Trollope and James

Ariadne, I couldn't agree more. I like Trollope because he is a great story teller; his characters are well filled out: the sympathetic ones have their drawbacks and the 'baddies' often have a superficially attractive side. His ecclesiastical and political themes resonate with us even now. His style of presentation is discursive. He may well meander off into a discussion of a political or ecclesiastical matter. If you aren't interested, you can, if you wish, 'skip' these without detracting much from the basic story and I'm sure some readers do this. James's early novels such as The Portrait of a Lady and Washington Square are, in my opinion, his most accessible works. The style of his later novels - the Ambassadors, for example - is so convoluted in sentence structure that, as a student, I found reading them to be a tortuous (maybe also torturous) task. I don't feel like repeating the experience now.

I agree, henetha - but you do have to be careful with "Jude the Obscure" - I find it leads to real melancholy. "The worthy encompassed by the inevitable" was Hardy's definition of tragedy, and in no other book is it more true. Well, except for "Tess"!

re Thomas Hardy... His 'Mayor of Casterbridge' is wonderful.
Dickens takes some beating though... what genius.

Greatnan I agree with you about Trollope and James. And I love Dickens and Hardy too. But Jane Austen is still my favourite!

Jingle - wash your mouth out! How dare you say one word against Jane Austen! And I don't just read her for her plots, which I know off by heart, but for her lovely ironic turn of phrase. What a tragedy that she died so young.
Most novelists vary somewhat in the quality of their writing, and certainly Northanger Abbey is lightweight compared to P & P, but still very amusing. Thomas Hardy wrote some stinkers, but rose to great heights with Tess.

Why do you need it to be elegant? Surely it's the stories that count. I read Trollope in my twenties and thoroughly enjoyed them. But I wouldn't want to read it now. Same with Jane Austen. You read that stuff when you are young.

Just read Game of Thrones. You won't look back.

I love all six of the Barchester novels - and other Trollope books as well. The Way We Live Now is interesting, as Trollope based it on the same real-life character, and his eventual end, as Dickens's Mr Merdle in Little Dorrit.

You sent me back to my two copies, Bags, and I remain of the same opinion. I love Trollope's irony and find James too verbose. Each to his own!