THE BARCHESTER CHRONICLES

I am definitely hooked on Anthony Trollop.  I said in other reviews of his books that the only reason he is not as popular as Dickens or Austen is that his novels are too long and most readers don’t want to tackle that much.  For someone who pumped out 47 novels I think he might have wanted to pare them down a little so he could write more.  But I can tell he fell in love with his characters and wanted every inch of them revealed and then he couldn’t bear to give them up.  This was never so evident as it was in The Last Chronicles of Barchester, the winding up of his Barchester series that included The Warden, Barchester Towers, Framley  Parsonage, The Small House at Allington and The Last Chronicle of Barset.  He finished this last book musing about his fictional area of Barset:  “But to me Barset has been a real county, and its city a real city, and the spires and towers have been before my eyes, and the voices of the people are known to my ears, and the pavement of the city ways are familiar to my footsteps. That I have been induced to wander among them too long by my love of old friendships, and by the sweetness of old faces, is a fault for which I may perhaps be more readily forgiven….”

Having read each of these novels with joy I understand his feelings.   Each novel stands alone except the last chronicle.  In this book all the characters from the series are brought back, linking their lives more closely.  He introduced a few new people and a small sub plot that detracted, in my opinion…not sure why he did it. 

If you read reviews of Trollop’s books on Goodreads or Amazon you will find that they are adored by many, who admit to reading a good chunk of his 47 books.  I might end up being one of them.  If you love Victorian English literature, he satisfies.  He has a keen understanding of human nature, and I might say women in particular.  None of his villains are all evil.  He always points out their redeeming qualities.  And all of his heroes have some character flaws.  Most of his plots have happyish endings but not all end up as you might want or think they should.   Each book has many subplots going on at the same time with lives intertwining. (His books are perfect "Downtown Abby" miniseries) Trollop likes to tell you who the hero and heroine are so you can pay close attention to their story.  And sometime he can’t resist doing a little story spoiler, before necessary.  

There are some old BBC productions of some of his books, that I have watched, but none of them caught my fancy like the novels.   I would like to see some tried again.