Group read: The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson by Anthony Trollope

The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson: By One Of The Firm by Anthony Trollope (1862)

    How terrible was this statement as to the affairs of the firm, coming, as it did, from the senior partner, who not more than twelve months since entered the business with a sum of four thousand pounds in hard cash! Robinson, whose natural spirit in such matters was sanguine and buoyant, felt that even he was depressed. Had four thousand pounds gone, and was there no profit? He knew well that the stock on hand would not even pay the debts that were due. The shop had always been full, and the men and women at the counter had always been busy. The books had nominally been kept by himself; but who can keep the books of a concern, if he be left in ignorance as to the outgoings and incomings?
    "That comes of attempting to do business on a basis of capital!" he said in a voice of anger.
    "It comes of advertising, George. It comes of little silver books, and big wooden stockings, and men in armour, and cats-carrion shirts; that's what it's come from, George."
    "Never," said Robinson, rising from his chair with energetic action. "Never. You may as well tell me that the needle does not point to the pole, that the planets have not their appointed courses, that the swelling river does not run to the sea. There are facts as to which the world has ceased to dispute, and this is one of them. Advertise, advertise, advertise!"

Welcome to the group read of Anthony Trollope's The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson---one of his least known and, alas, generally least popular novels! :D

Notwithstanding this, what I want to do here is encourage everyone to react spontaneously to the novel, without worrying about its reputation; to suggest what might have been the reasons for its contemporary failure; and to understand what Trollope's intentions were in writing it.

I don't think there is any question that a great deal of The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson is still relevant today; but perhaps it is also true that the message tends to get lost in the vehicle.

Broadly, it is easy to see how this novel fits into Trollope's portfolio of works in which he expresses his concern over what he perceived as the increasing dishonesty of society. We have seen before his distaste for such potentially dubious practices as stock-brokering and share promotion, and the conduct of the legal system. However, rather than dealing with dishonesty amongst the middle- and upper classes, as we are more accustomed to, here we find him working amongst tradespeople (who perhaps he thought were trying to "copy their betters"?).

Trollope began writing The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson is 1857, soon after he completed The Three Clerks, but at that time did not get very far with it and put it to one side. He resurrected and completed the project in 1861; and the novel was serialised in The Cornhill Magazine between August 1861 and March 1862.

The novel was so little liked at the time that no British edition appeared until 1870. There was, however, a pirated American edition in 1862 (which at least allows us to use that as its "first publication date"!).

The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson - hereafter, taking a cue from the novel itself, B., J. & R. - is one of Trollope's shortest novels, and has only ever existed in book form as a single volume, with standard chapter numbers.

Paperback editions have been released by the Oxford University Press and by Penguin. The novel is also available as a free ebook from a variety of sources including Project Gutenberg.

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ETA: Ninie has rightly pointed out that I have not suggested a pace for the group read. We are dealing with a much shorter Trollope novel than usual, so this should be less of an issue; we will aim for two chapters per day minimum.

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With respect to the conduct of the group read, please respect these guidelines:

1. Whenever commenting, always start by listing the chapter to which you are referring in bold.

2. Be mindful of others: use spoiler tags if you have read the book before, or get ahead of other readers.

Ordinarily, I strongly discourage reading an introduction or end/footnotes prior to completing the novel. This is not a plot-reliant novel, however, and is less likely to be spoiled; while conversely, the fact that it is satirical in intention makes it more likely there are references in it to contemporary incidents that may not be immediately obvious to the modern reader. Therefore, if anyone comes across information in that respect that may be helpful to others, please feel free to add it to the thread.

We can chat a bit more about the best way to proceed once we have the group assembled---but for now, please check in and let us know if you are intending to participate, or just lurk.

I will be participating! I have the Folio Society edition, which was published in collaboration with the Trollope Society.

Well, I found my copy, so I will attempt a re-read. No promises.

I have an OUP edition and will be reading along.

It strikes me that I’ve read a lot of Trollope novels. Some are my favorites (although not always favorites for others) of all the books I’ve read, and a very few I haven’t liked.

I have a Gutenberg copy so will be joining you.

>5 NinieB:

Welcome, Ninie!

One of the (many) frustrations of being cut off from my academic library is that it holds all the Trollope / Folio Society editions.

>6 kac522:

Fair enough, Kathy!

>7 Matke:

Hi, Gail!

Me too, though obviously not ENOUGH or we wouldn't need this series of group reads! :D

>8 majkia:

Thanks for joining us, Jean!

I'm in as well! I also have the Project Gutenberg edition that I'll be reading in my Kindle app.

>9 lyzard: Just to note that my edition is the Oxford World's Classics edition pictured in >1 lyzard:, with intro by N. John Hall.

>10 cbl_tn:

Welcome, Carrie, thanks for joining us! :)

>11 kac522:

Noted, thanks.

Under the circumstances I had to read this via PG too, so feel free to add information from the introduction as it becomes relevant.

Allrighty---let's get started!

I think what might be a good idea is to touch on what Trollope was trying to do in this novel; we can discuss later how far he succeeded. :D

As I touched on above, this is one of a number of novels in which Trollope expressed his concern over the direction taken by British society, particularly with respect to money matters (though he tends to present that as a symptom of a deeper malaise). He was disturbed by what he saw as an increasing disregard for honesty, and an increasing determination to "win" at any cost.

Ordinarily he treats these matters very seriously in his writing - this tendency culminating in his takedown of society as a whole in 1875's The Way We Live Now - but in The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson, he tried for a satirical approach.

There are two threads to this satire: first, in the manner that the firm of B., J. & R. does business - and why they do it that way - and second, in the overarching importance given to the relatively new practice of commercial advertising.

Meanwhile, it has been rightly observed that in this novel, Trollope was trying to "do a Thackerary": he was a great admirer of William Makepeace Thackeray as a writer, as well as being his friend, and in addition to the satirical tone itself, here he uses several authorial ploys usually associated with Thackeray's works, including embedding the narrator into the text in the third person.

Which is to say, that though these are meant to be the memoirs of George Robinson, Robinson himself appears as a - putatively - objective character.

Behind this we have some humour over the memoirs appearing in The Cornhill Magazine, and Robinson having an editor forced upon him---with Trollope taking on that role himself.

Personally I feel that Trollope failed in nearly all of these goals for the simple reason that, though trying to write a Thackeray novel, he kept lapsing back into a Trollope novel. :D

Chapter 1:

It was then arranged that one of Smith and Elder's young men should look through the manuscript, and make any few alterations which the taste of the public might require. It might be that the sonorous, and, if I may so express myself, magniloquent phraseology in which I was accustomed to invite the attention of the nobility and gentry to our last importations was not suited for the purposes of light literature, such as this. "In fiction, Mr. Robinson, your own unaided talents would doubtless make you great," said to me the editor of this Magazine; "but if I may be allowed an opinion, I do think that in the delicate task of composing memoirs a little assistance may perhaps be not inexpedient."

