The Warden

You really must. And then read several biographies of Trollope. He is an amazing man.

The Warden is a brief novel, the first of the Barsetshire Chronicles. It tells the story of Mr. Harding the Warden of Hiram's Hospital. Over time, John Hiram's bequest has been faithfully distributed to the intended recipients, but his estate has grown so much that Mr. Harding now receives far more than the hospital's wards. John Bold, a local young doctor in love with Mr. Harding's daughter, feels this is unjust. How will the conflict resolve itself? Thundering newspaper editorials are written, lawyers are consulted and the conclusions are clear. Yet in the end what fixes everything is Mr. Harding's own conscience. An innocent, trusting man caring deeply for his daughter, for the twelve men in his ward, and for his honest reputation Mr. Harding cannot endure the odium of public reproach. In the end, he rises above the issue in a gesture worthy of Cyrano de Bergerac, worthy of Jean Valjean but in fact belonging to a minor country church official. Inspiring stuff. I should add one thing. There is a slight element of tragedy at the end. Things don't work out for the best and Mr. Harding's noble gesture does bring harm to his wards by depriving them of his care. A wonderful thing with Trollope is how nothing is cut and dry. He correctly presents real life as being messy, however much we would strive to clean it up. Vincent Poirier, Tokyo

I acknowledge and thank a fellow reviewer - and she is a top 100 reviewer - "displacedhuman" for bringing this author to my attention. Without giving away all of the plot, the story is about corruption in the Anglican Church around 1850. It is based actual events. The author manages to put human faces on the corruption in the Church and the judiciary. Also, he includes a reporter from The Times, all with fictitious names and places. The Oxford version has lots of analysis as one might expect, but I did not look at it until I had read the story. This novel or novella by Trollope was his first commercial success. It is very entertaining. It is a story about the Anglican Church and he uses Salisbury Cathedral and environs as the setting. It has a bit if that Jane Austen feel, but obviously it is a lot shorter than a typical Austen novel. It is more compact, almost a novella. He lacks the writing skills of Austen, and does not have the polish of Dickens such as we see in "A Tale of Two Cities." Having said all of that, this is mostly a fun read. The novel is entertaining and was encouraged to read more of his almost 50 novels. Here is my quick analysis: - he has timely 1855 plots and story line circa the pre-Victorian period, - he has an excellent choice of characters, - he has good character development and lots of reader sympathy is developed, and - it is a compelling read. I read it in one day, less actually. The downside is that he is a good but not a great writer. He uses long sometimes disjointed sentences spliced together with semi-colons that seem to slow down the reader and the general flow is disjointed. Otherwise, it is great stuff: light entertainment. 5 Stars.

My undying, fanatical love of Trollope's work probably disqualifies me as an unbiased reviewer, but there are a couple of points that should be made about the work in general and this book specifically. A central theme for Trollope here and throughout his Palliser novels has been the manner in which necessary change is best effected. Liberal passion is something to be deeply suspicious of in one of his novels, and it leads to near disaster here. A question is posed in the Palliser series whether change is best handled by the 'loving hands' of conservatism (after being pushed into it by liberal hands, it must be said); and a strong argument is made in The Warden why this 'loving hands' theory of conservatism is not to be rejected out of hand. Trollope provides penetrating insight into the nature of conservatism and liberalism: he forces you to question people's motives and the effect change (that makes perfect sense in theory) has on real people. His books should not be read as a balanced opinion, but as a counterbalance to other points of view. Where Trollope's allegience lies does not seem to me to be clear or important, but one observation he made has stuck with me for years: conservatism; by having something in common for perople to rally around (the status quo) will generally be stronger than liberalism which tends to be more fragmented due to the myriad different ways people want things changed. Of course, this book is good on many other levels. The style is superb and all the characters are well-drawn and fairly treated. Are there sophisticated, humane voices like Trollope's today commenting on world events?