (I keep thinking of The Small House at Allington and Can You Forgive Her?). In fact, only a few of the novels do not deal with the subject.

It is always a pleasure for me to read Trollope -- a pleasure not unlike consorting with a good, wise friend -- and this one was no exception. Since I have re-read four of the novels, I am delightfully surprised to find that the pleasure does not abate on repeated readings.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

What Is One of This World’s Things Least Interesting to Read About?

I am quite sure that everyone will have a different Number 1 on their list of things they quickly tire reading about, and maybe there will even be varying ideas as to the second-least interesting thing to read about. However, I am also sure that love stories centering on the fates of young heroes and heroines can also soon become a bore to many readers unless they are gory like Romeo and Juliet because we usually know well in advance how they are going to end. And because love fulfilled, like Eton Mess, or a walk in the park on a sunny day, or a visit to the dentist’s which proves to have been unnecessary due to dental excellence, or warm feet, may be very pleasant and gratifying in itself but does not lend itself too readily as the major topic of a 600-page novel.

And, above all, because a conventional love story like Trollope wrote it with Ayala’s Angel stops exactly where it is going to become interesting – with the marriages of the respective couples. Then falls the curtain, which is all the more disappointing since it is normally one of Trollope’s fortes to spin tremendously realistic and gripping yarns of – yes – conjugal problems. Here, however, in one of his last works, Trollope mostly indulges in pure romanticism and produces a rather lengthy, actually rather trite and plodding novel with an annoying heroine, whose starry-eyed notions do not become any more interesting by being expounded on over so and so many pages, over and over and over again. Besides, the novel loses itself into side-tracks, following the fates of side characters in so much detail but with so little variety that you soon feel tempted to skip the odd chapter. You may also wonder whether Trollope ever gave it a second reading.

Strangely, the basic plot idea is very promising: Two orphaned sisters, quite different from each other in character but both devoted to each other’s interests, have to live with their respective uncle or aunt. The aunt is married to a rich banker, Thomas Tringle, whereas the brother, a certain Reginald Dossett, lives in genteel poverty. This scenario could have been used to generate tension and maybe even to suggest some character development in Ayala and her sister Lucy, but Trollope decides to concentrate on the love stories instead and wastes the potential of the premise. In the sure knowledge that his readers must be either asleep or benumbed with the endless drone of pat story elements, Trollope adds insult to injury by throwing in the usual twenty or thirty pages of hunting descriptions.

Being a Trollope novel, Ayala’s Angel is, of course, not wholly indigestible. There are some enjoyable characters like Sir Thomas, who tries to hold his own against his scrounging MP son-in-law Mr. Traffick, or his spoilt wimp of a son, or the grandiloquent Captain Batsby. There are also two more serious and admirable characters, namely Mr. Dossett and his wife Margaret. As a whole, though, I would consider Ayala’s Angel to be one of Trollope’s weaker literary enterprises.

[Bill Kupersmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had Ayala’s Angel not been a Goodreads group read, I doubt I’d ever chosen it, even as a committed Trollopean, the title being so exotic-sounding and celestial. Fortunately, the setting is very English and the title character thoroughly enchanting, though (as described by an elderly lady sharing a railway carriage) “perverse” in her continuing rejection of a suitor whom the reader will love. This book has been described as one of Trollope’s lighter works, and I would agree. No one is financially ruined and commits suicide, or even is tried for murder, though one is banged up for drunkenly assaulting a policeman. I may have been too anxious about Ayala’s persistence in rejection of Colonel Stubb’s proposal, but remembering Lily Dale in A Small House in Allington, the ability of the heroine of a Trollope novel to persist in folly could not be underrated. I was amused when Sir Thomas raises the possibility of his son Tom’s visiting “Cabul.” That was the eve of the Second Afghan War – how may we have had since.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe there will be a longer review soon.

Reason for the rating.... I really like reading Anthony Trollope. And I really liked reading this book, too. it wasn't quite as good as some of the other novels of his I read, it was more just focused on the 'love' story and didn't have quite as much of the overt society parts as some of the other novels I have read of his.