Of course, there's a bittersweet quality to that joke, inasmuch as Smith and Elder declined to publish The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson after its run in the Cornhill, even though they'd just had a huge success with Framley Parsonage and really owed Trollope for that.

That's how unpopular this novel was. :D

(Afterthought: I wonder if this is why Trollope went to Chapman & Hall with Orley Farm?)

Found you! And a copy on Openlibrary, I'll be starting as soon as possible.

What should our reading pace be?

>16 NinieB:

Welcome, Birgit, glad to see you here!

>17 lyzard:

Goodness! Forgot about that. :D

Since we're dealing with a much shorter novel than usual, our pacing shouldn't be as much of an issue, but we will say two chapters a day; I will edit >3 lyzard: to that effect (and catch us up to Chapter 4 today).

This is interesting:

Chapter 1

    There are those,---men of the old school, who cannot rouse themselves to see and read the signs of the time, men who would have been in the last ranks, let them have lived when they would,---who object to it that it is untrue,---who say that advertisements do not keep the promises which they make. But what says the poet,---he whom we teach our children to read? What says the stern moralist to his wicked mother in the play? "Assume a virtue if you have it not?" and so say I. "Assume a virtue if you have it not." It would be a great trade virtue in a haberdasher to have forty thousand pairs of best hose lying ready for sale in his warehouse. Let him assume that virtue if he have it not. Is not this the way in which we all live, and the only way in which it is possible to live comfortably...

We can see here that the concerns which would motivate Trollope in writing The Way We Live Now were already in existence nearly twenty years earlier. We can conclude that, in his opinion, matters only grew worse and worse over the intervening years.

That is a very serious novel, of course; but even in this less serious one we find him focusing upon the double dishonesty of advertising per se, and of businesses run on smoke and mirrors---which is to say, on credit rather than capital:

Well; I say again and again to all young tradesmen;---Advertise, advertise, advertise;---and don't stop to think too much about capital. It is a bugbear. Capital is a bugbear; and it is talked about by those who have it,---and by some that have not so much of it neither,---for the sake of putting down competition, and keeping the market to themselves.

Chapter 1:

To obtain credit the only certain method is to advertise. Advertise, advertise, advertise. That is, assume, assume, assume. Go on assuming your virtue. The more you haven't got it, the more you must assume it. The bitterer your own heart is about that drunken cook and that idle husband who will do nothing to assist you, the sweeter you must smile. Smile sweet enough, and all the world will believe you. Advertise long enough, and credit will come.

This is basically the novel's manifesto.

It is also where we find Trollope most closely following Thackeray---in that on one hand George Robinson is effectively the novel's protagonist, even presented - through his own manoeuring, of course - as its sympathy figure; yet here selling a policy of what for Trollope would have amounted to deliberate, calculated deception and dishonesty---intending to fraud.

But - for reasons I will get into towards the end - I don't think Trollope actually uses Robinson in a way that properly makes his point.

We should note this detail in passing:

Chapter 2

The widow McCockerell, in bestowing her person upon Mr Brown, had not intended to endow him also with entire dominion over her shop and chattels. She loved to be supreme over her butter tubs, and she loved also to be supreme over her till. Brown's views on the rights of women were more in accordance with the law of the land as laid down in the statutes. He opined that a femme couverte could own no property, not even a butter tub;---and hence quarrels arose.

Remember that the novel was started in 1857, and published in 1862: the first iteration of the Married Women's Property Act wasn't passed until 1870.

"Couverture" was the subsuming of a married woman's legal rights in her husband, including stripping her of the right to own property, make a contract in her own name and - since she "owned" nothing - make a legal will. (It was in this context that the infamous remark about "criminals, idiots, women and minors" being equal under the law was made, i.e. they were equally without rights.)

Oh, dear:

Chapter 2

At this crisis Maryanne devoted herself to her mother. It was admitted by all who knew her that Maryanne Brown had charms. At that time she was about twenty-four years of age, and was certainly a fine young woman. She was, like her mother, a little too much inclined to corpulence, and there may be those who would not allow that her hair was auburn. Mr. Robinson, however, who was then devotedly attached to her, was of that opinion, and was ready to maintain his views against any man who would dare to say that it was red.

We should know what to think of Maryanne from that moment, of course...

More seriously, Chapter 2 sets up the financial mess which is to undermine the future efforts of B., J. & R.

Despite thirty years of being told otherwise, the late Mrs Brown was still intent upon divvying up "her" property, making promises to her daughters regarding their inheritance, assigning to Maryanne a dowry of £500---and arranging a marriage on the strength of it between her and William Brisket.

(I have to say, that's one of my favourites amongst Trollope's comic names.)

We know very well Trollope's opinion of the legal system from Orley Farm; so we are not surprised by this dry observation:

There could be no possible doubt as to Mr. Brown being the owner of the property, however infatuated on such a subject Jones and his wife may have been. No lawyer in London could have thought that the young women had a leg to stand upon. Nevertheless, the case was undertaken...

It is finally to end the legal struggle - or more correctly, its attendant costs - that the partnership is forged.

>18 lyzard: Sounds good. I won't be able to begin until Wednesday (your Thursday) at the earliest, but I should be able to catch up pretty quickly.

>19 lyzard: Yes, that put me instantly in mind of The way we live now. I'm actually enjoying the way Robinson is planning his advertising campaign, it feels like nothing much has changed.

>24 NinieB:

That's fine, Ninie.

>25 MissWatson:

Yes, absolutely, and that's where I find the value of this book. There was no regulation at all on the content of advertising at the time, but even now we see daily examples of how people try to get around any truth-in-advertising statutes---particularly with respect to things like food labelling and products selling themselves as environmentally friendly.

I'm paraphrasing because I can't remember the specifics, but I know there was a case something like a product being branded SUGAR-FREE, and when it was pointed out that the fine print had it as 10% sugar the marketers said, "Oh, SUGAR-FREE is just one of our brand names..."

Chapter 3 deals primarily with the rocky romance - or "romance" of George Robinson and Maryanne Brown.

I find Trollope's handling of Maryanne's subplot interesting, though I'll keep the specifics of that for nearer the end, too.

But we get a hint of this here:

    "A man must look after his own, George, or else he'll go to the wall," she said, with a sneer. And then he parted from her in anger.
    But his love did not on that account wax cool, and so in his misery he had recourse to their mutual friend, Miss Twizzle. "The truth is this," said Miss Twizzle, "I believe she'd take him, because he's respectable and got a business."
    "He's horribly vulgar," said Robinson.
    "Oh, bother!" said Miss Twizzle. "I know nothing about that. He's got a business, and whoever marries Brisket won't have to look for a bed to sleep on. But there's a hitch about the money."

Ack! Sorry, people, meant to do a bunch of stuff yesterday, but then had my time stolen by a family emergency---

---or to put it another way, my cats got out. :D

ETA: ...and here they are, sleeping like little angels, as if they didn't just give their mother heart failure!---

Yes. Sorry. The past couple of days have gone rather pear-shaped, but I will try to knuckle down now and get us properly caught up.

