Trollope the novelist of comic romance, and the ultimate gossip

Realist, moralist, social critic, satirist - Trollope is all these things, and has the space and time to be all these things, as he works on such a vast canvas - several six-volume series, w/ each volume 500+ pp in itself! - but sometimes I think what he is most of all is one of literature's great gossips. That not only goes for all the dish he spills on British governance and church politics of his time but he's also a romantic: As w/ all British comic fiction, much of the the narrative is a marriage plot, and Trollope's good at this. In the Framley Parsonage, we get several marriage plots, foremost being the attempt to find a match for Lord Lufton: he is obviously in love with Lucy Robarts, kid sister of his best friend, and she w/ him, but the various "evil" social forces have persuaded Lucy that she must reject any overtures from Lord (Ludovic) Lufton, as he is too far "above her station." Meanwhile the various engineer a pact between LL and Griselda Grantly, who is wealthy, titled and beautiful - but cold (Trollope notes that no man wants to marry a statue, no matter how statuesque) and kind of stupid. She is smart enough, however, to realize the LL loves Lucy, so she pushes back against her mother's attempts at match-making. If this turns out to be a true British romantic comedy, in the end Lufton will marry Lucy and reform his profligate ways and GG will match with her appropriate wealthy suitor, the hilariously named Lord Dumbello, who's even more of a dolt that she, but much more wealthy. Meanwhile, the spendrift ne're do well Sowerby tries to marry up, which he sees as a way to pay off all his debts and live in comfort (fat chance, he would probably run through his wife's estate n no time); he enlists his sister to make a pitch for him, and it's quite funny, as she proposes for him to her close friend but in a pledge to tell her "nothing but the truth" concedes that her brother is interesting in the money, that he's not in love. This forthright approach might actually work. So these are some of the gossipy elements in Trollope's fiction, and he can have the various plot strands run alongside each other, parallel but related narratives. As I pass the halfway mark in this long volume, I'm suspecting I won't have observations to post on Trollope every day, so I may read some poetry "on the side" and post a few times on that art.

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