The Vicar of Bullhampton

Trollope is a great writer and this is among his best novels: less well knwn than Orley Fam and the Barcheter nevels, it deserves to be included with these as one of his best.

As a professor of literature, and as a "common reader," I revere Tolstoy above all other novelists I have read, but I would place Trollope just below him, in company with Dickens, Balzac, Austen, and Lawrence. It did not surprize me much to learn, while reading a biography of Tolstoy,that he had a great admiration for Trollope's work. Both these men share, in my opinion, an almost Olympian view of the human beings they have created. I sometimes think these men are writers for grown-ups because they do not deal in villains. We see their characters, as they do, as from a great height, so that Trollope's Crosbie, or Tolstoy's Vronsky demand from us almost as much compassion as those whom they injure. I guess I could sum up why I respect Trollope so: he is the master of ordinary life, and --like Tolstoy--he makes it extraordinary. The clerical hero of "The Vicar of Bullhampton" is one of the extraordinary, ordinary men. You will remember him.

Other reviewers have discussed the plot and the characters of this wonderful mid-Victorian novel; I would rather speculate about what makes the author so much a favorite of mine. Trollope led a jumbling life, traveling constantly during his career as a postal inspector in Ireland, and throughout the world thereafter. He started life as a poor boy suffering hazing at a rich boy's school, was defeated later in a run for Parliament, and ended up a loud, red-faced, hale fellow at clubs. But something developed in his character that gave him remarkable insight into both the upper and lower class mental sets of the English mind of that period. The result is that he can marvelously reproduce both the speech and the thought patterns of his men and women characters as they wrestle with problems they encounter in everyday ethical situations, both ordinary and extraordinary. Thus, we are presented with the dilemmas of a puzzled betrothed young woman, a "fallen" woman, a youth suspected of murder, an old man torn by grief, a man in the throes of unrequited love, and a fight between a country parson and a lord. Everything is explained and I found myself murmuring, "Of course. They would think that, say that, do that." Unlike Dickens, he doesn't deal in grotesques. Unlike Thackeray, he doesn't mock his creations. The novel is therefore a perfect example of the Realist school of fiction writing as well as a fine read. It doesn't cut as deeply as "The Way We Live Now," which could be a treatise on the "greed is good" generations of our recent past, nor does it have the spellbinding comedy-tragedy of the Barsetshire series, nor the political intricacies of the Palliser Series of his novels, but Trollope doesn't disappoint the attentive reader who will suspend "presentism" type judgments about the role of women or the church in the 19th century or the fact that defendants in a criminal trial could not testify. That was then. He still speaks to us now, and speaks quite clearly.

The title of the book might lead you to refrain, since it implies that the story is about a country vicar. One wonders how exciting that might be? However, this book is probably one of Trollope's most suspenseful and well-rounded novels. You have a romance, an unrequited romance, and a young woman at the heart of it whose lack of fortune could lead her astray. Mary Lowther, visiting the vicar and her friend, his wife, receives a marriage proposal from Harry Gilmore, the local squire, who at the encouragement of the vicar, has fallen desperately in love with Mary. Mary has offered no encouragement, and despite the pressure of the vicar and his wife to accept the marriage offer, refuses. Once at home, she falls in love with a visiting relation, but because he is penniless, cannot marry him. Thus she is tossed about on the tides of marital opportunities, continually pressured by friends and family to turn to Harry Gilmore. This portion of the story is rather like a "one woman stands against the world" scene, and it is intriguing, frustrating, and ultimately inspiring as Mary finds her strength not just in love but in herself. If romance doesn't interest you, Trollope has thrown in a second storyline, one unusual in his books. A murder occurs, and the vicar sets about attempting to solve it because the suspect -- even he suspects him -- is a young man from his neighborhood who has been skirting the law and morality for some time. Add to that, we have the character of the beautiful Carry Brattle, seduced by a man outside of wedlock and then tossed out of her home by her insulted father, forced to turn to prostitution in order to eat and find shelter. Her trials and her reform, including her family's eventual forgiveness of her sins, is at once indicative of the harsh lives imposed upon women in Trollope's era and a hope for a future where women are not viewed as the property of men but as persons in their own right. Finally, the vicar does have his own story as he insults a nobleman in his parish and is thereby made an enemy, the nobleman going so far as to build a new church right up against the vicar's property as an insult to the vicar's faith and effectiveness as a man of religion. How this resolves itself is a lark! The story is exciting, and each storyline is so well intertwined that the switch from one to the other as the book progresses is smooth. Never a dull moment in this one, you'll find that from the first page, you cannot put the book down.