Customer Reviews

The Way We Live Now (Oxford World's Classics)

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I consider it to be a tragedy that Anthony Trollope's works are largely forgotten and overlooked by the reading public. So many well-educated people have never even heard ot him, although his novels are some of the best representatives of what a good novel should be! His beautiful storytelling in "The Way We Live Now" is just another example of Trollope at his best. A master raconteur, his vivid descriptions and cutting satire make this work one of his most controversial (at least at the time) and indeed one of his most respected. Though his longest work, it certainly does not seem long because he keeps the reader on his toes, so much so, that he is dying to know what will happen next. The best thing about the book, in my opinion, is the fact that it is difficult to find a character whom you can like. Each one, and there are many, has one or more particular faults, and we, as the readers, quickly realize that no one is perfect. Even the sympathetic characters are prejudiced at times. This, I believe, is a marked contrast to Dickensian personnages who much of the time are almost too angelic or cruel to be believable. Trollope give us a lesson in true human nature, one that will be very hard for me to forget.

I bought this book based on a Newsweek recommended reading list. It concerns greed, pursuit of position, and fraud in late 19th century London, but most of the story line reads as if it could have been set in 2008, during the financial scandals on Wall Street. There is even a Bernard Madoff type figure in the story. There is also a BBC/PBS adaptation available on DVD. It is also excellent, but necessarily lacks some of the richness of detail that we find in the book. I don't think of Tollope's books as page turners, but I got to a point where I didn't want to put this down. Perhaps in a few years the material won't seem as fresh, but right now it's very timely.

This work of literature encompassing life among the upper-crust of society in Victorian England is by far the best fictional representation I have ever read.

Trollope creates fantastic characters from the saintly/virginal society girl who pines for a lover, to a dastardly gentleman who squanders his families small fortune on rather unsavoury habits such as gambling and less than scrupulous women.

Most of this is told through the perspective of the matriarch of one family (Lady Carbury) who's only wish is that her son (a scoundrel at best) marry well and with any luck above his station (which he tries to sabotage at every turn) and for her daughter to marry into wealth at any cost whatsoever. That with the general gossip and the "Newcomer's from Paris" (The Family Melmotte) who left Paris hurriedly it seems under a rather dark cloud of suspicion will keep you glued to this book throughout. It is a very lengthy novel (481 pages) but you will be desperately turning the pages in the Appendix hoping for just a bit more!

I bought this book on my kindle after seeing it referenced in a newsmagazine. I am new to Trollope but am quickly becoming a devoted fan. His writing is Dickens-like, but easier to read. This work is about a family with a good standing in society but little money. The son is the typical ner-do-well; the mother feels an urgent need to advance him in society by finding him a rich wife. Her efforts lead them to characters whose whose history is just a bit too mysterious; whose worth is substantial but superficial; and whose standing is society is questionable. Fans of English literature will enjoy this book and it's commentary on society, then and now.

Aside from the fact that this book takes place 125 years ago, it could be an end of year round-up for the corporate and political scandals of 2002. Trollope takes a deft look at the conditions of a culture that allow the Melmottes of the world to walk in and wreak havoc, (laziness, entitlement, greed) and one gets a very queasy feeling watching the bubble inflate, followed by the inevitable collapse of the whole house of cards. At least Melmotte doesn't take the whole country down with him. We may not be so lucky.

On the down side, I'm guessing (it feels like) these chapters were published in newspaper form before they were assembled for the book, as each chapter contains much unnecesary reiteration, and if you're reading straight through it can be annoying. In addition, Trollope doesn't have Dickens' delicious wit or keen insight into character, and some plots which seem to be headed for the interesting turn of event are instead allowed to dangle or resolve themselves dully. (I'm thinking particularly of Mrs. Hurtle here.) And for me, the fact that there is no one to take a particular interest in, no moral compass so to speak, left me feeling a bit adrift. Yes, people are deeply flawed. But one character who was perhaps a bit less flawed than the others would have given me something to hang my hat on.

Still, a page turner par excellence.

