Sean O > Recent Status Updates

Three stories down, two to go.

Trollope is really the king of the subplot. Better than Eliot or Dickens. By far.

He -IS- a coward and a scoundrel.

I can’t believe I don’t remember anything about this absolute asshole, Adolphus Crosbie. What an awful jerk.

I haven’t budged on this reread in over a year. It’s time to embrace the fact that I’ll never finish this reread.

Why? The Turin chapter is dense and long and full of names and lore. So much that I can’t keep it straight in my head for more than five minutes.

This is very much a me problem tho.

I don’t remember any of this.

“Hobbledehoy” is the Victorian version of “on the spectrum.”

2026 reread: Almost zero recollection of this story.

Refusing to feel sympathy for Mr. Sowerby. No. Not gonna do it.

The Griselda Grantly subplot and the Mr. Sowerby subplot are resolving nicely. There’s been a retreat of the palpable anxiety of the first 30% of the book.

Barsetshire may not be ready for Rev. Crawley.

The Trollope Literary Universe is almost
my favorite thing about Trollope.

Mark is pressured by
Sowerby to put his name on a bill. And my anxiety is twigged.

2026 Reread. I tend to get hung up in the first quarter of the book. I dread Mark getting mixed up with the Chaldicotes set.

This is shaping up to be a fine book. Occasionally with Trollope, the protagonists erect their own barriers to happiness, but it all comes out right in the end.

This book is slowly redeeming itself. But, I think I’m pretty much done with the series. The story is getting predictable and more chaotic at the same time. So this will probably be a three star read and that’ll be the end of my dungeon crawler Carl interest. For now at any rate.

I think this series has jumped the shark. I’m halfway through and it just feels like a collection of episodes and not an actual novel.

I don’t know why Trollope amuses me so. I think it’s because he doesn’t cultivate a style and he writes for the normal person.