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A review by jasonfurman
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
4.0
The Way We Live Now is a bitter satire of British society, but does not bite as much as Thackeray.
The Way We Live Now concludes by pairing off all of the characters in matrimony, but none of the marriages make as much sense as Austen.
The Way We Live Now has morally ambiguous characters, but none of them are as fully realized and sympathetically depicted as Eliot.
And don't get me started on Dickens--the villains are not as villainous, the poor characters are not as human, London is not as vivid, and the plot is not as interesting.
I went into The Way We Live Now with very high expectations, I was sort of saving it having gone through much of the highlights of the Victorian canon ([a:Thomas Hardy|15905|Thomas Hardy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1429946281p2/15905.jpg] being the most notable exception). I quite liked it. But I did not love it, not as much as those other authors, and not as much as Trollope's [b:The Warden|267123|The Warden (Chronicles of Barsetshire #1)|Anthony Trollope|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388555550l/267123._SY75_.jpg|3102430]. I did not love how unlikable the characters were, how little sense the marriages made, how absurd the schemes of the financier were, or how little insight, sympathy or internal development Trollope allowed any of them to have (except maybe for Mrs. Carbury, who was one of the most fascinating characters in the entire book).
All that said, and setting aside my expectations, it was a wonderful Victorian novel that covered finance, politics, the press, corruption, dissolute titled nobility without money and dissolute moneyed people without titles, and dissolute people without real money or titles, all in a plot that set of subplots that remained engaging from beginning to end. It was just that I didn't start fantasizing about reading it again like I do with the very best books.
The Way We Live Now concludes by pairing off all of the characters in matrimony, but none of the marriages make as much sense as Austen.
The Way We Live Now has morally ambiguous characters, but none of them are as fully realized and sympathetically depicted as Eliot.
And don't get me started on Dickens--the villains are not as villainous, the poor characters are not as human, London is not as vivid, and the plot is not as interesting.
I went into The Way We Live Now with very high expectations, I was sort of saving it having gone through much of the highlights of the Victorian canon ([a:Thomas Hardy|15905|Thomas Hardy|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1429946281p2/15905.jpg] being the most notable exception). I quite liked it. But I did not love it, not as much as those other authors, and not as much as Trollope's [b:The Warden|267123|The Warden (Chronicles of Barsetshire #1)|Anthony Trollope|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388555550l/267123._SY75_.jpg|3102430]. I did not love how unlikable the characters were, how little sense the marriages made, how absurd the schemes of the financier were, or how little insight, sympathy or internal development Trollope allowed any of them to have (except maybe for Mrs. Carbury, who was one of the most fascinating characters in the entire book).
All that said, and setting aside my expectations, it was a wonderful Victorian novel that covered finance, politics, the press, corruption, dissolute titled nobility without money and dissolute moneyed people without titles, and dissolute people without real money or titles, all in a plot that set of subplots that remained engaging from beginning to end. It was just that I didn't start fantasizing about reading it again like I do with the very best books.