Maybe I'll expand on this at some point soon. Or maybe not.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title caught my eye because I'd never heard of it--turns out with good reason. One of the last of Trollope's 47 novels, he wrote it in less than 4 months, and it shows. It reads like he sat down and wrote without a plan. At that point he'd become so popular it probably didn't matter. I recommend any of the Barsetshire novels or the EUSTACE DIAMONDS.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. Perhaps if this was not my first Trollope novel I would have been more endeared to the author and his style and liked it better?

I found it a bit tiresome. I never got overly enthused of any of the characters. Most of them were whiny and irritating. And it just seemed to be the same thing played over and over and over and over. Tom wants Ayala. Ayala doesn't want Tom. But Tom is going to keep going back ad infinitum, because in his hard head he thinks she will change her mind. The Tringles were just an annoying bunch. They were all spoiled and entitled. Not one of them was very nice.

The two Docimer girls, Lucy and Ayala were the main characters, but I didn't find either of them really likable either. Ayala got better at the end when she finally realized she loved Stubbs, but up until then she was just a strange creature.

It was well written, but I just didn't care for the story. I will read another Trollope and hope for something better.

[Aris Catsambas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ayala's Angel reads like a lighter version of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, with the main difference that whereas the latter is, to quote wikipedia, "a panoramic portrait of English society", the former deals primarily with matrimony in Victorian times.

It must be admitted that the book's plot is weak and fantastic, unless Victorian men and women were so bored with their existence that they really did behave like stock characters in a Brazilian sitcom. The characters' behaviour and mode of thought is more often than not annoyingly stupid, and the final line of the book must be one of the most cringe-worthy ones ever written in the English language.

Nevertheless, the book does explore an important matter, the phenomenon whereby people build an ideal in their head that reality can never match, thus causing their own misery. This phenomenon is of course well known to the point of being mundane, but still.

The reason I give this book 4 stars is that I genuinely did enjoy reading it because of the author's acerbic wit. Perhaps the book does not qualify as profound art, but it is fun and entertaining - and very quotable.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay so. It's Anthony Trollope so I have OPINIONS. Seriously, I don't know of any other author whose writing I genuinely enjoy but also strikes me so viscerally with claustrophobia at the thought of being a woman in the victorian era. It's a weird dichotomy, especially because that's obviously not his intention. First of all, FUCK Tom Tringle. He's a certified Nice Guy who feels entitled to Ayala because he has money and he wants her, and acts like a spoiled child when denied a treat when she says no, acts out and blames her for his bad behavior, and tries to get his parents to get her for him. Also he essentially stalks her and speaks wistfully about wishing she could be made to marry him. He is disgusting and the narrative sympathy for him is grody. No. From the perspective of a modern female reader, a thousand times no.
On the other hand, Jonathan Stubbs is actually likeable. He gives Ayala space when faced with a rejection, tries to prevent others from pressuring her to accept him, and tries to normalize their interactions afterward to put her at ease. Also, he's objectively charismatic and charming, and she does show a marked preference for him any time he shows up.
He does ask again, but after a long period of time (and also, she's kind of obliviously in love with him by this point and he's probably picking up on that). Granted, Ayala chooses to try to rewrite history and say she was crazy for him from the beginning??? And he's like. Um. Sure honey? But whatever. She likes to rewrite the romantic narrative in her head and I guess that's in keeping with her character.
Honestly she mostly comes off as young and sensitive most of the time? So objectively, from a modern perspective I think this girl is... not grown. So. There's that. Just gonna leave that sentiment there.
I did find a lot of the background character interactions quite funny, and I did genuinely feel for the poor aunt and uncle trying to do their best for the nieces and making unappreciated sacrifices in their already straitened lives.
Honestly there's a bit of a Sense and Sensibility vibe to this book, with the two sisters with one EXTREMELY SENTIMENTAL one.

[Clbplym · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book grew on me as I read it. I found Ayala a little bit annoying but there were other characters who made up for that. I loved Gertrude’s ridiculous behaviour and the awful Mr Traffick. It was satisfying when he was finally made to leave the house. Frank Houston went some way to redeeming himself as the book went on. Gertrude and Augusta felt like the ugly sisters in Cinderella. The swapping and re-swapping of Ayala and Lucy was awful. As always, the narrator’s voice has very humorous moments to enjoy.

