The cover for the first edition of the Last Chronicle of Barset
Lindsay Duncan as The Rector’s Wife (BBC, 1994)
Dear friends and readers,
A few weeks ago now I wrote a blog-essay on The Last Chronicle of Barset after a group of us on Trollope&Peers finished reading the book together. I followed that up with reading Joanna Trollope’s The Rector’s Wife and writing a blog-essay on the book as a post-text to Trollope’s novel. I had been during this time joining in on a reading and discussion of Trollope’s Framley Parsonage (the 4th novel of the Barset series) with a group of Trollope readers on-line on zoom sessions sponsored by the London Trollope Society. They decided they would like to read The Last Chronicle next, and the Chairman of the Society was gracious enough to ask me to give a talk about the book as a prelude, preface, or food for thought just before we began. (I mean to re-read it with them. They start again this coming Monday and will be reading this very long book across the summer (the schedule).
I decided to write a talk that combined my two blogs with a perspective that emphasized the modernity of Trollope’s masterpiece and called it The Modernity of the Last Chronicle of Barset (click and you can read it on academia edu. Errata: there is no way I can edit the text of the paper on this site except by taking down so here say: paragraph 8 should read Chapter 4, not Chapter 5, and late in the paper Major Grantley is “just under 30.”)
The thesis of the talk is that this masterpiece of Trollope speaks as directly and relevantly to us today as either of his more (recently featured) signature books (The Way We Live Now and He Knew He was Right). That it’s a piercing account of the way inequality works in the character of Rev Mr Crawley, and a dramatization of a young women traumatized by her experiences of sexual life. I bring in The Rector’s Wife as Joanna Trollope’s atttempt to give Mary Crawley what she is denied by Trollope: a fulfilling independent life of her own. I also cover Major Grantly & Grace as not quite past their sell-by date and end on the beautiful patterning and wonderfully accurate comic and moving accounts of other characters.
I write this blog to share the video recording of me delivering this paper on-line yesterday at the introductory session to The Last Chronicle of Barset. If you want to go to the Trollope Society site and view it there, click and scroll down:
One of Crawley’s many cogent utterances in defense of his behavior: is featured there, one many people of those in a position to do something to stop illegal cruelty seem to lack the courage to act upon: “Opposition to usurped authority is an imperative duty”
You can also go directly to the YouTube site:
Gentle reader, if you have been curious over the years you have been reading this blog to see what I look like, how I sound and my workroom, here I am.
Ellen
Dear Ellen,
it was lovely to see you online! I wish we would have had more time to discuss Joanna Trollope´s novel. I posted a note in the chat function but Dominic didn´t pick up on it – for me the ending of “The Rector´s Wife” felt like a let down. Everything just comes together – too neatly. It felt clunky plot-wise. If I remember correctly Dominic said that having Eleanor Arabin go off to Europe felt clunky but otherwise the whole drama around the cheque wouldn´t have unfolded. Hope there´ll be more talks from you in the future, Ellen! :-).
I am planning to see the film now.
Best wishes
Andrea
How kind you are. I offered to introduce one of the week’s chapters. Dominic hinted he would ask me to do another in future. I will use 5 instead of 3 pillows! I didn’t see the chat — I was too flurried and excited to be able to cope the way I usually do (nowadays) in classes over chat. It was wonderful to see you. Yes the ending of The Rector’s wife is disappointing. I have that in my blog on the novel. I begun Tomorrow. Warmly, Ellen
Catherine Crean:
Brava! Ellen, you are magnificent. I learned so much listening to your lecture. I especially appreciated your section on the “wood”imagery in discussing women’s lives. And that links up with the last, very moving segment of your talk. When you speak of the violin cello, I thought of how Harding’s hands had so often held the instrument, and made it sing. And how the shaping, care, and seasoning of the wood of which the instrument is made represents a lifetime of partnership. I also share your appreciation of Lady Lufton. Too often she is seen as some kind of controlling witch. No, she is not. She is a woman who understands the limits and the extent of her power. And she uses it wisely.
Thank you for sharing your lecture with us.
Catherine Crean
This is very kind, Catherine. Thank you for listening. I truly appreciate the praise. Ellen
Several democrats have shown real courage, among them Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, and among Republicans, but one, Mitt Romney.
Panorea: “Excellent–Just Excellent. It was superb. Your review was so good that I hope that we can read the book in one of our classes. Also you sharing your own personal experience, made the person’s experience in the book more relevant and real. I think it had great impact.I do have one suggestion though. It has nothing to do with the presentation, but with you. I think that if you moved your chair back and put a pillow on your lap (like a reading desk) the viewer can see your face, instead of the top of your head. You have a lot of expression in your face that adds to what you are saying, that is lost when you sit so close. I know that you cannot move the computer, so move yourself.
I really enjoyed your presentation.”
Thank you. We’ll see one another on-screen tomorrow. I am now thinking maybe after Phineas Redux at the OLLI at Mason, the next time I “do” a Trollope novel, I could go for The Last Chronicle of Barset.
Yes I didn’t realize until I watched video how much I am too low down so for tomorrow at OLLI at Mason I will have another pillow. I could sit further back but I fear people would not hear me. I have bought now a “bolster cushion” and when that comes I’ll see if that would help. If I was asked to do another talk, maybe I could use the laptop.
Your praise is music to my ears,
Ellen
[…] friends. Well, the talk (a thirty minute paper) I gave seemed to go over very well. Here is what you need to know and here the YouTube video (yes I am too low, but for next time I have bought a bolster cushion and […]
[…] friends. Well, the talk (a thirty minute paper) I gave seemed to go over very well. Here is what you need to know and here the YouTube video (yes I am too low, but for next time I have bought a bolster cushion and […]
[…] friends. Well, the talk (a thirty minute paper) I gave seemed to go over very well. Here is what you need to know and here the YouTube video (yes I am too low, but for next time I have bought a bolster cushion and […]