I will expand on this point later, but this is part of my issue with this book:

Chapter 4

    "If I am to go into partnership with that man alone," said Mr Brown, turning to his young friend almost in despair, "I may prepare for the Gazette at once.---And for my grave!" he added, solemnly.
    "I'll join you," said Robinson. "I haven't got any money. You know that. But then neither has he."
    "I wish you had a little," said Mr. Brown. "Capital is capital, you know."
    "But I've got that which is better than capital," said Robinson, touching his forehead with his forefinger. "And if you'll trust me, Mr. Brown, I won't see you put upon." The promise which Mr. Robinson then gave he kept ever afterwards with a marked fidelity.

My problem is that the highlighted sentence ought to be outright irony, but it isn't; not even when it is followed by airy remarks like this:

    It was true that the shop was nearly all window; but then, as Mr Robinson said, an extended front of glass was the one thing necessary. And it was true also that the future tenants must pay down a thousand pounds before they entered;---but then, as he explained, how could they better expend the trifle of money which they possessed?
    "Trifle of money!" said Mr Brown, thinking of the mountains of butter and years of economy which had been required to put together those four thousand pounds;---thinking also, perhaps, of the absolute impecuniosity of his young partner who thus spoke.

There's also an interesting general point in Chapter 4:

    "I'll tell you what," said Robinson; "there's nothing like colour. We'll call it Magenta House, and we'll paint it magenta from the roof to the window tops."
    This beautiful tint had only then been invented, and it was necessary to explain the word to Mr Brown. He merely remarked that the oil and paint would come to a deal of money, and then gave way. Jones was struck dumb by the brilliancy of the idea, and for once forgot to object.

Trollope is quite right, of course: the Victorians were all over their new bright colours, resulting from their new technologies (sometimes with disastrous results, like the arsenic-derived green that was so popular).

This is one of my objections to too many Regency-set period dramas: everything is much too bright and colourful!

But we also get much of the main thrust of the satire here, with Robinson's airy faith in credit set against Mr Brown's timid belief that they should probably be paying their bills...

Chapter 4

    "It's beautiful to hear him talk," said Mr Brown; "but it's the bill I'm a thinking of."
    "If you will only go enough ahead, Mr Brown, you'll find that nobody will trouble you with such bills."
    "But they must be paid some day, George."
    "Of course they must; but it will never do to think of that now. In twelve months or so, when we have set the house well going, the payment of such bills as that will be a mere nothing,---a thing that will be passed as an item not worth notice..."

This was an era both of rapidly expanding commerce and of rapidly crumbling businesses, exactly as we see here---built on credit and with no substance behind them, and collapsing as soon as anything went wrong with the balancing act.

To Trollope's way of thinking, the credit market was part of the growing dishonesty of society, a smoke-and-mirrors business that burned those touched by it, while the people responsible were too often allowed to escape their responsiblities via the bankruptcy laws.

These laws had been overhauled in the middle of the century, with the Joint Stock Companies Winding-Up Act passed in 1844 and the Limited Liability Act in 1855. These were consolidated into the Joint Stock Companies Act in 1856 (just before Trollope started writing this), which became the basis for modern insolvency laws.

These new laws abolished the creditors' right to sue the shareholders in a bankrupt company. They also shifted the concept of a business, so that it was viewed as an entity in its own right, rather than a manifestation of the people responsible for it (and laid the platform for that perverse situation we get now where a company is sometimes treated under the law like a person).

We see here too that the notion that "all publicity is good publicity" was alive and thriving in the mid-19th century:

Chapter 4

    There was considerable trouble about the entrance. A wide, commanding centre doorway was essential; but this, if made in the desirable proportions, would have terribly crippled the side windows. To obviate this difficulty, the exterior space allotted for the entrance between the frontage of the two windows was broad and noble, but the glass splayed inwards towards the shop, so that the absolute door was decidedly narrow.
    "When we come to have a crowd, they won't get in and out," said Jones.
    "If we could only crush a few to death in the doorway our fortune would be made," said Robinson.

>28 lyzard: Well, after all that excitement, no doubt they needed that nap . . .

Also, I read Chapters 1 and 2 last night. I found Robinson's authorial voice rather amusing.

>34 NinieB:

Them?? HA!! :D

>35 NinieB:

That's one of the things we need to discuss at the end.

Chapter 5

A stock of goods was of course necessary, but if the firm could only get their name sufficiently established, that matter would be arranged simply by written orders to two or three wholesale houses. Competition, that beautiful science of the present day, by which every plodding cart-horse is converted into a racer, makes this easy enough. When it should once become known that a firm was opening itself on a great scale in a good thoroughfare, and advertising on real, intelligible principles, there would be no lack of goods.

We saw in The Three Clerks, with its competitive Civil Service entrance exam, how Trollope felt about the increasing competitiveness of society---that doing well, doing your best, wasn't enough; that either you were a winner or a loser.

Here we see that he also sees business competition not as a good thing, but as a driver of dishonest practices. Paying for your stock is too slow and piecemeal a process; it is quicker and easier to buy a reputation, and therefore credit, via your advertising.

It is interesting, though, that Trollope effectively makes the paying public (and particularly women!) an active and knowing party to what amounts to fraudulent practice---with a shift from what we can recognise as the voice of George Robinson to a more omniscient authorial voice.

Possibly this reflects his sense that society as a whole was becoming less honest. It was no longer a case of 'the labourer being worthy of his hire', but of getting what you could and screwing over the other party if necessary---or even just possible.

HA!!

Of course Trollope is joking; but still...

Chapter 5

    Both Jones and Mrs Jones accompanied the old man, and a sore time he had of it. It may here be remarked that Mrs Jones struggled very hard to get a footing in the shop, but on this point it should be acknowledged that her husband did his duty for a while.
    "It must be you or I, Sarah Jane," said he; "but not both."
    "I have no objection in life," said she; "you can stay at home, if you please."

But he's not joking here--and to the point of again letting the authorial voice intrude: this isn't George Robinson speaking, much as he despises Jones:

By them he was hated,---as was perhaps necessary in his position. He was a tyrant, who liked to feel at every moment the relish of his power. To the poor girls he was cruel, treating them as though they were dirt beneath his feet. For Mr Jones, though he affected the reputation of an admirer of the fair sex, never forgot himself by being even civil to a female who was his paid servant. Woman's smile had a charm for him, but no charm equal to the servility of dependence.

>31 lyzard: My first memory when this colour is mentioned was the uproar that happened in Germany when newly-privatised Deutsche Telekom picked it as their corporate colour. So crass!

>38 lyzard: I didn't note it down, alas, but at some point Robinson even says "I" instead of his usual third-person narrative. The authoral voice is a bit slippery.

>39 MissWatson:

We have a silly situation here where one of our state cricket clubs calls what they wear 'magenta' when it's really hot pink - presumably the men weren't comfortable, or the marketers weren't - leading to running joke arguments about what shade it actually is (my vote is 'fuchsia'). :D

It is very slippery and that's an important point to discuss at the end.

