May 31, 2022

Cocktail Talk: Can You Forgive Her?, Part II

can-you-forgive-herHello Anthony Trollope fans! Which is everyone! Who likes to read, at least (which is also hopefully everyone)! Speaking of reading, long-time readers of this blog (which is everyone!) know that I love reading Trollope novels in the main, and know this due to the many many Trollope Cocktail Talks from years past. A long list that includes one Can You Forgive Her? Cocktail Talk. However! I was re-reading this book – the first in the amazing Palliser series, or series-esque – recently, and realized I needed way more in the way of Cocktail Talks from it. So, another is happening today, with the below quote. First a quick note: the novel is about a lady who goes a bit back-and-forth, not in her affections per se, but in how she decides to deal with them and her life, with a few other stories intertwined (including one which introduces Glencora Palliser, who shows up in most of the other books, and re-introduces Plantagenet Palliser, who shows up even more in them). All good Trollopian stuff! Including the below.

 

On the night before Christmas Eve two men were sitting together in George Vavasor’s rooms in Cecil Street. It was past twelve o’clock, and they were both smoking; there were square bottles on the table containing spirits, with hot water and cold water in jugs, and one of the two men was using, and had been using, these materials for enjoyment.

 

–Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?

August 17, 2021

Cocktail Talk: Orley Farm, Part IV

orley-farmYou may have thought it couldn’t be done, but we’re back to Orley Farm after our cinematic sidestep last week, and I’m going to have one more Mr. Moulder Cocktail Talk from the Trollope novel (I may have more Cocktail Talks from the book that don’t feature him, too. Only time will tell pals, and even it might not know!). But we’ve had a few of him in his higher moments, and so I only felt it was right to have one when he’s snoozing away after a long day shilling for Hubbles and Grease and swilling brandy and water (and perhaps other potent potables, too). However, it’s the description of his waking in the below quote that does the most for me. Oh, before I forget! Don’t miss the Orley Farm Cocktail Talks Part I, Part II, and Part III for more about the book itself, and all the Anthony Trollope Cocktail Talks (there are a few!) for more Trollopean fun.

 

Soon after that Mr. Kenneby saw Mrs. Smiley home in a cab, and poor Mrs. Moulder sat by her lord till he roused himself from his sleep. Let us hope that her troubles with him were as little vexatious as possible; and console ourselves with the reflection that at twelve o’clock the next morning, after the second bottle of soda and brandy, he was ‘as sweet as sweet.’

 

–Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm

July 6, 2021

Cocktail Talk: Orley Farm, Part I

orley-farmWell, I love me some Anthony Trollope. But everyone knows that. I mean, take a gander at all the past wonderful (I say, humbly), Anthony Trollope Cocktail Talk posts – there are a fair number of them where I wander on about Trollope and reading and re-reading his books. So, my Trollope adoration bonafides are in place, which means it’s okay to say that I’m not 100% sure that I love his large novel Orley Farm. There are parts of it I love, lots. And I believe Trollope himself considered it one of his best (it may have been his favorite), as did a few of his writing contemporaries. And it is a big, Trollopean story, with interesting characters, a plot hook or three, threads that start in multiple spots and are drawn together, and insights and actions that, while taking place in a different time, mirror in many ways how people act today. So, all good! However, there’s something that throws me off a bit about the book. I think in some ways, Trollope (this happens in other books on occasion, too, but here it feels off-putting) begins not to like one of the characters he introduces early (one of the spotlight characters, you could say), and brings in a separate thread, fairly late for him, to introduce perhaps some new characters he’s more fond of – if that makes any sense. Which throws me off somewhat when reading it, as I develop an affection for the earlier character. Anyway, let’s just say it’s not one of my favorite Trollope books, but it’s still awesome, with a plot spinning (in the main, outside of the side trips alluded to above) around a codicil to a will that may or may not be forged. Intrigued? Give it a read! There are also lots of convivial drinking moments, as there are apt to be with our pal Trollope, so I plan on sticking with the book here with some good Cocktail Talking quotes. Starting with the below, which focuses on port and one of the lawyers who take part in our tale, there are a number of lawyers, as you might expect with a book circling round a will.

