September 11, 2018

Cocktail Talk: Ayala’s Angel, Part I

I recently read the fairly-late-period Trollope novel Ayala’s Angel again – you can tell I’ve read it before, because I have a past Ayala’s Angel Cocktail Post on this very blog! But I tend to read Trollope books more, because no modern books are as good (I kid, I kid – sort-of, hahaha), or just because I like them so much. So, came back to this one again, and loved it again. It doesn’t get as much press as the more serious late-period Trollope works, but it’s a very fun read, a romantic comedy in most ways, with lots of humorous moments, as well as a perfect picture of a certain type of life in the late 1800s, featuring lots of details, the nearly-always-there fox hunt, visuals into the changing economies, all that. But mostly, just really good characters and lots of fun. It’s a long read, but moves quickly and keeps the pages turning. When reading it again, I realized A: how much I liked it, and B: that I gave it short-shrift with just one Cocktail Talk. So, a few more are coming! Starting with this one, where our heroine is being crabby, and takes it out on gin!

“I hate dishes,” said Ayala, petulantly.

“You don’t hate eating?”

“Yes, I do. It is ignoble. Nature should have managed it differently. We ought to have sucked it in from the atmosphere through our fingers and hairs, as the trees do by their leaves. There should have been no butchers, and no grease, and no nasty smells from the kitchen,—and no gin.”

This was worse than all,—this allusion to the mild but unfashionable stimulant to which Mr. Dosett had been reduced by his good nature.

Ayala’s Angel, Anthony Trollope

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