Tag Archives: Phineas Finn

Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope part II

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Well the book is in two parts and because I was blogging so late at night and I was exhausted from decorating, my thoughts on the book are in two parts too because I forgot to mention Lady Laura.

Lady Laura is a young woman and she was wealthy until she paid off her brother’s debts. Her brother, Lord Chiltern is a ne’erdoweel with a reputation for violence and drinking as well as gambling. Like many a young woman before her, and after, life at her family home became so uncomfortable for Laura that she decided to accept an offer of marriage from Robert Kennedy who was an influential and very wealthy Cabinet Minister about twice Laura’s age. As well as his house in London’s Grosvenor Place he had a very large and beautiful estate in Scotland, his homeland.

Unfortunately Lady Laura had married a man she hardly knew. She certainly was completely unaware that her husband was a strict Presbyterian which meant that he was a strict sabbatarian, Sunday was kept as a day of worship only and the only thing that you could do really was go to church and read the bible. Novel reading was very much frowned upon so Laura was bored stiff on Sundays even when she was in London. The house in Scotland was even worse as she couldn’t go out for walks around the estate or anything.

Her husband Mr Kennedy was the sort of man who thought that he owned his wife body and soul and so he expected her to do his bidding at all times, otherwise she wasn’t being a dutiful wife. Well folks, you know what happens if there’s no compromising in a relationship, it’s going to be a disaster – which it was.

I think that Trollope must have been a really enlightened man for the times because he’s so obviously on the side of Laura and dead against Robert Kennedy’s attitude to his wife. I’m just a wee bit sorry for the husband though because I see him as a disappointed man who got married expecting to become a father which is what most wealthy men want, founding a dynasty of their own, but Laura didn’t get pregnant, which is a shame because their relationship would have been entirely different and as a mother Laura would have had far more power over her situation with her husband. He revered his own mother which somehow is never a good sign.

Anyway, I’m probably over thinking the book but what I’m really saying is that Trollope seems to be a good guy, I don’t know anything about his personal life, I must get a biography of him, but at least he knows how decent men should behave, I just hope that he actually was decent. I’d hate to think that he was anything like Charles Dickens who was so horrible to his wife that I can’t read any of his books.

On the subject of Presbyterian Sundays, I’ve had quite a lot of experience of those as a child and they were terrible. There was nothing to do at all as there were no shops open, nothing at all on TV, the radio had Two-Way Family Favourites on it and in the evening when TV was on it was The Black and White Minstrel Show! If the weather was alright you could go for a walk but that was about it. I think gardening would have been acceptable as a Sunday occupation but no DIY.

Things were even worse for people further north. We had friends on the Isle of Skye and they didn’t even have hot food on a Sunday as they were such strict Sabbath keepers that they couldn’t cook any meals. You’ll laugh at this but really it’s true, they didn’t have running water and had to get their water from a well. Every Saturday night they had to fill all their buckets with water for drinking and washing as they weren’t allowed to fill the buckets on Sunday – too bad if they used too much water, they went thirsty! I think some people are still like that up north as there was a bit of a stooshie not so long ago when a ferry operator started up a ferry service on Sundays – it’s another world!

Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope

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This book is sometimes known by the title The Irish Member. I thought it was about time that I got back to reading the rest of the Palliser series. I had to make a mad dash for the radio off button one night a few weeks ago when I was in the kitchen late on. Whilst I was doing the dishes I suddenly realised that it was a Palliser book which was being serialised on Radio 4 Extra – or whatever they’re calling it this week! You can probably still listen to it on the iPlayer if you don’t want to read the book.

I found Phineas Finn to be a wee bit dry at the beginning and I could understand why some people have a bit of a problem with Trollope. I think that it was because I only had time to read about 20 or 30 pages at a time and for me anyway I find his writing much more enjoyable when I can spend a lot of time reading big chunks of about 80 or 100 pages at one go.

It is of course the story of Phineas Finn, a handsome young Irishman who stands for parliament really because he was in the right place at the right time. At the time it’s set (1860s) we didn’t have universal suffrage, not even for the men, so each MP was voted in by the small amount of men who were eligible to vote in the area, mainly wealthy property owners.

Phineas does indeed have the luck of the Irish and his parliamentary career comes on in leaps and bounds, mainly because he has the ability to be affable and really listens to people so other men take a liking to him. He gets into the right social circles and hobnobs with influential men and so his political career advances very quickly.

He doesn’t have so much luck where romance is concerned and this is partly due to the fact that he isn’t exactly constant and he tends to be easily distracted by whichever woman he is with at the time.

I’m looking forward to reading The Eustace Diamonds which is the next one in the series.

I remember that when John Major became our Prime Minister, about 20 years ago he said that Trollope was his favourite author and I think he got a lot of help in his career from reading the political books. Like everybody else I’ve puzzled over how a man who was so bad at counting that he was sacked from his job as a bus conductor could have risen to be our Prime Minister. I think he must have modelled himself on Phineas Finn.

Anyway, if you enjoy the classics and a political setting then you should give the Palliser series a go. My copy is an Oxford World’s Classic paperback and it has great notes in the back. Luckily I studied this period when I was at school so I knew a lot about what was going on in Britain at the time but I still learned from the notes. For instance: Did you know that John Stuart Mill the philosopher and economist and son of the Scottish philosopher James Mill, had written an essay called The Subjection of Women in 1869. He was an MP from 1865 and advocated votes for women. Amazingly ahead of the times!