The Enron collapse shows that, as long as we continue to enjoy the benefits of capitalism in the West, Trollope's most famous novel will continue to be timely. This has often been called Trollope's best novel: while it does not contain his best writing (which would be found in individual chapters of PHINEAS FINN and THE LAST CHRONICLER OF BARSET), nor is it his funniest (BARCHESTER TOWERS), it is his most consistently engaging in its details of a railway bubble in mid-Victorian London. The great financier at the center of it, Augustus Melmotte, rises from obscurity to be asked to host a dinner for the visiting emperor of China (which forms a splendid setpiece for the novel) on the eve of his financial ruin. The novel is very exciting and enjoyable, and shows Trollope straining the hardest to meet the standards set by his admitted hero, Thackeray; although this certainly doesn't meet the level of VANITY FAIR, it's still pretty good. There is a bit of a trouble that Trollope has too many subplots going and winds up spending hundreds of pages at the end (long after the work's main action is over) having to resolve them. One of the very best of these ongoing stories, the desperate attempts of the contemptibly snobbish (but still oddly sympathetic) Georgiana Longstaffe to find a husband, is as a result resolved much too suddenly and unsatisfactorily. I would still recommend THE WAY WE LIVE NOW as a fine read--and as a very splendid introduction to Trollope.

This is my second Trollope, chosen after reading and enjoying The Warden earlier this year. With The Warden, I was surprised how modern it was and by how much I enjoyed the novel. (I had avoided reading Trollope forever, thinking it was just too dusty and Victorian) I am so glad that I picked up The Way We Live Now as my second outing with the author.

The long format (800 pages) gives Trollope time to show his amazing skill with characters. I can only add my voice to the chorus of people justly praising his skill with female characters-- particularly when compared to other writers of the time. Marie Melmotte is generally singled out for praise. I have to confess that I was quite fond of Winifrid Hurtle. This woman has been more sinned against than sinning. She is complex and dignified, and may be the best character in the book.

In fact, although the novel is ostensibly about Augustus Melmotte, I would be willing to argue that an even larger part of the book is about women finding happiness in less than typical ways. Whether it is Georgiana Longstaffe or Mrs. Carbury, the woman in The Way We Live Now are making the best choices that they have available, given limited circumstances. I thought that in this sense it was still topical, and very brave.

I would recommend The Way We Live Now very highly. It does have a lot of pages, and requires some patience. But, it doesn't require as much patience as one may expect. I promise you, that once you get into it, it is not an effort at all to read. The Gilded Age by Mark Twain could make an interesting counterpoint to this book, dealing as it does with such similar material but from a very different perspective.

It is most when reading (or re-reading) Trollope that I realize how much recent novels suck. Trollope, who regarded novel-writing as a learned trade, shows wider understanding of human nature than twentieth-century, breadloaf-fed artistes. Trollope was the master of personal character. He knew what motivated people, and what faults kept them from behavior they knew was correct

The Way We Live Now is an examination, from a skilled, intelligent early Victorian, of the beginning of capital as worth. Melmotte might be any of current unscrupulous speculators you can name (if you even think speculating is ungentlemanly). I do not personally agree with Trollope as he seems to believe in birth and blood, but I can easily agree that those who buy notice are never worth notice.

This is a tour de force by Trollope. Having finished the Barchester series, I decided to take on another while on a trip to San Francisco (featured somewhat in the novel). I think I enjoyed this most of all. It compares best with Thackery's Vanity Fair--there is no hero. Nearly all of its characters are fully fleshed out. Sir Felix finds ways to sink lower than the reader thinks he can sink. Melmotte is a superior version of Kenneth Lay. And Mrs. Hurtle is incomparable, as well as an unadulterated delight. She personifies one of the main themes: the English are spent, and the real life is to be found in America, even for its recognized faults.

The novel is long, but this reader was never bored. The plot was a fine thicket which built to a cresendo followed by a cleanly knotted and leisurly and satisfying finish. David Brooks gives a good introduction in the Modern Library edition, which also contains excellent endnotes. Highly recommended.

This book is a must-read for any aficionado of the Victorian novel, and will amaze readers who know Trollope only through the Barsetshire novels and wonder if he had the ability to step back from Victorian society and subject it to rigid scrutiny. The Way We Live Now is far more bleak than most of Trollope's work, yet not irredeemably so. The clear moral focus is still there as is Trollope's acute understanding that there is good and bad in all of us. For all the withering portraits it includes, the main characters are never caricatures. Even moral touchstones such as Roger Carbury are shown in all their murky complexity while they guide us through the still murkier world of speculation, vanity and avarice. And secondary characters such as Lord Nidderdale and Georgiana and Dolly Longestaffe are absolute gems. This is a masterpiece of the first order, one to read again and again and cherish. It brilliantly describes "the way we live now" and has wise counsel as to "how we should then live."