[Maan Kawas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved and enjoyed this novel by Anthony Trollope! I found it engaging and fairytale- like!

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Trollope that I loved! This novel had so many subplots, but Trollope wove them all together so well! There were wonderful characters: Ayala, Lucy her sister and Hamel, Col. Jonathan Stubbs, Sir Thomas and Tom Tringle, Captain Batsby and Gertrude, and all the huntsmen like Larry Twentyman who was so kind.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having just finished one of Trollope's perfunctory, undecorated two-volume 1880s novels—Kept in the Dark—I was a little worried about picking this equally late one up next, but as the Spirit of The Victorian Novel he clearly got up for his triple-deckers, even at the end. I wonder if it's just that three-volume novels require a certain number of characters with their own plots, and having put those characters into the world he can't help but make them interact with each other in novel ways.

It makes him lighter on his feet than in the two-volume books. In Kept in the Dark he just could not help repeating the title phrase, but here he describes his heroines' feckless artist father as having possessed "the sweetest little phaeton that was to cost nothing, the most perfect bijou of a little house at South Kensington..." He's constantly inventing ways for the MP husband of their wealthier cousin, one of the stock Victorian character types, to try to mooch off their rich uncle, and out of sheer exuberance or generosity he gives another stock character (the mediocre lover of the younger cousin, a la John Yates from Mansfield Park) his own concerns and romance. I hardly think he planned it, because it all begins after the character stops being necessary, but having decided on it he follows it through with the same enthusiasm he brings to the stories of Ayala and her sister. ("Nay," he has his ex-cynical ex-medicority write his own love interest, "I might fill as many reams of folio as are required for a three-volume novel. And then I might call it by one of two names, The Doubts of Frank Houston or The Constancy of Imogene Docimer.")

This is the real thing—what makes Victorian novels such a pleasure. You might get halfway through a novel and discover another set of would-be lovers in another configuration of human weaknesses waiting to entertain you in the intermissions.

The story that flows from the unlikely title is unique in Trollope. Ayala is a beautiful, unworldly romantic who has built up an "angel" in her mind for her future suitor, and is forced to deal with the gap between her angel and her still pretty charmed reality. Trollope is sensitive to what distinguishes the angel of a 20-year-old lady poetry-reader from reality, and there's a funny line you can draw from it to the angels of today's 17-year-old fanfiction-readers—an ethereal handsomeness, a nearly feminine sensibility, a life-and-death need for their love, a disembodied presence.

Against this she's left to measure two men: her rich and gauche and somewhat ridiculous cousin—Trollope notices that this cousin, which he treats with typical generosity, simply cannot understand what women find attractive, and always comes to her in his gaudiest rings and slickest hair—and a much more rugged and masculine angel who's never harsh and never coarse but who determinedly exists on earth and who has what Ayala believes to be a most unpleasant, mundane name. Trollope is great at showing us the gap between Ayala's attraction to him and her understanding of it—she wonders why she loves it when he twits her, etc.

Great stuff.

[Christina Dudley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of this book and the personalities of the two sisters reminded me at the outset of a cross between MANSFIELD PARK and SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. But the Sir Thomas in this book has even more terrible (and funny) trials to undergo with his children than Sir Thomas Bertram. There's the son-in-law he can't get to move out of the house, the "idiot" suitors to his daughter Gertrude, and the hopelessness of his bejeweled, heartbroken son Tom.

Penniless, orphaned sisters Lucy and Ayala (however the latter is pronounced--worst name ever! My apologies to anyone named Ayala. And how on earth is "Ayey" pronounced, when Lucy calls her that???) are taken in alternately by two sets of aunts and uncles. One set is rich; the other poor. Lucy is pursued by a handsome, penniless sculptor, and Ayala somehow captivates just about every other man in the book.

"She is a pretty little girl enough," said Sir Harry, "but I doubt whether she is worth all the trouble."

"Of course she is not. What pretty little girl ever was? But as long as he thinks her worth it the trouble has to be taken."