Chapter 6

Business, circa 1857:

    On the foremost of these was displayed the name of the firm,---Brown, Jones, and Robinson. On the second, the name of the house,---Magenta House. On the third the number,---Nine times nine is eighty one. On the fourth, an edict of trade against which retail houses in the haberdashery line should never sin,---"Terms: Ready cash." And on the last, the special principle of our trade,---"Five-and-a-half per cent. profit." The back of the shop was closed in with magenta curtains, through which the bald head of Mr Brown would not unfrequently be seen to emerge; and on each side of the curtains there stood a tall mirror, reaching up to the very ceiling. Upon the whole, the thing certainly was well done.
    "But the contractor,"---the man who did the work was called the contractor,---"the contractor says that he will want the rest of his money in two months," said Mr Brown, whining.
    "He would not have wanted any for the next twelve months," answered Robinson, "if you had not insisted on paying him those few hundreds."
    "You can find fault with the bill, you know," said Jones, "and delay it almost any time by threatening him with a lawyer."
    "And then he will put a distress on us," said Mr Brown.
    "And after that will be very happy to take our bill at six months," answered Robinson.

I want to come back later also to discuss Trollope's handling of Maryanne Brown, but for the moment, we shall quietly take note of this:

Chapter 7

    "Father," she said, standing upright in the middle of the room before them, "I have come to know what it is that you mean to do?"
    "To do, my dear?" said old Mr Brown.
    "Yes; to do. I suppose something is to be done some day. We ain't always to go on shilly-shallying, spending the money, and ruining the business, and living from hand to mouth, as though there was no end to anything. I've got myself to look to, and I don't mean to go into the workhouse if I can help it!"

******

    "My father is nothing to me,---not with reference to what young man I let myself be called 'Maryanne' by. And going on as he is going on, I don't suppose that he'll long be much to me in any way."
    "Oh, Maryanne!" sobbed the unhappy parent.
    "That's all very well, sir, but it won't keep the kettle a-boiling!"
    "As long as I have a bit to eat of, Maryanne, and a cup to drink of, you shall have the half."
    "And what am I to do when you won't have neither a bit nor a cup?"

******

    "I haven't got the money; have I, George?" said the father.
    "That question I cannot answer," replied Robinson. "Nor can I say how far it might be prudent in you to debar yourself from all further progress in commerce if you have got it. But this I can say; do not let any consideration for me prevent you from giving a dowry with your daughter to Mr Brisket; if she loves him---"
    "Oh, it's all bother about love," said she; "men and women must eat, and they must have something to give their children, when they come."

I’m a bit behind in the reading (you would not believe how books manage to hide themselves in my house) but will catch up this weekend since I have it on kindle just in case…

The little that I’ve read has been been amusing.

Tangentially it strikes me that Trollope was just as interested in social woes as Dickens was, and that both held the law in contempt. “The law is a ass” indeed. But of course Dickens was more fantastic in his portrayal of the poor which was his main concern. It seems that Trollope gets less credit for being concerned with social mores and customs because he didn’t focus on the poor but rather on the middle to upper-middle class and wasn’t so over the top in his writing. Though there is Mrs. Proudie…

That may be just me defending/promoting my favorite. I love lots of Dickens but I’d rather have Trollope as a lifelong companion, speaking bookishly of course.

>19 lyzard: Interesting comment on themes that will come up in The Way We Live Now. That is the one major Trollope I have not read yet.

>23 lyzard: Yep, love the name Bill Brisket, with the "mottled beefy face."

>43 Matke:

Hi, Gail! - not a problem, there's plenty of time.

I think that's fair comment, although we need to keep in mind that while Trollope was evidently concerned over various aspects of society, he disliked "crusading" and (as is evident in The Warden) disapproved of that aspect of Dickens' writing, much as he admired him as a writer.

Trollope's realism is much less striking, but to me it's what makes his writing valuable.

It's funny how we always feel the need to "take sides"! :D

(Though of course I'm with you...)

>44 kac522:

It's one of his most important standalones; hopefully we will ALL get to it in due course. :)

I know, you can really picture him! :D

>45 lyzard: Getting up the courage for TWWLN. I figure if I employ the lyzard chronological system, I may not live that long ;)

>45 lyzard:

Oh, Kathy! Oh, no!! :D

We're gap-plugging, remember, so it's not as far away as it looks!

Speaking of Dickens!---

Chapter 8

    "Now, Robinson, if you're going to go on like that, you are not the man I always took you for. You didn't suppose that a girl like Maryanne isn't to have her bit of fun as long as it lasts. Them as is as steady as old horses before marriage usually has their colt's fling after marriage. Maryanne's principles is good, and that's everything;---ain't it?"
    "I impute nothing to Miss Brown, except that she is false, and mercenary, and cruel."
    "Exactly; just a she-raskil, as Tom called me. I was mercenary and all the rest of it. But, laws! what's that between friends? The long and short of it is this; is Barkis willing? If Barkis is willing, then a certain gentleman as we know in the meat trade may suit himself elsewhere. Come; answer that. Is Barkis willing?"
    For a minute or two Robinson sat silent, thinking of the indignities he had endured. That he loved the girl,---loved her warmly, with all his heart,---was only too true. Yes; he loved her too well. Had his affection been of a colder nature, he would have been able to stand off for awhile, and thus have taught the lady a lesson which might have been of service. But, in his present mood, the temptation was too great for him, and he could not resist it. "Barkis is willing," said he...

BTW is everyone okay with the rest of George Robinson's quotations? Most of them are Shakespeare and fairy obvious, I think, though there are one or two others that are a bit more obscure.

For example, when he is challenging Bill Brisket to swim across the Thames, he quotes Thomas Hood's The Bridge Of Sighs, about a young woman who has drowned herself:

And her eyes, close them,
    Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring
    Thro' muddy impurity,
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
    Fix'd on futurity...

Though at the other extreme---

Chapter 9

...and then he stalked backwards and forwards through the small room, driven almost to madness by the misery of his position. "I am not splenetic and rash," he said; "yet have I something in me dangerous. I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand Briskets could not, with all their quantities of love, make up my sum."

:D

I have to say, though, that I find the chronology of B., J. & R. a bit sloppy---even for Trollope, who we know is sometimes a bit careless in that respect. It probably wasn't as evident in serialisation, but in novel-form the way that the catching-up-the-back-story elements are presented in a lump is intrusive and breaks up the flow. The time factor is also wrong: one minute Miss Twizzle and Mr Poppins are getting married, the next they have "children".

OTOH I rather like how Mr Poppins emerges as the novel's unlikely voice of reason. :)

And in Chapter 10, we meet an old friend, or "friend"...

One of the horses trampled on a child near the Bank, and then the police and press interfered. At first the partners were very unhappy about the child, for it was reported to them that the poor little fellow would die. Mr. Brown went to see it, and ascertained that the mother knew how to make the most of the occurrence;---and so, after a day or two, did the firm. The Jupiter daily newspaper took the matter up, and lashed out vigorously at what it was pleased to call the wickedness as well as absurdity of such a system of advertising...

