Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

Prepared by Sue B

Our first novel of the year was "our" classic for the year, though, you never know, we may do another! It was Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers, which was published in 1857and is the second book in The Chronicles of Barsetshire series, aka The Barchester Chronicles. It is set in an imaginary English Cathedral town. As always, we started with our ...

First impressions

• Loved it. Couldn’t resist also rewatching the 1982 BBC TV series filmed in Peterborough, whose excellent cast did full justice to Trollope’s wonderful characters
• Didn’t finish it because read The warden first. The church background was very complex. It was wordy but witty. The deliberately heavy-handed naming of people was fun.
• Loved the engagement with the reader and the ironic tone but preferred The warden which was sweeter.
• Really enjoyed it. The characters were vivid and entertaining. It was hard to find a Kindle version in English.
• Hadn’t previously read it and found it different to anything else we have read. After reading most of it, listened to the last 25% of an audio play which “coloured” the characters. Preferred the “black and white” of the printed text. Loved it, and felt there was much to unpack.
• Only half-way through and enjoying it.
• Loved the wry comments. Not much plot, and the whole thing revolves around very little. Imagined Salisbury Cathedral. Found it hard to get into at first and glossed over the first few chapters. Grew up in High Church Sydney – it brought back memories.
• Love Hardy, but just getting into this when family events interrupted reading.
• Had read it in the 70s. Different to Hardy is more wordy in his landscape description. Liked the authorial voice in Trollope. Loved the satire and comments on life at the time.

Further discussion

Our conversation ranged widely and jumped around, including the following:

• Why write six novels set in a Cathedral Close? Because it is close to government? The politics of the Anglican Church are prominent in the novel, so it was suggested that a guide to Anglican church hierarchy might help us to understand the structure. Dr. Grantly missed out on being made Bishop because of a change of government. 
• The novel was written not long after the Oxford Movement, which was a religious movement in the Anglican Church which focused on High Church, emphasising its Catholic heritage. It led to Newman and others becoming Catholics. In the novel the High Church faction is represented by Dr Grantly, who recruits Mr. Arabin (who had been a follower of Newman) for support against the Low Church or Evangelical faction represented by Mr. Slope and Mrs. Proudie. There’s not much theology in the book, but much poking fun at the Church politics. We discussed that at that time the church tended to be a career rather than a calling. Mr. Harding’s principles were often amusingly in the way of Dr. Grantly’s pragmatism. 
• The warden and Barchester Towers also comment on the role played by newspapers in manipulating public opinion.

As you’d expect the novel reflects the attitudes of its time. There was some degree of sexism, for example Mrs. Bold being referred to as “a delicate creeper [which] has found its strong wall”, and we felt that Dr. Grantly had been highly mysoginistic in his treatment of her. Yet, the novel also has many strong women such as Mrs Grantly, Mary Bold, Signora Neroni, not to mention the formidable Mrs. Proudie and even Mrs Quiverful. It was clear that while the men held the official positions, their wives worked unpaid at the Sunday Schools and held a lot of power behind the scenes. It was noted that in the Trollope family the author’s mother (the highly successful novelist Fanny Trollope) had earned most of the money.

We also noted some occasional antisemitism.

We enjoyed the humorous descriptions of life at the time. An example is Mrs. Thorne’s garden party where she tries to keep some Feudal traditions going, such as the quintain for jousting practice where Harry Greenacre came to grief. The social hierarchy at the time meant that everyone fitted in their appropriate place, except the appropriately named Lookalofts who were dressed up and determined to dine with the gentry instead of in the field with the other farmers. They're mocked by the Greenacres for being “half nekid’ and wasting money on pianos and silk instead of stock for their farm. Mrs. Bold’s widow’s cap became less obvious over time. A sign that she was ready to get back into life again? Mrs. Clantantram wears a Rocquelore. So much was made of it that we googled to find out that it was an 18th century man’s cloak. Characters were really amusingly described, e.g. Miss Thorne: “Had she not been made throughout of the very finest whalebone, rivetted with the best Yorkshire steel..”

We discussed Trollope as an author. He was wordy, as were other Victorian authors. One example shared was: "Should the bishop now be re-petticoated, his thraldom would be complete and forever".

He assumed that his audience had a classical education. He also took the audience into his confidence, for example with the plot spoiler that Eleanor would not, in the end, marry Mr. Slope or Bertie Stanhope. Would we have enjoyed the story more if we had not known this? We thought not. One member said “I love it when the author talks to me”. It was commented that Jane Austen did it too while Dickens did not. Trollope references Fielding in the novel. Did he see himself in that tradition? Fielding had larger-than-life characters but Trollope's are more subtle? Did he kill off John Bold so that Eleanor’s relationship with her father could be the focus?

What did Trollope believe?

We wondered what Trollope himself really believed. Most of the characters are reasonably well-rounded and shrewdly observed. Mr. Quiverful, for example, is torn between being offered the much-needed Wardenship, and feeling bad about Mr. Harding. Mr. Slope and Mrs. Proudie are mostly presented in a very unsympathetic light, but they were right about the Wardenship. Mr. Harding did not need it as much as Mr. Quiverful did.

We were told when they first came back from Italy that the Stanhopes were cold, manipulative people. But they were fun, and in the end behaved with honesty and even kindliness. Did Trollope change his mind about them?

In the last paragraph we celebrate Mr. Harding, “a good man without guile, believing humbly in the religion which he has striven to teach”. Maybe that’s the answer?

Present: 9 Minervans