Barchester Towers is the second of the famous Barchester Chronicles. It is I think a favourite with many Trollope fans – as it reacquaints the reader with Mr Harding and his daughter Eleanor who we first met in The Warden, and proceeds to introduce a whole host of memorable characters. The first chronicle of Barset; ‘The Warden’, mainly concerned the wardenship of the old Hiram hospital, and the romance of Eleanor and John Bold. Now at the beginning of Barchester Towers the Wardenship of the hospital is still vacant and pretty young Eleanor is a widow with a young baby. Archdeacon Grantly – Mr Harding’s son in law and the son of the Bishop of Barchester dares to dream of stepping into his father’s shoes when the old man dies, however a change in government sees Dr Proudie appointed bishop. Dr Proudie brings to Barchester a formidable entourage in his wife Mrs Proudie and his chaplain the socially ambitious and conniving Mr Slope. “It is not my intention to breathe a word against the character of Mrs Proudie, but still I cannot think that with all her virtues she adds much to her husband's happiness. The truth is that in matters domestic she rules supreme over her titular lord, and rules with a rod of iron. Nor is this all. Things domestic Dr Proudie might have abandoned to her, if not voluntarily, yet willingly. But Mrs Proudie is not satisfied with such home dominion, and stretches her power over all his movements, and will not even abstain from things spiritual. In fact, the bishop is hen-pecked........”As Trollope characters go – old Mr Harding must surely be a favourite – I do love him, but in the Proudies and the odious Mr Slope he created such hilariously dreadful and memorable characters, that over 150 years later readers still love to hate them. In this social comedy the questions are: who will be warden? Who will be dean? Who will marry Eleanor? The Proudies and Slope quickly set themselves against the Grantly/Harding faction, and while Mrs Proudie and Mr Slope each separately contrive to influence the bishop to their way of thinking, Dr Grantly and Mr Harding determine to have as little to do with the slimy little bishop’s chaplain as is possible. Dr Grantly is therefore particularly disgusted to find Eleanor, his sister in law, to be less inclined to believe in Mr Slope as the enemy as the rest of her family.As an attractive young widow with £1200 a year - albeit with the encumbrance of a child, Eleanor is sure to attract admirers. Naturally Mr Slope is very quick to appreciate Eleanor Bold’s charms – and sets about using the question of the hospital wardenship – and Mr Harding’s potential re-appointment – to his advantage. Then enter the Stanhope family, back from Italy. One daughter Madeline is an abused wife, who has left her husband. Disabled by an accident which she simply won’t allow to detract from her beauty she contrives to be carried everywhere – whereupon she arranges herself to best advantage on a sofa. Madeline’s sister Charlotte is keen to help her brother Bertie to win the hand of Eleanor Bold, and befriends Eleanor with this is mind. Bertie, up to eyes in debt, then becomes suitor number two. Madeline meanwhile – despite still a married woman – also catches the eye of Mr Slope. Mr Arabin a forty year old bachelor clergyman, not very experienced in the ways of women and romance, and a friend of Dr Grantley’s, meets Eleanor while she is staying with her sister and brother in law. Only when Mr Arabin hears Eleanor’s name linked with that of Mr Slope – does Mr Arabin begin to see her in a new light. Trollope’s interest lay very much in exposing the ironies and hypocrisies that he saw in the Church. The ambitions and pride of men who profess to be working for God, juxtaposed with those humble, good men who only ever do good. Mr Slope, obviously one of the former, Mr Harding and Mr Arabin the latter. Alongside the conniving machinations and rivalry though, there is a little romance, and a great deal of humour. On the down side – oh my how Trollope loved to spin things out – some sections do need a darn good edit, not a man to use ten words where two hundred would do just as well. That aside, I do like Anthony Trollope very much, his stories are great entertainment, his characters very much real people.
