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pained_creations's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
It was okay, but not great. I definitely won't be reading more in this series, but will try another Trollope book to give him another chance. The heavy narrative style was boring at times, and just never got invested in the characters.
darrellmccauley's review against another edition
4.0
My first exposure to Anthony Trollope. Looking forward to more.
roshnimc's review against another edition
It highlights a very interesting social issue, but Trollope is so verbose and the narrative voice is so dominant over the whole story that the pleasure is significantly reduced.
christinaoh's review against another edition
4.0
This was tough to get into, I'd nod off after two or three paragraphs. Once characters and conflicts were presented, The Warden wasn't much of a slog. I'm grateful I had a copy of Oxford World's Classics because a tenth of the novel time was spent looking at the footnotes and explanatory notes. That's one factor in how it came to have four stars, other factors being the Dickens parody, the mocking narration.
louiselovesreading's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
jobly's review against another edition
3.0
Sweet, kindly and naive Septimus Harding is the warden of a hostel of church alms houses, enjoying a simple dotage living with his youngest daughter, Nellie, and tending to the men under his care. When Nellie's paramour, a passionate reformer, decides he is duty-bound to expose the injustice of the well paid sinecure that Harding has been handed by the church the warden's life and assumptions are turned upside down. Romances, friendships and family relationships are put to the test in the ensuing public scandal.
Trollope writes in a surprisingly economical and accessible way for a mid-nineteenth century English novelist. So, if you're generally frustrated by the convoluted syntax and enormous run-on sentences of most of his peers, perhaps this would prove to be a good gateway Victorian novel. Trollope writes in a playful way, echoing the dry observational humour of earlier writers like Austen and gleefully toying with the god-like authorial voice. The result is an enjoyable, pacey read full of warmth and wit.
For all that the narrative is arguably pretty inconsequential beyond the fun surface fizz and cleverly shaped plot. Certainly Trollope is keen to explore key Victorian concerns like the rise of press influence, the role of the Church and the impact of the reform movements of the mid-Victorian era, but none of this explored with any real profundity. I also struggled a little with the conservative position Trollope seems to adopt here. The novel represents reformist ideology and journalism as a kind of wrecking-ball, driven by unthinking zealotry and cynical populism. Given how egregious the social injustices of 19th Century Britain were, Trollope does come across as rather reactionary. I don't want to drop any spoilers here, but look at the final scene with Harding and the old men in the alms houses and you'll get a really good sense of how suspicious Trollope is of change/progress.
Trollope writes in a surprisingly economical and accessible way for a mid-nineteenth century English novelist. So, if you're generally frustrated by the convoluted syntax and enormous run-on sentences of most of his peers, perhaps this would prove to be a good gateway Victorian novel. Trollope writes in a playful way, echoing the dry observational humour of earlier writers like Austen and gleefully toying with the god-like authorial voice. The result is an enjoyable, pacey read full of warmth and wit.
For all that the narrative is arguably pretty inconsequential beyond the fun surface fizz and cleverly shaped plot. Certainly Trollope is keen to explore key Victorian concerns like the rise of press influence, the role of the Church and the impact of the reform movements of the mid-Victorian era, but none of this explored with any real profundity. I also struggled a little with the conservative position Trollope seems to adopt here. The novel represents reformist ideology and journalism as a kind of wrecking-ball, driven by unthinking zealotry and cynical populism. Given how egregious the social injustices of 19th Century Britain were, Trollope does come across as rather reactionary. I don't want to drop any spoilers here, but look at the final scene with Harding and the old men in the alms houses and you'll get a really good sense of how suspicious Trollope is of change/progress.
jay_the_hippie's review against another edition
4.0
While not a fast moving book (the whole thing is about one disagreement, really) and full of authorial intrusions (which makes it feel rather archaic), this book turned out to be really enjoyable. It took a while to get immersed in the tale -- the author led us with dipping a toe in here and there and then slowly coaxed us into wading in -- but (depite the fact that I prefer to leap right in with a splash) it turned out to be really effective. I knew most of the characters by the time they were starting to act. I really like the Warden himself. His sense of honor, of doing what is correct, is very surprising. I also really liked how the newspaper itself was handled and sicussed. It's funny how the newspaper -- now considered the slow way to get news, for those who have sufficient leisure -- was the fastest horse in the race when this tale happens. The author makes some complaints about how the speed of news is not always for the good. Some of society's problems keep coming around again and again.
readingpanda's review against another edition
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
april_does_feral_sometimes's review against another edition
5.0
Activists and budding political strategists of all stripes should read 'The Warden' by Anthony Trollope. The plot revolves around characters who are ideologically opposed to each other. We would label the antagonists conservatives and progressives today. They do combat with each through the media (newspapers) and England's House of Lords of 1855 (when the book was published), but caught in the middle are unsophisticated non-political small-town villagers of England, interested only in community and marriage.
The concepts of class equity and fairness are pitted against institutional survival, and I was reminded once again organizing a majority is key to change.
This novel is my first Trollope, and I was pleasantly surprised! He writes like a polite mannered Charles Dickens. There isn't any subterranean growl and bite to him as Dickens has, despite his topic of the intersection of power and class, of personal morality and built-in institutional injustice. He simply wrote like the kind of journalist who does a lightweight local interest piece, while yet including all of the circumstances which leads to an inference of the Truth.
