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Sasha's Reviews > The Way We Live Now
The Way We Live Now
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Virginia Woolf called Middlemarch "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," one of my favorite things anyone's ever said about a book. They're sortof surprisingly rare, right?
Top Five Novels For Grown-Up People
5. Remains of the Day
4. War & Peace
3. Mrs. Dalloway
2. The Way We Live Now
1. Middlemarch
Here's another book for grown-up people. It has that vertiginous insight into human nature. It has a vast, complicated, working plot. And it's about grown-ups, by which I guess I mean that the plot doesn't revolve entirely around people courting each other or mucking about with swords.
Dickens does not write novels for grown-up people (I know, you're about to make an argument for Bleak House, and you might have something there) but Trollope shares with him a bottomless sympathy for humans. Melmotte is completely amoral, and he knows it, but Trollope does such a terrific job getting us into his head that I ended up almost rooting for him. Respecting him for what he is, anyway. (ETA for the 2016 election season: it's hard not to see a little proto-Trump in that guy.)
Of the many other characters spinning around in this mammoth panorama, Roger Carbury may be the hero of the book - I feel like if anyone represents Trollope himself, it's Roger - but he's also the least interesting character. I found him not unlikable, not awful, but boring. (Although I liked his ending - (view spoiler)) Felix is the only character for whom Trollope shows little sympathy; he's an outright villain, and a terrifically drawn one, and his ending, in which he (view spoiler). My favorite character in the book turns out to be Marie Melmotte, who's smarter and stronger than anyone gave her any credit for.
Everything here is built on false foundations. The gentlemen of the Beargarden have an ongoing whist game built mostly on IOUs - a totally false economic system that mirrors the larger railroad scheme everyone's caught up in. Marie and Ruby both build "castles in the air" regarding their future romantic prospects. The society Trollope is clearly not fond of has lost its grip on reality.
In a lot of ways The Way We Live Now is an archetypical Victorian novel - maybe the archetypical novel. It features the two big Victorian obsessions - class and women - and does a terrific job of getting into every corner of both debates. Ruby Ruggles reminds me of Hardy; Henrietta Carbury reminds me of Eliot.
It's all marvelously done, and this is the best book I've read in ages.
Top Five Novels For Grown-Up People
5. Remains of the Day
4. War & Peace
3. Mrs. Dalloway
2. The Way We Live Now
1. Middlemarch
Here's another book for grown-up people. It has that vertiginous insight into human nature. It has a vast, complicated, working plot. And it's about grown-ups, by which I guess I mean that the plot doesn't revolve entirely around people courting each other or mucking about with swords.
Dickens does not write novels for grown-up people (I know, you're about to make an argument for Bleak House, and you might have something there) but Trollope shares with him a bottomless sympathy for humans. Melmotte is completely amoral, and he knows it, but Trollope does such a terrific job getting us into his head that I ended up almost rooting for him. Respecting him for what he is, anyway. (ETA for the 2016 election season: it's hard not to see a little proto-Trump in that guy.)
Of the many other characters spinning around in this mammoth panorama, Roger Carbury may be the hero of the book - I feel like if anyone represents Trollope himself, it's Roger - but he's also the least interesting character. I found him not unlikable, not awful, but boring. (Although I liked his ending - (view spoiler)) Felix is the only character for whom Trollope shows little sympathy; he's an outright villain, and a terrifically drawn one, and his ending, in which he (view spoiler). My favorite character in the book turns out to be Marie Melmotte, who's smarter and stronger than anyone gave her any credit for.
Everything here is built on false foundations. The gentlemen of the Beargarden have an ongoing whist game built mostly on IOUs - a totally false economic system that mirrors the larger railroad scheme everyone's caught up in. Marie and Ruby both build "castles in the air" regarding their future romantic prospects. The society Trollope is clearly not fond of has lost its grip on reality.
In a lot of ways The Way We Live Now is an archetypical Victorian novel - maybe the archetypical novel. It features the two big Victorian obsessions - class and women - and does a terrific job of getting into every corner of both debates. Ruby Ruggles reminds me of Hardy; Henrietta Carbury reminds me of Eliot.
It's all marvelously done, and this is the best book I've read in ages.
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Reading Progress
September 3, 2014
–
Started Reading
September 3, 2014
– Shelved
September 13, 2014
–
Finished Reading
September 22, 2014
– Shelved as:
2014
January 2, 2015
– Shelved as:
rth-lifetime
January 2, 2015
– Shelved as:
top-100
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Lisa
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rated it 4 stars
Sep 22, 2014 09:05AM
gosh, makes me want to read it again... trollope titles tend to run together. is marie the daughter? i remember liking her. thanks for this, i feel educated. hey, have you tried dickens's Hard Times? written as a whole book and not in weekly magazine installments. short and moving.
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Exciting! I can't wait to read it. I have an irl book group book to read (The House on the Strand, by Daphne du Maurier) and then I'm going for it! I just read The Warden and loved Trollope's writing in that.
Marie is the daughter of the fraudulent businessman Melmotte, Lisa. Henrietta is the Carbury daughter you're probably thinking of.I haven't read Hard Times...I'm taking a little break from Dickens for a while.
Lise, you gonna catch up with us? And lemme know how House of the Strand goes; I've only read Rebecca but of course I loved that.
I haven't read Rebecca yet! I hope to catch up. Obviously not with you though, since you're done!
Did you just post a K and nothing else, Lise?
Yes. Yes I did. Haha! Typo. I don't even know how that happened. I blame my phone.
Love Trollope. I've read all the Barchester series, and near to get to the Palliser novels. This one's not part of a series, but it amazed me at how close it came to things happening today. I guess people never change.
I had the best of intentions to finally start the Barchester books this past week, but got derailed by Thackeray. One of these days...
Great review. Great novel. Dickens Our Mutual Friend has a similar theme but I think TWWLN is the better novel. The Timothy West narrated audiobook is fantastic too.
Cecily wrote: "This is a standalone one, isn't it?"Yeah, it is. And I'm looking forward to reading a lot more by Trollope, but so far this is my only one.
My god Alex! “This is one so marvelously done and this review is tge best one I’ve read in ages.� 👍🏻 ❤️ 😭
Ha! Thank you Lainey, how nice.