Where I got the book: audiobook on Audible. I swear Audible is keeping me going these days!I bought this book because it’s reputed to be Trollope at his finest. Not having read that cynical old Victorian for some twenty-five years and having only read some of his purely political London-based novels, it felt a little different to be suddenly immersed in the far more restrained politics of clergymen in a small cathedral town. So it was a little while before I found my feet—and then suddenly I remembered why I’d liked Trollope in the first place.There is a new Bishop of Barchester, and he is what Trollope calls Petticoated—but he’s not one hundred percent under the thumb of his wife. There’s an important matter of preferment to be decided—a job bringing with it a nice house and the then enormous sum of £1,200 a year—and the other prize in play is the lovely, widowed Eleanor Bond who also, oddly enough, brings £1,200 a year with her. The circling vultures with their beady eyes on these rich pickings are the odious chaplain Mr. Slope and the good-natured, heartless, scheming Stanhope siblings. There’s also a whole subtext about evangelical versus traditional Anglican church practices which will, alas, be lost on most modern readers, but since the main thrust of the novel lies in the scheming and the wooing of Eleanor, it’s easy enough to concentrate on that and not worry about the clerical details, which are not heavily emphasized.I found Eleanor as wet as most Victorian heroines—quite literally since she bursts into tears a lot—and, alas, Mr. Arabin is way too noble and reserved to be really fascinating. My absolute favorites, by a long chalk, were Bertie Stanhope and Madeline Vesey-Neroni who were ADORABLE in their cynical worldliness and really, at the end of the day, quite likeable as human beings. Mr. Slope is the perfect slimy Victorian Pharisee whom everyone sees through in about three seconds flat, and the power struggle between Bishop and Mrs. Proudie is as entertaining as such things usually are.I actually found myself wishing in the end that the novel was twice as long. We seemed to get to the resolution of the story much too quickly - that’s the beauty of taking your Victorians in the form of audiobooks! There were whole chapters where I grinned and/or laughed out loud throughout. Narrator David Timson was so utterly perfect that I’m very disappointed to find I can’t get the whole series with him as narrator on Audible. Nonetheless, I’m diving in and stepping backward to listen to the first book in the Barsetshire Chronicles, and then the rest. I’ve been away from Trollope for far too long.UPDATE: I was horrified, on going back and checking, to discover that I'd listened to an abridged version. No wonder it seemed too short! That won't do at all. I'll be listening to the unabridged version as soon as I can get my hands on it. Still, for those who want to cut out the Victorian waffle and get to the interesting bits, I'd heartily recommend this version.
What do You think about Barchester Towers (2006)?
4.5★ I think that this is one of the few times when I preferred reading the book over listening to it. Simon Vance does a fine job with the narration (although I don't think his voice for Slope was quite right) but it was a bit too easy to lose focus and miss some of the snide humor in Trollope's asides & I found myself having to rewind (so to speak) often.However, my rating is primarily based on the last quarter of the book as I switched to this library audiobook from the Librivox recording. Maybe I would feel differently if I had listened to this one the whole way through...
—Leslie
I really enjoyed "The Warden", the first in the series, which prompted me to read "Barchester Towers." I have since picked up the next two in the series at our local used book store (the one I took you to, Jul!) because I've enjoyed this one so much. I love these books for the same reason I love Austen, or Benson's "Lucia" books, or Georgette Heyer, or Wodehouse, or so many other English authors - because of the humor, the warmth, the wonderful social satire and characterizations, and, of course, the dialogue! I love how he entire cathedral close becomes embroiled in the power struggle between Mr. Slope, Mrs. Proudie (the she-bishop!), and the Archdeacon; how Signora Neroni ensnares every man she meets from the confines of her couch; how sweet-natured, decent, kind Mr. Harding manages to honor and love all of his friends and family even as they try and pull him this way and that because of what THEY think is best for him - and he still goes his own way, follows his own conscience, quietly, calmly, but inevitably. I look forward to reading the rest of the series, and am so glad I gave some of the "other Victorians" a try (besides the inevitable Dickens and Bronte we all read in school). I would also recommend, in the same vein, Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford", which was just on PBS (I DVRed it, haven't watched it yet), and her "North and South" which I watched on DVD from the library (had been on Masterpiece Theater or A&E), and it was WONDERFUL, made me want to read the book (haven't read it yet, but I just found it at the used book store, so it's on my to-read stack!)
—Susan
Anthony Trollope is so amusing. In this the second of his Chronicles of Barsetshire, a few of his minor characters are: Mr. Quiverful, a parson with 14 children; Dr. Rerechild, the pediatrician; Dr. Fillgrave, the physician to the dying dean. Trollope also talks to his readers. At one point he tells us that his characters believe such and such will come about but we readers can be assured that it will not be. Elsewhere he tells us that a good novelist would be able to describe just exactly the state of this person, but that we will have to accept this author is not be able to write so eloquently.As I read, I wondered why Trollope has endured, and endures he has, even if not as famously as Dickens. I found my answer in the Wikipedia article that quotes Henry James: "His [Trollope's] great, his inestimable merit was a complete appreciation of the usual. ... [H]e felt all daily and immediate things as well as saw them; felt them in a simple, direct, salubrious way, with their sadness, their gladness, their charm, their comicality, all their obvious and measurable meanings. ... "Exactly!
—Elizabeth (Alaska)
