Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope

*contains spoilers*

I’ve been wanting to read some Anthony Trollope for a while, and so, in my rush to find a book of his to stuff into my cabin bag for the band’s trip to America, I reached for the most reasonably-sized volume I could find: Doctor Thorne. Along with this choice I also took with me Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur (which is the subject of my previous blog), Virgil’s The Aeneid (this particular edition is a more recent translation delivered in a wonderfully poetic prose, which differs nicely from the more constricted but yet still beautiful verse translation of Cecil Day Lewis’s), Homer’s The Odyssey (which I’m studying as part of a Classical Civilisation AS course, and I’ve already read many times – but still…), Charlotte Brontë’s Villette, and Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim. How I managed to whittle down from the twenty books I’d originally picked to this expansive and yet concise collection is a struggle I shall protect you from.

Anyway, so Doctor Thorne is the volume of Trollope’s I’d decided to take with me to America – because of its relative size to the rest of his works I have in my collection – which will explain my starting my first adventure with Trollope with the third book in the Barchester Chronicles as opposed to the first. I had no idea of this, of course, and so along with it I had to go once I’d already waltzed through the Introduction set out by Ruth Rendell (who I think is unduly harsh in a few of her explanatory notes in my edition). And yet it wasn’t at all difficult to get straight into the swing of things, and that’s because of Trollope’s style. It’s incredibly unique, though it nevertheless possesses something about it that suggests a wonderful blend of Dickens, Austen, Eliot and Tolstoy in places. To begin with, Trollope’s narrative voice speaks with an incredible self-awareness that precedes and yet implies a Derridean quality. Consider;

'The one son and heir to Greshamsbury was named as his father, Francis Newbold Gresham. He would have been the hero of our tale had not that place been pre-occupied by the village doctor…It is he [Frank] who is to be our favourite young man, to do the love scenes, to have his trials and his difficulties, and to win through them or not, as the case may be. I am too old now to be a hard-hearted author, and so it is probable that he may not die of a broken heart.'

See here how, whilst Trollope makes us all aware that we are reading a story that he, the author, is writing, he also maintains the conceit that the story is not yet written – or at least that the ending is not yet decided. Not just the novel but also the novelist is being deconstructed before our very eyes by the author himself: is there really such a thing as planning a novel; intent; purpose; or reason for writing? And Trollope isn’t being entirely truthful either in suggesting that Frank is to be our hero – in a very Tolstoyan fashion, each of the many, multi-layered characters has their own respective “love scenes…trials…difficulties”, and in their own time, in their own place and at their own length. But let’s leave this fascinating dimension right there, and let’s look at some of the other things Trollope brings forth.

It would be an understatement to suggest that Trollope is interested in holding society up to the microscopic light to see its inner workings and watch its superfluous machinery tick away indifferently. Whether it be property/inheritance law, debt, marriage, gender roles, wealth, aristocracy, the trades, alcoholism, democracy, greed, Trollope is constantly looking into the crevices of this contraption we call society and posing to us awaiting readers the rhetorical question: “is this how it’s supposed to work?” As the inimitable Lady Dunstable flirts her way around the young, debt-ridden aristocrats Britain has to offer, she righteously chastises the young and naïve Frank for following his aunt Lady de Courcy’s urgings to propose to her (though he is in his heart of hearts in love with the poor and illegitimate niece of the titular Doctor Thorne, Mary) as a means of securing Greshamsbury Park for yet another generation; “Sell yourself for money! Why, if I were a man I would not sell one jot of liberty for mountains of gold!” It is the wealthy merchant’s daughter, not the aunt of noble blood, who realises and sees true value and convinces Frank that it is love not money that should guide his heart. Miss Dunstable is also able to truly realise and see, through all the nonsense of social propriety, though she is not so educated and not so noble as Lady de Courcy, just what a privileged position Frank finds himself in as a male bachelor in Victorian society – even if his family is massively in debt.

These many characters, above all else, are fighting the deep prejudices we suffer on all our own respective levels – top to bottom. And as each character rallies against the prejudices aimed at them, they also manage to meanwhile indulge in their own little prejudices. Doctor Thorne, for instance, “refuse[s Mary’s] request” to see the common but wealthy Lady Scatcherd simply because she is “no fit companion for Miss Thorne” – and all the while Doctor Thorne himself shows disgust for and resentment at for Lady Arabella’s classism towards his beloved Mary as she banishes Mary from Greshamsbury Park. It takes time, but Doctor Thorne does do away with this hypocrisy.

I shall stop there, though, as usual, I could say so much more. I will just add, though it need not be said, that I’m very much looking forward to starting at the true beginning of these Barchester Chronicles! Until next time.