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A review by samuel
Ayala's Angel by Anthony Trollope
4.0
I love Trollope. Is his prose sometimes stuffy? Yes. Are his politics sometimes timid? Sure. But no writer, to my mind, is so sensitive to the desires, shortcomings, and humanity of his characters. Trollope makes one care for even those characters who are most detestable—characters who would likely become stereotypes in the fiction of Austen, Dickens, or many others.
Ayala’s Angel reads like a light domestic comedy. If you’re looking for plots that reach beyond marriages of the (mostly) elite, it may not be for you. However, the novel contains insightful and sympathetic commentary on the plight of women in the marriage market and the degradation of human dignity that arises from mercenary marriages. Ayala and her sister Lucy are treated like property by many of the men who desire them and by the family that controls them, but the novel ultimately celebrates their ability to choose for themselves. That, for me, forms the novel’s moral core; Trollope recognizes endorses a woman’s right to self-determination.
Ayala’s Angel reads like a light domestic comedy. If you’re looking for plots that reach beyond marriages of the (mostly) elite, it may not be for you. However, the novel contains insightful and sympathetic commentary on the plight of women in the marriage market and the degradation of human dignity that arises from mercenary marriages. Ayala and her sister Lucy are treated like property by many of the men who desire them and by the family that controls them, but the novel ultimately celebrates their ability to choose for themselves. That, for me, forms the novel’s moral core; Trollope recognizes endorses a woman’s right to self-determination.