Well, yes:

Chapter 10

    "But, George," said Mr Brown, "I should like to have one of these bills true, if only that one might show it as a sample when the people talk to one."
    "True!" said Robinson, again. "You wish that it should be true! In the first place, did you ever see an advertisement that contained the truth? If it were as true as heaven, would any one believe it? Was it ever supposed that any man believed an advertisement? Sit down and write the truth, and see what it will be!..."

>46 kac522: When I read TWWLN, the length was pretty painless, as I recall, though I admit it's been long enough that I'm fuzzy on the plot.

>49 lyzard: Yes, the back-and-forth narrative is really confusing! I'm wondering if I will get any enlightenment from my edition's introduction.

>48 lyzard: Barkis is willing... It's amazing to me how Trollope can quote Dickens, and be fairly sure people will know the Copperfield reference. To us it's a classic, but at that point it was only a decade or so old.

>49 lyzard: Yes, even on this second reading, I'm finding the back-and-forth annoying--I'm flipping pages to see if I understand exactly where we are in the story.

>52 NinieB: Just feels imposing, I guess.

>53 kac522:

I think it shows the position of literature and reading in Victorian society: he can quote a best-seller as we might do a catchphrase from a movie.

Yes, all the George and Maryanne stuff couldn't possibly fit the timeframe we're given for it. It isn't important in context, but it's annoyingly sloppy.

Well, it's the longest of Trollope's books so there are grounds for trepidation, but as with the better Trollope novels, it's fine once you get into the rhythm of it.

Chapter 11 is an important one.

The whole "Johnson of Manchester" business is pretty on-point in its satire, including George's manipulation of the public not just with his own advertisements but via the newspapers---even the Jupiter!---so that the matter becomes self-perpetuating:

    On the Friday no less than four letters appeared in the daily Jupiter, all dated from Manchester, all signed by men of the name of Johnson, and all denying that the writer of that special letter had had any dealings whatever with Brown, Jones, and Robinson, of Bishopsgate Street, London. There was "Johnson Brothers," "Johnson and Co.," "Alfred Johnson and Son," and "Johnson and Johnson;" and in one of those letters a suggestion was made that B., J., and R., of London, should state plainly who was the special Johnson that had gone off with the paper belonging to their house.
    "I know we shall be detected," said Mr Brown, upon whose feelings these letters did not act favourably.
    "There is nothing to detect," said Robinson; "but I will write a letter to the editor."
    This he did, stating that for reasons which must be quite obvious to the commercial reading public, it would be very unwise in the present state of affairs to give any detailed description of that Mr Johnson who had been named; but that B., J., and R. were very happy to be able to certify that that Mr. Johnson who had failed in his engagements to them was connected neither with Johnson Brothers, or Johnson and Co.; nor with Alfred Johnson and Son, or Johnson and Johnson. This also acted as an advertisement, and no doubt brought grist to the mill...

But the real point of this chapter lies earlier on, in this short exchange between George and Mr Brown:

    This purchase down among the factories had been his own special work, and he had been proud of it. He was, moreover, a man who could ill tolerate any ill-usage from others. "Can't we do anything to 'em, George? Can't we make 'em bankrupts?"
    "If we could, what good would that do us?" said Robinson. "We must put up with it."

Trollope was very clearly of the opinion that the new bankruptcy laws had gone too far in favour of business; that people who went bankrupt were able to dust themselves off and start over, whereas those who lost money through the collapse of a business were left to bear the burden.

We need to keep in mind always with Victorian literature that there was no social safety net---no dole, no pension; money lost was gone forever, and people hurt in this way could be hurt permanently.

In fact Trollope eventually goes some way to undermining his point in the way he works out his plot, but we'll talk about that later.

There's also an important serious note sounded in Chapter 12:

Under these circumstances, he did not see his way. That the house in Bishopsgate Street was doing a large business he did not doubt. He visited the place often, and usually found the shop crowded. But he did doubt whether that business was very lucrative. It might be that the whole thing was a bubble, and that it would be burst before that bill should have been honoured. In such case, he would have saddled himself with an empty-handed wife, and would decidedly not have seen his way...

If you'll forgive me, I'm going to quote Wikipedia here, so as to be brief:

"An economic bubble or asset bubble is a situation in which asset prices appear to be based on implausible or inconsistent views about the future. It could also be described as trade in an asset at a price or price range that strongly exceeds the asset's intrinsic value."

In Britain, the ur-bubble, if I can call it that, was the so-called "South Sea Bubble": in 1711, the South Sea Company was founded: basically it was a fake that was created as a ploy to reduce the national debt. It ran on insider trading and bribery, but because it was heavily advertised and promoted, despite actually doing no business at all*, thousands of people were lured into buying shares in it. The company's stocks continued to rise until 1720 when the whole thing suddenly collapsed and left many of its investors destitute.

That's a very brief and crude overview of a very complicated matter, but the takeaway point is that the word "bubble" became an extremely loaded one in business circles---and eventually entered common phraseology. Here we see that even Bill Brisket thinks of B., J. & R. in terms of "a bubble" (and of course he's quite right).

(*As the icing on the cake, the business that the South Seas Company was supposedly involved in was slave-trading; so perhaps we don't have quite as much sympathy for its financial victims as we otherwise might.)

>55 lyzard: The Johnson affair makes me think that George could have had a fabulous career with Saatchi & Saatchi.

>56 lyzard: Just finished watching Little Dorrit (1857), with the great financier (and eventually bankrupt) character Mr Merdle.

>58 kac522:

Who begs comparison with Trollope's own Melmotte from TWWLN. (Now there's a project...!)

>59 lyzard: Right. I was reading that they're both loosely based on the same crook gentleman, John Sadleir.

>60 kac522: Sadleir? Any relation to Michael Sadleir?

>60 kac522:

Sadlier quite possibly, although there was an outbreak of financial scandals at the time, which prompted the novel in the first place, and a lot of gentlemen to choose from.

>61 NinieB:

I wouldn't like to say but that is a fascinating thought!

We may not care for Mr Poppins' views on matrimony (like Maryanne, he is exceedingly practical), but there's no doubt Trollope means us to take his views on business at face value:

Chapter 13

    "I tell you what it is, Robinson," said he, about this time: "I don't understand this business of yours."
    "No," said Robinson; "perhaps not. A business like ours is not easily understood."
    "You don't seem to me to divide any profits."
    "In an affair of such magnitude the profits cannot be adjusted every day, nor yet every month."
    "But a man wants his bread and cheese every day. Now, there's old Brown. He's a deal sharper than I took him for."
    "Mr Brown, for a commercial man of the old school, possesses considerable intelligence," said Robinson. Throughout all these memoirs, it may be observed that Mr Robinson always speaks with respect of Mr Brown.
    "Very considerable indeed," said Poppins. "He seems to me to nobble everything. Perhaps that was the old school. The young school ain't so very different in that respect;---only, perhaps, there isn't so much for them to nobble."
    "A regular division of our profits has been arranged for in our deed of partnership," said Robinson.
    "That's uncommon nice, and very judicious," said Poppins.
    "It was thought to be so by our law advisers," said Robinson.
    "But yet, you see, old Brown nobbles the money. Now, if ever I goes into partnership, I shall bargain to have the till for my share. You never get near the till, do you?"
    "I attend to quite another branch of the business," said Robinson.
    "Then you're wrong. There's no branch of the business equal to the ready money branch..."

