He Knew He Was Right

Ordered hard back and received paperback. Was listed as good condition and it was in fair condition. Very disappointed

In the eyes of Louis Trevelyan, the attention that his wife gives to Colonel Osborne, a friend of her father's, looks like infidelity. The more Louis Trevelyan voices his suspicions and demands obedience, the more his wife stubbornly protests and resents her husband's lack of trust. This is the central conflict on which Trollope builds this novel, the situation that offers so much tension, and the disagreement that takes nearly 1000 pages to resolve. Similarities to Shakespeare's "Othello" are evident, and acknowledged by Trollope himself. Trollope does not attempt to include an Iago, however; instead he provides a noxious private investigator named Bozzle who is paid by Trevelyan to observe and report instances of the wife's supposed infidelity. Not every page in the book details what Trollope calls Trevelyan's "absurd obsession". Louis and Emily Trevelyan's marriage is contrasted to many that are in the offing or being proposed or being avoided throughout the narrative. As other reviewers have mentioned, it is a welcome shift in the narrative when the scene changes to Exeter where lives Miss Stanbury, an imperious elderly lady and a hapless young curate whose search for a wife inflames deadly rivalry between two sisters. Unfolding it all is Anthony Trollope, as genial and companionable an author as any from the nineteenth century. Giving every character what we call in Australia a "fair go", he even works the miracle of making a very minor character one of the most memorable. Priscilla Stanbury, ageing, impoverished and with no prospect of marriage, speaks of her sister's betrothal. "To enjoy life as you do is, I suppose, out of the question for me. But I have a satisfaction when I get to the end of the quarter and find that there is not half-a-crown due to any one. Things get dearer and dearer but I have a comfort even in that. I have a feeling that I should like to bring myself to the straw a day." This prospect alludes to the farmer of the fable who reduced the fodder he gave his horse until at last it was surviving on a single straw a day. Then it died. Trollope's novels are wonderfully apt for reading aloud and for dramatizing. A successful TV adaptation of "He Knew He Was Right", directed by Tom Vaughan, appeared in 2004.

When most people think of Anthony Trollope they usually think of Glencora and Plantangenant Palliser but Trollope had other stories and this is one of the best. He Knew He Was Right is partially Othello set in Victorian London. Louis is insanely jealous and drives his wife to misery. The lady is innocent but thanks to gossip and a Iago figure Louis can't see reason. That's the main story but since this is Trollope there a host of deligtful side characters all bursting with life and stories of their own. I loved this book.

This is the most dazzling of the ten Trollope novels I've read. The way the story unfolds is a marvel: a seemingly minor domestic disagreement mushrooms to envelope in-laws, family friends, policemen, lawyers, scrappy whist-playing old ladies in the country, Tuscan villagers, American bluestockings, kidnappers. And we watch a dozen Victorian women -- old, young, married, widowed, wooed and unwooed -- struggle for meaning and happiness in their lives under the impossible social and economic strictures governing their relations with men and each other. All of which is rendered with a light, confident touch free of cant or didacticism, and the interest and energy are sustained from first page to last. I especially loved the Stanbury group. Old Miss Stanbury, with her high principles and her foul mouth, is a wonderful creation. I would say, though, that to call the story a "study of sexual jealousy" is a bit of a strain. It's about what the title says it's about. It's more a study of male domination gone haywire, and of women's limited, but not negligible, power to resist it. I tend to accept Trollope's own judgment -- that in the character of Louis Trevelyan he failed to accomplish what he set out to do. But he greatly underrated how masterful is what he accomplished instead.

In his autobiography, Trollope zips past this story. I couldn't put it down, and read the last 40 moving and exhausting pages aloud to my wife. The Pallisers can get a bit wearying at times, though I love them all. But there is nothing tiresome in here; this book roars with its two intersecting plots and the relatively unique idea of making a sympathetic character, one whom you truly care for and about, a complete, irredeemable fool.Several strong secondary characters, all just a little more complex than they seem, combine with a knock-out plot and vivid main characters, to make this my favorite Trollope novel. The man who will not accept the good around him but prefers to see the bad...? How's that for an eternal theme?

The Penguin Classic edition of He Knew He Was Right has a wonderful introduction. Frank Kermode provides a fascinating explanation of how the constraints of Victorian society limited the ways in which Trollope could write about "sexual jealousy," and how a relatively mild (by today's standards) incident (here, calling a woman by her "Christian" (first) name) could be the basis for suspicion of "infidelity." Kermode also provides an illuminating discussion comparing hero Louis Treveylan's obsession and jealousy with that of Othello. Finally, Kermode relates the novel to others of the period, both those by Trollope and those of his contemporaries.While the focus of the novel is the main character's mental deterioration resulting from his unreasonable jealousy and increasing isolation, both from society and reality, Trollope also provides a cast of interesting women faced with possible marriage partners. At a time when a woman's only "career" opportunity was to make a successful marriage, the women in He Knew He Was Right each react differently to the male "opportunities" that come their way. Kermode notes that Trollope was not a supporter of the rights of women, yet he manages to describe the unreasonable limitations on, and expectations of, women in a sympathetic light.The "main story," of Trevelyan and his wife, is actually one of the least compelling of the man-woman pairings in the novel. What I mean is that while their story IS compelling, the others are substantially more so. This is a wonderful book. And, personally I'd like to note that I laughed out loud while reading it. This was on a cross-country airplane flight, and I got some strange looks for laughing at what appeared to be a thick "serious" novel.