That about sums it up! Yes, the book is 100 pages too long and somewhat repetitive, but Trollope has great fun with everyone's idiocies, and by the end you find yourself rooting for the beleaguered Sir Thomas above all.

[Christy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I absolutely hated this book. But since Anthony Trollope wrote it, I stuck with it to the end, thinking it would get better. It didn’t. The heroine is so beautiful and vivacious that suitor after suitor offers for her, and she always turns them down. She has the idea that there’s a perfect man out there for her, presumably because she deserves the very best. When an ugly guy falls for her, she turns him down, even though she likes him. In fact, she falls in love with him, but she keeps turning him down. Why? Well, she doesn’t know, and by then I didn’t care. I started skimming, just to find out what happened, not that it mattered very much. I’ve been working my way down a list of Trollope novels, sorted by popularity. This was number eighteen, and up until now, I’ve loved them all. Maybe I’ll try the next one, and maybe I’ll find that magic again.

[Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do enjoy Anthony Trollope's writing, both his series and his standalone novels, and this one was sheer delight. Ayala and her sister Lucy are orphaned in their late teens or early twenties, and sent separately to live with their relatives, one going into a wealthy family and one to family in much more limited circumstances. How they navigate the various social strata and ultimately establish themselves is the theme of this charming novel, and Ayala's search for her Angel of Light is the particular focus. With numerous interesting characters and romantic entanglements, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge Trollope fan & I’ve read all of his two series of books, plus some others. But it just seems like I’m wading in mud. I’m at the part about Gertrude, Houston & Imogene. I listened to the audiobook with a British reader and I never could get used ti her pronouncing Houston as Hooston. I guess that’s the Brit way.
I might go back to it - i’m pretty far into it.
So I’m going to put it back on my Reading list. I don’t know why this seems so different to me from all the rest of his writing. The others I just inhaled voraciously: but this one….
Feedback welcome.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very typical Trollope: I love the way he steps outside and addresses the reader directly. As is common with many of his novels though, there is a sense that he was waffling a bit to make up the three volumes, and of course he clearly never reread a single word. But he's still more readable than anyone except the Master. (Dickens, of course, who else?) And Tom Tringle with his jewellery is an absolute gem.

[Miss Clark · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorite character is Mr. Tringle. He has some of the most hilarious lines!

As for Ayala. Well, I wanted to slap her out the little la-la land she was living in, but, overall, and especially for a Trollope, an enjoyable "classic" read.

[Oliver Brauning · Rating 4 out of 5]

On Sunday night after reading this book I was so angry that I stayed up late plotting an essay, trying to think up arguments to counter its message. Ayala's Angel depicts a dowry-less middle class young woman who receives offers of marriage from three respectable and financially stable suitors but rejects them all because she holds out hope that she will one day be visited by an "Angel of Light" who will put them all to shame. Trollope criticizes his Ayala for being excessively romantic. She will not marry any man except her Angel of Light, the one man she can love.

Now when I was in the middle of reading this book, I would have defended Ayala and her romance, thinking moreover, really to defend myself. (There is no author like Trollope to criticize your own behavior.) I was thinking of several reasons why somebody should hold out hope for The One, granting that, of course, there is not one but many angels of light: One ought to reject the model of dating as a marketplace. People are not consumer goods. When dating is simply a marketplace, someone, either man or woman, is always open to dropping their old partner for the new, updated version. Most women in a relationship unscrupulously flirt with men who are not their boyfriend, and men, likewise, see no transgression in trying to win over such women. Everywhere, faith in love is trampled on. The marketplace model must be rejected, and in its place should be the master-servant model, which more accords more with example of Christ and the Church. Aren't women to submit to their husbands, and aren't men to give themselves for their wives? As Jesus says, "For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth" (Luke 22:28).

A man ought to choose for himself a woman whom he can genuinely desire to serve. For many men, granted, that might be almost any woman, but other men might be so eccentric they have to wait for a unique woman. And if that woman already loves another man, he ought to suffer rather than seek the harm of the woman he loves, which he does when he interferes with her relationship. By bearing pain rather than committing sin, he puts his trust entirely in God's faithful Providence. Romance is not only ethical but spiritually enriching.

