Still on my great Trollope project, I've now reached what is, I think, the middle volume in his Palliser series. I'd heard great things about this novel, and was really looking forward to it, but in fact I enjoyed it less than others I have read recently. I'm not saying it's a bad book, but just that, for various reasons, it didn't really appeal to me.
The Eustace diamonds of the title are a set of fabulously valuable gems set in a glorious necklace. At £10,000 in 1865, they would be worth about £800,000 in today's money, so not to be sniffed at. Lizzie Eustace, a young, pretty, amoral widow, insists that they were given to her by her husband before his death and that she has a right to keep them. The Eustace family lawyer, Mr Camperdown, is convinced they are not hers to keep, and threatens her with legal action. Her new fiance Lord Fawn takes fright when he realises the enormity of the scandal that is likely to ensue. Then Lizzie's room is broken into in the night and the specially constructed metal chest in which she keeps the diamonds is stolen. But have the diamonds really gone?
So far so good. But despite the fact that I got the idea that Lizzie, if not a sympathetic character, was supposed to be amusing in her wilful untruthfulness, I was not amused and in fact found this to be a surprisingly dark novel. Lizzie, for all her beauty, is really a most unappealing girl. Trollope seems to have been influenced to create her by reading Vanity Fair, and even mentions its leading character Becky Sharp in the novel. But I certainly couldn't help admiring, even liking, intelligent, witty Becky, wicked as she is, and I just didn't feel the same way about Lizzie, who is really pretty stupid. And in fact there is hardly a likeable or admirable character in the whole novel, apart from Lord Fawn's mother, and perhaps the governess Lucy Morris, and even she rather irritated me.
But of course a novel doesn't have to have sympathetic characters to be a good novel. The real darkness for me was the very depressing picture of marriage and the roles of women. Love, even affection, had no part to play in the engagements and marriages of the upper classes here. The sole driving force was money. Lizzie's cousin Frank Greystock does love Lucy Morris (not clear why, really, as she is rather a wimp) and even proposes, but is not going to be able to marry her because he is broke, and has no compunction in making up to Lizzie, as she would be able to supply him with the readies. Lizzie's friend Mrs Carbuncle thrusts Lucinda, her so-called niece (probably her daughter by her lover Lord George de Bruce Carruthers), into an engagement with the appalling Sir Griffin Tewitt, and Lucinda's revulsion is such that she literally loses her mind. As for Lizzie, she veers between marrying a rich man with a title and marrying what she calls a Corsair -- a dashing romantic hero who will sweep her off her feet.
As for the Pallisers -- Lady Glencora and Plantaganet -- they play such minor roles in the novel that it seemed to me Trollope had just flung them in here and there in order to keep the novel as part of the series.
I'm sure there will be people who disagree with me and really love the novel. I'm not sorry I read it, but I'm looking forward to getting back to Phineas Finn in Phineas Redux, the next on the list.
