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The Way We Live now
Augustus Melmotte is coming to town! Financier of the new world, host of Emperors, scourge of prudential regulators! He's incorporating the Mexican American Railway Co. in London, and looking for the right sorts to direct the enterprise. Thankfully he's found several young lords who happen to be inveterate gamblers.
London doesn't ask too many questions of Mr Melmotte, like how he obtained his fortune or trivial affairs like capital structure. Why bother when it's self-evident he's a man of action who knows how to get things done.
Let's meet the board. Felix Carbury, a feckless waste of space who mooches off his mother; Lord Nidderdale, a dopey aristocratic wallflower; Miles Grendall, a man to make an amoeba in cryogenic stasis seem inquisitive; and Paul Montague, a comparitively ordinary chap boasting a head least unscrewed.
Felix wants to marry Melmotte's heir, Marie, to fund his lifestyle, but prefers a country girl …
Augustus Melmotte is coming to town! Financier of the new world, host of Emperors, scourge of prudential regulators! He's incorporating the Mexican American Railway Co. in London, and looking for the right sorts to direct the enterprise. Thankfully he's found several young lords who happen to be inveterate gamblers.
London doesn't ask too many questions of Mr Melmotte, like how he obtained his fortune or trivial affairs like capital structure. Why bother when it's self-evident he's a man of action who knows how to get things done.
Let's meet the board. Felix Carbury, a feckless waste of space who mooches off his mother; Lord Nidderdale, a dopey aristocratic wallflower; Miles Grendall, a man to make an amoeba in cryogenic stasis seem inquisitive; and Paul Montague, a comparitively ordinary chap boasting a head least unscrewed.
Felix wants to marry Melmotte's heir, Marie, to fund his lifestyle, but prefers a country girl as his sidepiece. Paul desires Felix's sister, Henrietta, as does Henrietta's cousin, the sanctimonous but sympathetic Roger Carbury, nearly twice her age. Paul's tempestuous ex from the United States, one Winifred Hurtle, crossed the pond to old Blighty to pay him a visit in the meantime.
The engine of this 800-page satirical chonker is Mr Melmotte and his navigation of high society's commercial interests. Hideously transactional and with a pathological want of self-insight, he hustles as hard as a politician trying to contain an illicit sex island clientele list. The book has loads of amusing vignettes like the gambling sessions at the Beargarden gentlemen's club, and the company board meetings. You'll meet about 20 characters and get to know them well. If Dickens excels at caricature, Trollope's forte is having the reader go 'yep, I know this person IRL' all too often. His portraits of Roger Carbury and Winifred Hurtle are highlights. The tangle involving Paul, Winifred, Roger and Henrietta is nearly moving in its resolution.
If you decide to invest the time, it's worth noting that marriage in Victorian times is a very different and far more serious matter compared to now, especially for young women. I suspect choosing wisely back then determined not onlya woman's financial security but also her social mobility and lifestyle quality for the rest of her life. Ouch.