Customer Reviews

The Macdermots of Ballycloran (Complete Novels of Anthony Trollope)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anthony Trollope's first novel, and a good one. Set in Ireland in the 1830s, it tells the story of a proud but destitute family and their tragic downfall at the hands of a scoundrel. Myles Ussher is an English police captain sent to Ireland to help stop illegal whiskey making. Feemy Macdermot falls deeply in love with him, though he has no intention of returning that love. The locals hate him, and Feemy's brother Thady, when he learns of Ussher's merely using Feemy, kills him in a rage when he believes Ussher is abducting her against her will (they are actually eloping). A trial ensues and after some exciting intervals involving escapes, Thady is convicted and hanged.

Trollope offers a sympathetic look at Ireland's troubles during this time period; indeed the "innocent" Feemy might symbolically represent that country while the unfeeling, spiteful Ussher is England. Trollope had spent a good deal of time in Ireland and knew the country and the people well; his use of Irish dialogue is natural and realistic. The trial scene is pretty exciting, and Trollope's broad humor is already clearly evident. The use of the dilapidated Macdermot mansion as the starting and ending point, with the main plot sandwiched inbetween as flashback, gives the novel a cinematic touch. The author would achieve greater novels as his career progressed, but this initial production highlights an auspicious start.

Trollope's first novel is an interesting if troubling study of the predicament of heavily indebted Irish landlords in the 1830s. The book's no-frills format, however, makes the act of reading a real chore, as it is set in courier in an ungainly 8.5 x 11 inch format. It is published by Filiquarian Publishing and distributed under the GNU Free Documentation license. I like the idea of making documents in the public domain widely accessible, but would it have killed them to set it in a more readable typeface?

I was so mad that Trollope let Thaddy suffer and suffer right until the end, with no turnaround, that I would have written him an angry letter (email?) if he were still alive. Feemy brought her suffering on herself, so I could take that. But Thaddy! How could you do that to Thaddy, Anthony? And how can Anthony make characters so real that I went to bed still thinking about Thaddy and finally had to rewrite the ending in my mind before I could go to sleep.
While I was still expecting a turnaround for Thaddy I enjoyed the novel, especially the description of Mary Brady's wedding, which was Trollope humor at its best--just priceless. Also, he made me live in Ireland with those Irish people at that time in history and feel what they felt, and, although it was very sad sometimes, it was valuable to me. Father John was a dear, wonderful character--one of Trollope's best, and he wrote it as an English Protestant who did not share the anti-Catholic mania of many English Protestants of the time. He showed the hatred on both sides of the Protestant-Catholic divide quite well. George MacDonald does this very well in his novels, too.
But it was such a shame that he let Thaddy down. I rewrote it mentally so that Thaddy has an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ in his cell the day before the hanging in which he is invited to receive God's love and comfort, and when Father John sees him the next morning, Thaddy's face is aglow, and he shares his experience with the good priest, and they are comforted together, for Thaddy has been told, "This day you will be with Me in paradise." And then I slept well.