'The Warden' is the first in a series of novels called the Chronicles of Barsetshire. (I have not read the others - yet!) Although the books apparently revolve around employees of the Church of England and the small-town people of the imaginary village parish of Barsetshire, this particular novel was in response to an actual ongoing scandal. The Church was the beneficiary of financial gifts from centuries ago, set up by dying Church members who possessed savings and land they willingly donated to the Church in their wills. Often, the wills set up certain conditions for how the Church should use the donated money and land, which was usually for the benefit of orphans, or the elderly, or ex-soldiers, and the like. However, pious believers could not see the future. Land which had been undeveloped farm and woods later would become valuable real estate; and business earnings and rents which had been set up to be distributed in an equitable and sane dispersal for the maintenance of the Church's activities and the poor instead ended up in a 90-10% split decades later, with the majority percentage of earned annual funds ending up as churchmen salaries. The poor would barely receive any money for survival benefits, like housing-clothes-food, while Church employees lived like aristocrats on huge salaries. Many church jobs were sinecures.
The Warden, Mr. Harding, is a simple non-political village Church employee. He is profoundly grateful for his sinecure, given him by his brother-in-law, the conservative archdeacon Dr. Grantly, and his friend the bishop - of which the job is being in charge of a nearby group of apartments for twelve uneducated old men, set up by John Hiram's will of a hundred years ago. The old men are not assigned any money at all, just housing and food. Harding is not at all political, but he has become morally uncomfortable on occasion when he picks up his 800 pounds a year, and living in the nice house bequeathed by Hiram for whoever is assigned as Warden. However, Harding is happy for his youngest daughter, Eleanor, who is in love with the rich surgeon, John Bold, local progressive. Harding does not at all ever take into consideration Bold's politics, or any kind of politics, for the matter. Until Bold tells him he has contacted the largest newspaper about the Warden's unfair, maybe illegal, and definitely immoral 'job'.
Bold tells Harding to get a lawyer, as Bold has retained a lawyer to prosecute the Church over Harding's job. Eleanor, when she hears of what Bold has done, must choose between her love for her innocent father and the well-meaning Bold. Grantly is shocked by the attack on the Church and its dignity as well as the prospect of having Bold as a brother-in-law, while the old men fear for the loss of their apartments and, belatedly, losing the kindly Harding, who actually gives them a small monthly stipend out of his own pocket.
What will happen? Tears, gentle reader, lots of tears. This is a story based on reality, not a sweetened cozy, despite the emphasis on manners and polite society. I highly recommend this quick read, even if Trollope does dump a load of disapproval on the muckracking newpaper.
The concepts of class equity and fairness are pitted against institutional survival, and I was reminded once again organizing a majority is key to change.
This novel is my first Trollope, and I was pleasantly surprised! He writes like a polite mannered Charles Dickens. There isn't any subterranean growl and bite to him as Dickens has, despite his topic of the intersection of power and class, of personal morality and built-in institutional injustice. He simply wrote like the kind of journalist who does a lightweight local interest piece, while yet including all of the circumstances which leads to an inference of the Truth.
'The Warden' is the first in a series of novels called the Chronicles of Barsetshire. (I have not read the others - yet!) Although the books apparently revolve around employees of the Church of England and the small-town people of the imaginary village parish of Barsetshire, this particular novel was in response to an actual ongoing scandal. The Church was the beneficiary of financial gifts from centuries ago, set up by dying Church members who possessed savings and land they willingly donated to the Church in their wills. Often, the wills set up certain conditions for how the Church should use the donated money and land, which was usually for the benefit of orphans, or the elderly, or ex-soldiers, and the like. However, pious believers could not see the future. Land which had been undeveloped farm and woods later would become valuable real estate; and business earnings and rents which had been set up to be distributed in an equitable and sane dispersal for the maintenance of the Church's activities and the poor instead ended up in a 90-10% split decades later, with the majority percentage of earned annual funds ending up as churchmen salaries. The poor would barely receive any money for survival benefits, like housing-clothes-food, while Church employees lived like aristocrats on huge salaries. Many church jobs were sinecures.
The Warden, Mr. Harding, is a simple non-political village Church employee. He is profoundly grateful for his sinecure, given him by his brother-in-law, the conservative archdeacon Dr. Grantly, and his friend the bishop - of which the job is being in charge of a nearby group of apartments for twelve uneducated old men, set up by John Hiram's will of a hundred years ago. The old men are not assigned any money at all, just housing and food. Harding is not at all political, but he has become morally uncomfortable on occasion when he picks up his 800 pounds a year, and living in the nice house bequeathed by Hiram for whoever is assigned as Warden. However, Harding is happy for his youngest daughter, Eleanor, who is in love with the rich surgeon, John Bold, local progressive. Harding does not at all ever take into consideration Bold's politics, or any kind of politics, for the matter. Until Bold tells him he has contacted the largest newspaper about the Warden's unfair, maybe illegal, and definitely immoral 'job'.
Bold tells Harding to get a lawyer, as Bold has retained a lawyer to prosecute the Church over Harding's job. Eleanor, when she hears of what Bold has done, must choose between her love for her innocent father and the well-meaning Bold. Grantly is shocked by the attack on the Church and its dignity as well as the prospect of having Bold as a brother-in-law, while the old men fear for the loss of their apartments and, belatedly, losing the kindly Harding, who actually gives them a small monthly stipend out of his own pocket.
What will happen? Tears, gentle reader, lots of tears. This is a story based on reality, not a sweetened cozy, despite the emphasis on manners and polite society. I highly recommend this quick read, even if Trollope does dump a load of disapproval on the muckracking newpaper.
sarahvw's review against another edition
3.0
Good but over long and detailed,except the ending which is rather the opposite