You must have noticed the catch in this whole argument, the fatal flaw. I have successfully defended myself but not answered a single charge against Ayala. That's because Trollope is totally correct in his assessment of marriage and courtship. He writes that Tom, Ayala's cousin and most ardent lover, though spectacularly unsuccessful in pressing his suit, "if the matter be looked at aright, should be regarded as the hero of this little history" (593). Trollope continues, "A very vulgar and foolish young man! But a young man capable of a persistent passion! Young men not foolish and not vulgar are, perhaps, common enough. But the young men of constant heart and capable of such persistency as Tom's are not to be found every day walking about the streets of the metropolis" (594). Trollope agrees with me that romance is good for men—but Ayala is a woman. The considerations besides love should be much greater for her.

A woman must not marry a man who is less wise than herself, unless he agrees to be guided in all things by her; that agreement, however, strains the marriage farther than prudence suggests. A woman must also not marry a man whose means are smaller than her own unless he equals her in competence to earn them. Therefore, a man not only can afford to wait for love, but he probably should wait to marry until he develops in himself the right characteristics. A woman, on the other hand, cannot wait for love so easily. "The woman is the glory of the man," says Paul, and the visible species of glory is beauty. Yet beauty fades too fast. Advances in nutrition, exercise, and cosmetics have not changed the fact that a woman at twenty-five is no longer what she was at twenty-three, and at thirty, she is no longer what she was at twenty-five. Women must seek husbands earlier in life than men, while their outward charm is at its height. The only other path is to adorn the heart with incorruptible virtues of meekness and patience and to work at revealing them to some appropriate man before the womb's fertility perishes: a much harder and less sure path.

In the end of the Ayala's Angel, the heroine adjusts her perspective on what an Angel of Light is and marries an imperfect man. A little romance is good. Without it Ayala may have married her cousin Tom, a man thoroughly unsuited for her, only because he was fabulously rich. That would have been wrong. Too much romance, however, means that while looking for The One, we might end up missing our chance at earthly happiness with some one. Ayala's Angel is a return to form for Trollope late in his career. The story is a reminder of what we intuitively know told in words that seem just right. It is a triumph of common sense.

[Steven Báthory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bien que d’une humeur historique ces derniers temps, j’ai eu très envie de retrouver mes chers classiques et de continuer en cette occasion la bibliographie d’Anthony Trollope. L’Ange d’Ayala me faisait particulièrement envie grâce à son alléchant résumé et sa séduisante couverture. Malheureusement et même si j’ai pris un incroyable plaisir à retrouver sa délicieuse prose, j’ai eu énormément de mal à entrer pleinement dans cette étude de mœurs et roman d’apprentissage.

C’est bien la première fois que j’ai du faire force d’effort et de concentration afin de m’immerger un minimum et sans rupture dans une œuvre de l’auteur. Pourtant tous les ingrédients du genre sont toujours aussi bien apportés et minutieusement menés mais il m’a manqué la malice que j’apprécie tant dans le style de l’auteur pour être totalement satisfait et conquis. Finalement et même si les nombreuses intrigues restent toujours aussi séduisantes, j’ai trouvé que certaines parties étaient par moments assez longues, malgré la courte durée des chapitres dévoilés, et cassaient réellement mon intérêt ainsi que le dynamisme de cette œuvre. Néanmoins, je ne peux affirmer avoir subit cette lecture tant celle-ci s’est dévoilée une fois d’une richesse délicieuse. A travers ses héroïnes, l’auteure parvient à dresser une fine et exquise fresque sociale et dépeint avec efficacité les mœurs de l’époque. De manière bien plus acerbe qu’à l’accoutumée et à travers de nombreux et variés sujets, ce dernier dépeint une véritable critique délicieuse à se mettre sous la dent. J’ai fort apprécié l’image du mariage et la place de la femme en son sein lors de l’époque victorienne. Tout comme j’ai aimé retrouver de vénaux personnages assoiffés de richesse et de pouvoir. Il faut dire que l’univers se veut fort soigné et met en totale opposition et avec distinction deux mondes bien différents et dont seuls les amours semblent partagés. Ainsi et d’un côté, le lecteur fera connaissance avec les mondanités victoriennes tandis que l’autre il découvrira la nécessité. J’avoue avoir adoré ce pan de l’intrigue tant ce ballet des mœurs et autres morales se veut rythmé et parfois endiablé.