We so used to living in a credit-based society that we need to remember that this is really the beginning of such a thing. Business as such had always run on a form of credit, with bills paid quarterly and so on; but this was when the kind of short-term credit-buying system came into effect---without any regulation and risk to both parties, but certainly more risk to some than others, and very dependent upon the honesty of those involved.

The other thing we should note here is this another example of a young man with a good opinion of himself discovering that the friend he tends to patronise is actually smarter and shrewder than he realised---or likes.

I finished the book yesterday and actually like it very much. I'll save the comments for later.

>64 MissWatson:

Well done, Birgit!

That's great to hear: please do remember your comments, take notes now if you have to! :)

I don't suppose we have any classical and/or biblical scholars here?? I hope this is right---

Chapter 14

    When it was explained to him that the conduct he was pursuing was hardly removed,---nay, it was not removed,---from common swindling, he would reply that it was quite as honest as Mr Robinson's advertisements. He would quote especially those Katakairion shirts which were obtained from Hodges, and of which the sale at 39s. 6d. the half-dozen had by dint of a wide circulation of notices become considerable. "If that isn't swindling, I don't know what is," said Jones.
    "Do you know what Katakairion means?" said Robinson.
    "No; I don't," said Jones. "And I don't want to know."
    "Katakairion means 'fitting,'" said Robinson; "and the purchaser has only to take care that the shirt he buys does fit, and then it is Katakairion."
    "But we didn't invent them."
    "We invented the price and the name, and that's as much as anybody does."

That's not only a pretty fair and square shot at the advertising business, it's also a complicated joke based on the misuse of Greek terminology---I think.

Kairos was the youngest son of Zeus, and the god of opportunity. From this came the Greek concept of "timeliness", the seizing an opportunity at just the right moment. The expression "a kairos moment" is sometimes used.

(Shakespeare put it like this: There is a tide in the affairs of men / which, taken at the flood, / leads on to fortune...)

"Kairos" is also a term used extensively in the New Testament to convey the idea that "to every thing there is a season".

"Kata kairon" means "according to kairos", according to this theory of a perfect moment in time and events.

All of which is a rather high-brow explanation for a rather low-brow joke: either wilfully or through misunderstanding, George has translated "timely" as "fitting", and understood "fitting" in the clothing sense---hence the Katakairon shirt.

Those of you who are reading the Project Gutenberg version of B., J. & R. would know that it reproduces the illustrations from the Cornhill Magazine, which do an excellent job capturing moments described in the text.

The one used as the frontispiece is the scene from Chapter 14, in which Mr Jones is given what-for by a determined customer---"Jones is vanquished by Mrs Morony":

Hmm. Perhaps George did know what he was doing when he misused Katakairion; anyway, Chapter 15 finds him quoting Milton, and very aptly too:

    It was on one occasion such as this, not very long after the affair of Mrs Morony, that Robinson pressed very eagerly upon Mr Brown the special necessity which demanded from the firm at the present moment more than ordinary efforts in the way of advertisement.
    "Jones has given us a great blow," said Robinson.
    "I fear he has," said Mr Brown.
    "And now, if we do not put our best foot forward it will be all up with us. If we flag now, people will see that we are down. But if we go on with audacity, all those reports will die away, and we shall again trick our beams, and flame once more in the morning sky."
    It may be presumed that Mr. Brown did not exactly follow the quotation, but the eloquence of Robinson had its desired effect...

This is paraphrased from Milton's Lycidas:

For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the wat'ry floor;
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high...

...though of course the point here is that after holding off Bill Brisket and Mayanne for many weeks, Mr Brown does suddenly produce £500---not to give his daughter a dowry, but to spend on yet more advertising:

Chapter 15

    Mr Brown did at last produce a sum of five hundred pounds, with which printers, stationers, and advertising agents were paid or partially paid, and Robinson again went to work.
    "It's the last," said Mr Brown, with a low moan, "and would have been Maryanne's!"
    Robinson, when he heard this, was much struck by the old man's enduring courage. How had he been able to preserve this sum from the young woman's hands, pressed as he had been by her and by Brisket? Of this Robinson said nothing, but he did venture to allude to the fact that the money must, in fact, belong to the firm...

Yes. We must be very careful how we interpret Mr Brown:

    "Is it the fact that I am the junior partner in the house of Brown, Jones, and Robinson?"
    "Why, George, of course you are."
    "And is it the fact that by the deed of partnership drawn up between us, I am entitled to receive one quarter of the proceeds of the business?"
    "No, George, no; not proceeds."
    "What then?"
    "Profits, George; one quarter of the profits."
    "And what is my share for the year now over?"
    "You have lived, George; you must always remember that. It is a great thing in itself even to live out of a trade in these days. You have lived; you must acknowledge that."
    "Mr Brown, I am not a greedy man, nor a suspicious man, nor an idle man, nor a man of pleasure. But I am a man in love."
    "And she shall be yours, George."
    "Ay, sir, that is easily said. She shall be mine, and in order that she may be mine, I must request to know what is accurately the state of our account?"
    "George," said Mr Brown in a piteous accent, "you and I have always been friends..."

>67 lyzard: Nice. I like the plaid pants. Miss Biles, however, is not as I imagined her.

>67 lyzard: That is interesting! I'm not a Greek scholar, alas.
>68 lyzard: I have been wondering at the frequent quotes. Where did George pick all this up, given that he is more or less self-educated?

>70 NinieB:

Small and bitter? Yes.

Actually that makes me wonder whether it was meant to be Miss Biles in front and Mrs Morony in the background?

>71 MissWatson:

Goodness knows I'm not either so I hope I've got that more or less correct!

Obviously he has read a lot - and this was very much the era of the self-educated working man - and most of his quotations are apt.

So perhaps I'm doing him an injustice, and rather than misapplying the term he's just using it to shut up Jones? In other words, is "fitting" Trollope's joke or George's?

<72 In other words, is "fitting" Trollope's joke or George's? It's sad we can't ask him!

>72 lyzard: >73 MissWatson: I tend to think it's George's joke since he's the one who coined the term in the context of the narrative. It looks like George learned some Greek (and probably Latin) in addition to Shakespeare, but it also seems that he doesn't comprehend it as well as he thinks he does. I think that aspect of it is Trollope's joke.

ETA so maybe it is Trollope's joke, since George was probably in earnest when he coined the term.

I'm done.

