July 6, 2021
Well, 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
I 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
Trollope, 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
