This is certainly a fascinating novel. I can't say that I loved it as much as all (or almost all) of Trollope's Barchester series, or as much as Phineas Finn from the Pallisers, but I did find it extremely thought-provoking, and let's face it, Trollope can't really fail to be enjoyable to read.
The Duke's Children is the last of what are known as the Palliser novels, published by Trollope between 1864 and 1879. They are so-called because they revolve around the life of the central character, Plantaganet Palliser, who later becomes the Duke of Omnium. A stiff, shy, serious man, he has grown throughout the series from an aspiring politician whose idea of small talk is to buttonhole people and try to interest them in his idea for decimal currency to becoming the current, and later the ex, Prime Minister. His marriage, to the wealthy, sprightly Lady Glencora McLuskie, is not always exactly happy, but her sudden death, which has taken place just before this novel begins, has left him totally bereft and aware of just how much he loved and depended on her.
The main plot of the novel concerns Plantaganet's relationships with his three grown-up children. The eldest, Lord Silverbridge, has been expelled from Oxford for painting the front of the Dean's house red (nice idea), and wants to marry Isobel Boncassan, an American girl whose grandfather was a dock worker and therefore irredeemably working class. Lady Mary, too, has made what her father sees as a disastrous choice, having fallen in love with a commoner, Frank Tregear. As for Gerald, the youngest, he is expelled from Cambridge for having gone to the Derby, and then loses an enormous sum of money gambling.
Now we may not be able to sympathise with the Duke's horror at the thought that centuries of noble blood are threatened with extinction if his two eldest children are allowed to make these marriages, and though Gerald loses £30,000 gambling (about £300,000 in today's money), it scarcely makes a dent in his father's massive fortune. Plantaganet's problems with Mary, in particular, are exacerbated by the fact that before her death, Glencora had known of her attachment to Frank and fully approved. The worst of this is that it highlights for him the fact that she herself had abandoned a passionate love for a penniless adventurer to make a sensible, if initially loveless marriage to himself, which forces him to question the whole basis of their relationship. But what is so moving here is the way this man, completely unaccustomed to expressing his feelings and with a very slim knowledge of his own children, is forced to confront these things and to come to some kind of resolution. And I think anyone, from any level of society, would be able to relate to the extreme difficulty the poor man has in understanding the thought processes of the younger generation of his own family.
This book has been described as Trollope's psychological masterpiece, and you can see why. But it's also a novel about changing times, and the need to move with them. The chosen partners of Mary and Silverbridge are fine upstanding people, intelligent and right thinking, and Plantagenet fully recognises the fact, but it still is a huge leap for him to consider the possibility of them becoming the parents of his grandchildren and heirs. Undoubtedly this mirrors exactly what was happening is society at large during this period. Silverbridge and Mary are priviledging inclination over duty, preferring their personal happiness over the need to marry strategically, and you see how the aristocracy is being forced, for better or worse, to abandon its old ways of being.
And speaking of aristocracy, it seems clear that it could certainly do with an infusion of fresh blood. Although the picture of the upper classes is not as harsh as it is in Trollope's wonderful satire, The Way We Live Now, it is clear that most members of that level of society are completely devoid of either intelligence or morality or both. The most cogent demonstration of this is the fate of Lady Mabel Grex, Frank Tregear's childhood sweetheart and Silverbridge's first choice of bride. Lady Mabel is beautiful and clever, but her character and her prospects have been fatally damaged by the fact that her father has drunk and gambled away the family fortune. For this reason she has not been able to marry the equally penniless Frank, and though her only hope of redeeming her life is to marry Silverbridge, the strain of cynicism and bitterness that she has acquired through her difficulies and disappointments causes her to refuse his offer, leaving him free to fall in love with Isobel. In fact Lady Mabel is now going to join those women who Trollope consigns to the fate of becoming old maids, and is, though not a very attractive character, a rather tragic one.
It would be great to know whether these new-fangled marriages turn out to be happy, but we will never know. I'm sorry that this is the end of the Pallisers, but very happy to have rediscovered Trollope -- I hope I may find some of his many other novels as satisfying.