>73 MissWatson:, >74 cbl_tn:

Yes, not at all clear where this one's coming from! :D

>75 kac522:

Well done, Kathy! :)

I don't think Trollope goes into this quite enough, but one of the striking features of this narrative is George Robinson's personal measure of success: not making forty thousand pounds, but having forty thousand pounds to spend on advertising:

Chapter 16

    "Will it ever be said of me when my history is told that I spent forty thousand pounds a-year in advertising a single article? Would that it might be told that I had spent ten times forty thousand." It was thus that Robinson had once spoken to his friend Poppins, while some remnant of that five hundred pounds was still in his hands.
    "But what good does it do? It don't make anything."
    "But it sells them, Poppins."
    "Everybody wears a shirt, and no one wears more than one at a time. I don't see that it does any good."
    "It is a magnificent trade in itself. Would that I had a monopoly of all the walls in London! The very arches of the bridges must be worth ten thousand a-year. The omnibuses are invaluable; the cabs are a mine of wealth; and the railway stations throughout England would give a revenue for an emperor. Poppins, my dear fellow, I fancy that you have hardly looked into the depths of it."
    "Perhaps not," said Poppins. "Some objects to them that they're all lies. It isn't that I mind. As far as I can see, everything is mostly lies..."

We get an extraordinary bit of juxtapositioning here. It was the fact that everything is mostly lies that prompted Trollope to this novel, a development that he viewed very gravely for all that he treats it lightly here.

But as usual he is capable of seeing the other side of the argument he is rebutting, putting this absolute gem in George's mouth:

"It's the poetry of euphemism," Robinson once said to Poppins...

(And to follow on from >66 lyzard: and our discussion, is it or is it not a joke when Trollope then uses the expression, but he might as well have talked Greek to him?)

Another unanswered question here (which we should discuss later) is how far Trollope intends us to sympathise with Maryanne?

I suspect I'm doing so more than I was meant to:

Chapter 16

    "Oh, we don't want any nonsense," said Maryanne; "do we, George?"
    "All I want is your own self," said Robinson.
    "Then you won't mind going into lodgings for a few months," said Brown.
    Robinson would have put up with an attic, had she he loved consented to spread her bridal couch so humbly; but Maryanne declared with resolution that she would not marry till she saw herself in possession of the rooms over the shop.
    "There'll be room for us all for awhile," said old Brown.
    "I think we might manage," said George.
    "I know a trick worth two of that," said the lady. "Who's to make pa go when once we begin in that way? As I mean to end, so I'll begin. And as for you, George, there's no end to your softness. You're that green, that the very cows would eat you."

:D

OTOH I'm not sure I don't sympathise with Bill Brisket more than I'm supposed to, too:

Chapter 17

    ...on the present occasion Brisket was asked for half-past seven, so that Robinson's absence might be counted on as a certainty. At half-past seven to the moment Brisket was there, and the greeting between him and Maryanne was not of a passionate nature.
    "Well, old girl, here I am again," he said, as he swung his burly body into the room.

Okay---since all this comes in a rush at this point, we might as well consider Maryanne here.

I'm not sure in the end that Trollope doesn't say more through Maryanne than he intended.

He's hard and disapproving of her, and certainly she repudiates most of his ideas about womanhood (and pays the price for it); but no matter how much he stigmatises her as a "harpy" and criticises her behaviour towards her father, it is hard not to see past that to the grim reality of her situation---

---which is, if you're going to have a society that forces women to be entirely financially dependent upon men, you have no right to then turn around and condemn them as "mercenary" when they take an entirely practical view of marriage.

That's exactly what happens, though.

This is all very well---

Chapter 17

"George, George!" said Maryanne, jumping from her seat. "Leave him, leave him, and I'll promise---" And then she seized hold of his arm. For the moment some touch of a woman's feeling had reached her heart. At that instant she perhaps recognized,if only for the instant, that true love is worth more than comfort, worth more than well assured rations of bread and meat, and a secure roof. For that once she felt rather than understood that an honest heart is better than a strong arm. But it was too late.

---but it doesn't tell us where the assured rations of bread and meat and a secure roof are going to be coming from for the next forty years.

Certainly not from George Robinson, unless the Cornhill Magazine pays rather more than we have any reason to suppose.

Maryanne has no control over the financial mess that finally ruins her chances with Bill Brisket: she loses him and the the security he represents because her father gives up the last of his money for more of George's idiotic advertising schemes instead of dowering his daughter. In the terms of her society, Maryanne is left unmarriageable.

And while she gets condemned for her harsh attitude toward her father's bleating, she's absolutely right:

Chapter 17

    "Your old father would do anything for you."
    "Father, I hate words! What I want is deeds. Well, then;---Robinson came here and was your partner, and meanwhile I thought it was all right. And who was it interfered? Why, you did. When Brisket went to you, you promised him the money: and then he went and upset Robinson. And we had that supper in Smithfield, and Robinson was off, and I was to be Mrs. Brisket out of hand. But then, again, the money wasn't there."
    "I couldn't make the money, Maryanne."
    "Father, it's a shame for you to tell such falsehoods before your own daughters."
    "Oh, Maryanne! you wicked girl!" said Sarah Jane.
    "If I'm wicked, there's two of us so, Sarah Jane! You had the money, and you gave it to Robinson for them notices of his. I know all about it now! And then what could you expect of Brisket? Of course he was off. There was no fal-lal about love, and all that, with him. He wanted a woman to look after his house; but he wanted something with her. And I wanted a roof over my head;---which I'm not likely to have, the way you're going on."
    "While I have a morsel, you shall have half."
    "And when you haven't a morsel, how will it be then?"

And that's pretty much what she's left confronting.

Now---as we have said many times before, Trollope is at his best as a writer when he puts himself into the mind of someone he disapproves of and analyses their motives and behaviour.

He certainly disapproves of Maryanne; yet he can't help summarising her situation with his usual fairness:

Chapter 21

    The bitterness of gall had now risen within her breast, and she had begun to realize that truth which must be so terrible for a woman, that she had fallen to the ground between two stools. It is a truth terrible to a woman. There is no position in a man's life of the same aspect. A man may fail in business, and feel that no further chance of any real success can ever come in his way; or he may fail in love, and in the soreness of his heart may know that the pleasant rippling waters of that fountain are for him dried for ever. But with a woman the two things are joined together. Her battle must be fought all in one. Her success in life and her romance must go together, hand in hand. She is called upon to marry for love, and if she marry not for love, she disobeys the ordinance of nature and must pay the penalty. But at the same time all her material fortune depends upon the nature of that love. An industrious man may marry a silly fretful woman, and may be triumphant in his counting-house though he be bankrupt in his drawing-room. But a woman has but the one chance. She must choose her life's companion because she loves him; but she knows how great is the ruin of loving one who cannot win for her that worldly success which all in the world desire to win.
    With Maryanne Brown these considerations had become frightfully momentous. She had in her way felt the desire for some romance in life, but she had felt more strongly still how needful it was that she should attain by her feminine charms a position which would put her above want. "As long as I have a morsel, you shall have half of it," her father had said to her more than once. And she had answered him with terrible harshness, "But what am I to do when you have no longer a morsel to share with me? When you are ruined, or dead, where must I then look for support and shelter?" The words were harsh, and she was a very Regan to utter them. But, nevertheless, they were natural. It was manifest enough that her father would not provide for her, and for her there was nothing but Eve's lot of finding an Adam who would dig for her support...