Néanmoins et malgré toute la finesse et toute l’attraction qui émanent des nombreux portraits esquissés dans L’Ange d’Ayala, je ne suis pas parvenu à m’attacher complètement à l’un d’eux. Pourtant nos deux orphelines, Lucie et Ayala possédaient de merveilleux atouts ainsi que de séduisants arguments et brillaient par leur différence qui au final s’avère bien terne une fois arrivé à sa finalité. Grâce à l’intelligence et la beauté d’Ayala, je m’attendais à découvrir une jeune femme bien loin des conventions et même si les premiers chapitres le laissaient pourtant présager, cette dernière se range bien trop précipitamment derrière les conventions et les étiquettes que lui colle avec vivacité l’époque dans laquelle elle évolue. Ainsi, j’ai été assez déçu par le manque d’audace dont souffre Anthony Trollope et dont il aurait pu faire preuve tant je connais ses capacités qui me semblaient, jusqu’à présent, sans limite. Cependant et quand bien même cette légère déconvenue, j’ai été plus que sensible à la relation fraternel qui lie avec sensibilité et émotion Lucy et Ayala. Ces dernières sont merveilleusement construites et chacune des psychologies est poussée a son paroxysme. Ainsi, l’évolution de leur relation ainsi que chacune des étapes qui construit celle-ci se sont devinés des plus séduisante à découvrir. J’ai d’ailleurs bien plus apprécié les passages dans lesquels les jeunes demoiselles étaient réunies que tous les autres aspects romantiques de ce roman. Il faut dire que leur différence fait le charme de ce tandem et que ce dernier rythmer avec efficacité ce roman. Bien entendu les autres personnages ne sont pas sans reste et j’ai pris plaisir à découvrir cette conséquente et dense peinture familiale qui permet à l’auteur de dresser une vive critique de l’époque victorienne.

Cette riche et abondante œuvre ne m’a pas autant convaincu que les autres romans d’Anthony Trollope. La faute à une plume un tant soit peu plus exigeante et manquant parfois de malice et de raillerie malgré des thèmes abordés avec toujours autant de sincérité. Je ne suis d’ailleurs pas parvenu à m’attacher à l’un des nombreux protagonistes présentés au cours de cette lecture malgré tout leur charme et leur finesse.

Cette lecture a été réalisée à l’occasion du Blossom Spring Challenge – 2022 : Menu Lapin de Pâques – Catégorie Chasse aux œufs.

[Russell Fanelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ayala’s Angel was one of the last of the forty-seven novels Anthony Trollope wrote before his death in 1882. I have read and reviewed most of Trollope’s novels and consider him one of the best of Victorian writers. Like few other great novelists, Trollope is able to draw us into his story. Often we forget we are reading as we share with his characters the problems they encounter as the plot slowly unfolds. We have our own thoughts about what each character should do to solve a problem. Occasionally Trollope shares with us his own thoughts about what he considers the strengths and weaknesses of a particular character and I thoroughly enjoy Trollope’s speaking with me, the reader, and telling me what he thinks.

Ayala’s Angel is not vintage Trollope, but it is good enough to recommend. Let me explain myself. At the beginning of the novel Ayala and her sister Lucy have become penniless orphans who depend on relatives for a roof over their head and food on the table. Ayala goes to live with a rich relative and Lucy a poor one. Rich or poor makes no difference for both sisters hate where they live and this is an ongoing problem from beginning to end of the novel. The title, Ayala’s Angel, comes from Ayala’s fantasy about a knight in shining armor who will come and rescue her from her misery. Three suitors do propose to her but she considers none of them to be her angel. For me, Ayala’s rejection of her various suitors became both tiresome and frustrating. The story loses its forward motion as Ayala grumbles and complains about her suitors as she awaits impatiently the coming of her angel.

