After reading a bunch of modern stuff I decided to download a classic to my tablet, and I've been reading The Warden, the first of the five - oops, six - Barchester chronicles. Being the kind of reader I am, I might end up reading all six.
Trollope is a droll writer. Look at this description of breakfast at the home of Dr. Grantly, a thoroughly negative character (so far):
The breakfast-service on the table was ... costly and equally plain; the apparent object had been to spend money without obtaining brilliancy or splendour. ... The silver forks were so heavy as to be disagreeable to the hand, and the bread-basket was of a weight really formidable to any but robust persons. The tea consumed was the very best, the coffee the very blackest, the cream the very thickest; there was dry toast and buttered toast, muffins and crumpets; hot bread and cold bread, white bread and brown bread, home-made bread and bakers' bread, wheaten bread and oaten bread; and if there be other breads than these, they were there; there were eggs in napkins, and crispy bits of bacon under silver covers; and there were little fishes in a little box, and devilled kidneys frizzling on a hot-water dish; which, by the bye, were placed closely contiguous to the plate of the worthy archdeacon himself. Over and above this, on a snow-white napkin, spread upon the sideboard, was a huge ham and a huge sirloin; the latter having laden the dinner table on the previous evening. Such was the ordinary fare at Plumstead Episcopi.
Whoa! Who is Trollope kidding? Could any family of seven (two parents, three boys, two girls) put away so much food at a sitting? It makes the breakfast buffets at Israeli hotels look skimpy. And look at the delightful verb, "frizzling."
It's a pleasure to read such a judgmental narrator: "the apparent object had been to spend money without obtaining brilliancy or splendour" - Trollope doesn't object to luxury, just to bad taste, carried to extremes: "the bread-basket was of a weight really formidable to any but robust persons." (I've made some platters and bowls like that in my pottery class!)
True, the characters are not developed to any significant psychological depth, but the character of the narrator is vivid and engaging.
I recommend it, not that it needs my recommendation.
Trollope is a droll writer. Look at this description of breakfast at the home of Dr. Grantly, a thoroughly negative character (so far):
The breakfast-service on the table was ... costly and equally plain; the apparent object had been to spend money without obtaining brilliancy or splendour. ... The silver forks were so heavy as to be disagreeable to the hand, and the bread-basket was of a weight really formidable to any but robust persons. The tea consumed was the very best, the coffee the very blackest, the cream the very thickest; there was dry toast and buttered toast, muffins and crumpets; hot bread and cold bread, white bread and brown bread, home-made bread and bakers' bread, wheaten bread and oaten bread; and if there be other breads than these, they were there; there were eggs in napkins, and crispy bits of bacon under silver covers; and there were little fishes in a little box, and devilled kidneys frizzling on a hot-water dish; which, by the bye, were placed closely contiguous to the plate of the worthy archdeacon himself. Over and above this, on a snow-white napkin, spread upon the sideboard, was a huge ham and a huge sirloin; the latter having laden the dinner table on the previous evening. Such was the ordinary fare at Plumstead Episcopi.
Whoa! Who is Trollope kidding? Could any family of seven (two parents, three boys, two girls) put away so much food at a sitting? It makes the breakfast buffets at Israeli hotels look skimpy. And look at the delightful verb, "frizzling."
It's a pleasure to read such a judgmental narrator: "the apparent object had been to spend money without obtaining brilliancy or splendour" - Trollope doesn't object to luxury, just to bad taste, carried to extremes: "the bread-basket was of a weight really formidable to any but robust persons." (I've made some platters and bowls like that in my pottery class!)
True, the characters are not developed to any significant psychological depth, but the character of the narrator is vivid and engaging.
I recommend it, not that it needs my recommendation.
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