 

Mrs. Furnival in discussing her grievances would attribute them mainly to port wine. In his early days Mr. Furnival had been essentially an abstemious man. Young men who work fifteen hours a day must be so. But now he had a strong opinion about certain Portuguese vintages, was convinced that there was no port wine in London equal to the contents of his own bin, saving always a certain green cork appertaining to his own club, which was to be extracted at the rate of thirty shillings a cork. And Mrs. Furnival attributed to these latter studies not only a certain purple hue which was suffusing his nose and cheeks, but also that unevenness of character and those supposed domestic improprieties to which allusion has been made.

 

–Anthony Trollope, Orley Farm

 

 

October 24, 2017

Cocktail Talk: The Way We Live Now, Part II

https://mainehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Way-We-Live-Now-Trollope.jpgI thought about having just one Cocktail Talk from this mighty book, just because it seemed fitting, and I did go on a tiny bit – heck, go read The Way We Live Now, Part I, Cocktail Talk and see what I mean. Good, you’re back. However, when thinking on it, I decided I wanted another. Because this other has such a good line about curaçao, that I had to spread it around. The characters here aren’t main characters per se (though the book is big and vast enough in its ambitions and scope that there are many important characters), but they are important, and this scene, near the end, shows them grabbing a little deserved happiness, and some welcoming curaçao.

She and Herr Croll had known each other for a great many years, and were, she thought, of about the same age. Croll had some money saved. She had, at any rate, her jewels, — and Croll would probably be able to get some portion of all that money, which ought to be hers, if his affairs were made to be identical with her own. So she smiled upon Croll, and whispered to him; and when she had given Croll two glasses of Curaçao, — which comforter she kept in her own hands, as safeguarded almost as the jewels, — then Croll understood her.

–Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now

October 17, 2017

Cocktail Talk: The Way We Live Now, Part I

https://mainehumanities.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-Way-We-Live-Now-Trollope.jpgTrollope, how I love thee, let me count the ways . . . okay, that would take too long. But just check out all the past Anthony Trollope Cocktail Talks, and you’ll read about my swoons until you are blue in the face. Or at least a light shade of pea flower. Anyway. The Way We Live Now is for many THE Trollope book, the big one, the masterwork of all his masterworks. Me, I love it. But it’s not my favorite. But I see where they’re getting to, as it’s a big book, and incredibly insightful, and less happy (which many like) than some of his others, less friendly, more calling-people-out. Which makes it the perfect book for today’s world, in some way. Really, re-reading it (third time? fourth time?) I was struck by how relevant and right on target it was considering the, oh, self-interested spot we’re all within. I strongly suggest it. Though reading it, you may well (as Lord Nidderdale below) find yourself needing a bottle of bubbly. Hopefully you have more luck than he:

“A bottle of Champagne!” said Nidderdale, appealing to the waiter in almost a humble voice, feeling that he wanted sustenance in this new trouble that had befallen him. The waiter, beaten almost to the ground by an awful sense of the condition of the club, whispered to him the terrible announcement that there was not a bottle of Champagne in the house. “Good G —  — ,” exclaimed the unfortunate nobleman. Miles Grendall shook his head. Grasslough shook his head.
“It’s true,” said another young lord from the table on the other side. Then the waiter, still speaking with suppressed and melancholy voice, suggested that there was some port left. It was now the middle of July.
“Brandy?” suggested Nidderdale. There had been a few bottles of brandy, but they had been already consumed. “Send out and get some brandy,” said Nidderdale with rapid impetuosity. But the club was so reduced in circumstances that he was obliged to take silver out of his pocket before he could get even such humble comfort as he now demanded.

–Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now

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