What saves this novel, for me anyway, are the supporting characters. I particularly liked Sir Thomas Tringle, baronet, a rich millionaire investment banker, uncle to Lucy and Ayala, who tells it like it is. Some of the scenes with Sir Thomas are laugh out loud funny when he criticizes his family members and the various suitors proposing to his daughter Gertrude and his nieces Lucy and Ayala. Sir Thomas is a kind and generous man whose patience is sorely tested by all the members of his family, particularly his son Tom, who has fallen head over heels in love with his cousin Ayala. I also liked Tom, better than Ayala, if truth be told. Tom is not Ayala’s angel and she treats him with contempt from beginning to end of the novel.

For those readers new to the novels of Anthony Trollope, I don’t recommend starting with Ayala’s Angel. Instead, I recommend the justly famous Barchester or Palliser series of novels. For those readers who have read many of Trollope’s novels, I don’t think they will be disappointed with Ayala’s Angel. It is a long novel and what I will call typical Trollope; that is, the story line is much like many other Trollope novels. That’s not a bad thing, for even second-rate Trollope is better than almost any novel on the current best seller list. Recommended with noted reservations.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could give this a 2.5. Two seems to few stars and 3 too many.

I've been wanting to read some Trollope for years but never got round to it. A friend was reading this one so I figured I'd start here.

I don't really have a context for rating this. I tend to give marks to any book, enjoyed or not, that leaves me thinking of the characters, themes or situations, well after finishing the read.

No doubt Trollope is prolix, verbose, and beats a dead horse. For a while I started thinking of this as "the eternal book" because it felt like it would never end, and not...in a good way...War and Peace it was not.

The situations in the book (Sisters being taken in by two different relatives after their father's death, one filthy rich and the other rather poor, and then being swapped for each other upon the wishes of the rich wife, one sister being befriended by wealthy socialites in a world typically bound by social class, felt artificial and unrealistic, though the situational and internal struggles of the women did not (Ie being liked and courted by someone one doesn't love back, feeling like one cannot win in a given situation, being stuck with others one doesn't connect with, being economically dependent.) I also had no sympathy for Ayala's obsessions about what love should look like, her "angel" as it were. I expect much is lost in the translation of reading a victorian novel in 2022, though I have not felt this with other victorian novels.

I will not give up on Trollope. I expect if there were a vicarage and a wee village thrown in, I'd have had more patience, or deeper character development, or more personal insight on the part of said characters. Given that the Barchester chronicles are his most universally revered, I should have started with The Warden. Meanwhile, I'm listening to his autobiography in hopes that will help me enjoy his work more.

[Alison Starnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

"On the day fixed, and at the hour fixed, he came in the plenitude of all his rings. Poor Tom! It was a pity that he should have had no one to advise him as to his apparel. Ayala hated his jewellery. She was not quite distinct in her mind as to the raiment which would be worn by the angel of light when he should come, but she was sure that he would not be chiefly conspicuous for heavy gilding; and Tom, moreover, had a waistcoat which would of itself have been suicidal."

I enjoy reading Trollope. He has a way with words, an observational humour and ability to winkle out the minutiae of people’s characters. Like Charles Dickens, he produces some truly memorable names.

What also pleases me is the way in which he writes about women as primary characters, not reduced to a secondary role or as somehow inferior. They are alive and resonate their feelings, desires and intentions in clear and unambiguous terms. We can judge them on the same level as any other characters.

Trollope writes preposterous scenarios very well. He also pricks the balloon of pomposity on a regular basis, such as he does with the Tringle family. Augusta Tringle, a young woman full of her own self-worth, marries an MP who is much older than her. The newly married couple then proceed to sponge off her parents rather than settle in a home of their own. Tom Tringle senior is enraged by this but cannot penetrate the impossibly thick skin of his son-in-law.

Ayala is a romantic, immature young girl who has an idealised vision of the “angel” of the title. She proceeds through the novel finding men happy to fall in love with her, but – alas! – none that meet her exacting standard. Even the delightful Colonel Jonathan Stubbs has fallen under Ayala’s spell but, although enjoying his company, she dismisses him for being ugly!

Of course, being a Trollope novel, everything always makes sense in the end. All those who should get married do, even the idiotic ones - and there are quite a few of those.

This is a delightful novel and well worth the effort.