I think Trollope tells more truth here than he realised, or was comfortable with.

It's all very well to tell a woman that she mustn't marry without love, but that (as they say) don't feed the bulldog.

And this, unfortunately, is one of Trollope's blind spots as a novelist: he won't admit these truths when dealing with with women of a higher social class, even if the considerations that drive Maryanne apply just as much to them (or even more so, since they lack, or aren't allowed to display, her ruthless survival instincts).

In fact, every time he gets close to admitting these realities, he waves his pen and conjures up a suitable marriage out of thin air. (I'm thinking particularly here of The Vicar Of Bullhampton, in which he creates an excruciating anti-romantic situation, and then chickens out of its implications.)

It's disappointing. It's more than that, it's dishonest.

But here, even though he is harder on Maryanne than she deserves, considering the situation he puts her in, with a woman of her lower social standing at least he can bring himself to tell the truth for once.

That's possibly not what we're expected to take away from this novel, but it's what stays with me.

I keep thinking that George was ahead of his time. 50 years later and he could have started his own advertising agency.

>82 cbl_tn:

Very true! Trollope wasn't going to win this fight. :D

Just finished tonight.

>83 lyzard: Or the fight against fast fashion.

>84 NinieB:

Ha! - true. :D

Good work, Ninie!

Apparently one of the contemporary critics described the story as "odiously vulgar and stupid."

>86 NinieB:

Ouch! It certainly is flawed but that seems harsh. It might be interesting to consider why it provoked that kind of hostility.

Perhaps the critics didn't like finding out that 'everything is mostly lies'?

In Chapter 18, regarding the activities at the 'Goose and Gridiron', Trollope is of course making fun of the House of Commons.

Oddly enough, whenever he wrote this bit, he would have been referring to the government(s) of Lord Palmerston, who was Prime Minister from 1855 - 1858, when Trollope started writing The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson and then again from 1859 - 1865, when he finished it.

Noting that it was between the two Palmerston incumbencies that there was the shift from 'the Whigs' to 'the Liberals': this was a real change brought about by the merging of the Whigs with the formerly Tory faction led by Robert Peel, which split from the main Tory party over the repeal of the Corn Laws and other reforms.

The leaders of the opposition during this time would have been Lord Derby in the House of Lords and Benjamin Disraeli in the House of Commons.

This is unusually harsh and realistic for Trollope; he didn't usually tread in this area:

Chapter 19

    "You're very well out of it, George. But yet I'm sorry for you. I am, indeed."
    "And now, good-night. This way is mine; yours there."
    "What! to the bridge? No; I'm blessed if you do; at any rate not alone."
    "Poppins, tell me this; was Hamlet mad, or did he feign so?"
    "Faith, very likely the latter. Many do that now. There are better rations in Bedlam, than in any of the gaols;---let alone the workhouses."
    "Ay; go mad for rations! There's no feigning there, Poppins. The world is doing that..."

I'll come back to this when we're wrapping up, but both Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 contain moments that, I think, are closer to how Trollope originally conceived this novel, than what he mostly ended up writing.

...and of course, over the last few chapters of The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson, there is a general crashing and burning.

Except for Bill Brisket, who finally sees his way. I can't say I'm sorry. :)

But for the others---Maryanne loses both her marital chances, George topples from his (mostly imaginary) high social standing, Mr Brown has a stroke, and the firm slides into bankruptcy:

Chapter 21

    "I suppose it's all up down there," she said one day, and as she spoke she pointed towards the shop. At this time her father had regained his consciousness, and had recovered partially the use of his limbs. But even yet he could not speak so as to be understood, and was absolutely helpless. The door of his bedroom was open, and Robinson was sitting in the front room, to which it opened.
    "I'm afraid so," said he. "There are creditors who are pressing us; and now that they have been frightened about Mr Brown, we shall be sold up."
    "You mean the advertising people?"
    "Yes; the stationer and printer, and one or two of the agents. The fact is, that the money, which should have satisfied them, has been frittered away uselessly."
    "It's gone at any rate," said she. "He hasn't got it," and she pointed to her father.
    "Nor have I," said Robinson. "I came into it empty-handed, and I shall go out as empty. No one shall say that I cared more for myself than for the firm. I've done my best, and we have failed. That's all."

...and I might leave the general commentary there, as the other points I want to highlight in the final chapters impinge upon what I want to say about the novel as a whole.

Those of you who have finished, please feel free to post your reactions. I'm very interested to hear what people think about this much-maligned book. :)

>87 lyzard: The author of the introduction in my copy, Juliet McMaster, took the approach that no one had ever had anything nice to say about it, but she thought it had some redeeming value. I don't disagree with her.

In particular I liked some passages in Chapter 22 about the loss of businesses like BJR. Trollope seemed to regret genuinely that so many small business owners got one chance that didn't pan out.

Otherwise, I found BJR somewhat exhausting. I kept thinking of the fat commercial traveler in Orley Farm, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. Reading BJR was like reading those sections of Orley Farm, but they were written as comic relief and in BJR the same style of writing was nonstop.

Edited to correct Chapter 22.

I have to say that I found the episode at the Goose and Gridiron an unnecessary diversion, even if it opens up a possible new career for George at the end. And my sympathies are strongly with Maryanne. Given that women depend on men for their livelihood, her pursuit of a marriage is rational, and her fear of the future was real. And it has come to pass, too. She has every reason to be bitter.

I had a hard time getting through this the first time, and it was no easier the second. I have 2 main problems:
1) "By One of the Firm"--I don't trust Robinson as a narrator, plus Trollope worms his way into the narration anyway. Is Mr Jones really stealing from the till? Is Mr Brown really that weak and inept? Is Maryanne that fickle? Maybe, but I don't know for sure--I don't trust George; all you have to do is read his dialogue to know that he talks in advertising double-speak to others, not just in his advertising copy.
2) By the end of the book, I came to feel that the blame was being pointed at Brown, Jones & Robinson, and their poor management. That "better" men could have weathered this storm. And that the evil of advertising, which I think is supposed to be Trollope's point, is completely lost in the bankruptcy meltdown. It's like he's pointing fingers at the individuals, not at the system that makes this an acceptable business practice.

I can only compare to Dickens. I recently re-read Little Dorrit, where Dickens shows us the evil of Speculation through Mr Merdle; the evil of inefficiency in government, with the Circumlocution Office and the Barnacles; and the evil of the Workhouse/Debtor's Prison, through the sad life of Mr. Dorrit. In all these cases Dickens makes clear that the institutions, and man's overall greed and stupidity, are to blame, not any one, or even several, individuals. It's the system that pulls these men to their fates.

Hoping someone will argue me out of these.

>95 kac522: One more thing about point (1)--we know how dishonest Robinson is with his advertising; why should we think he's being truthful in his tale of the firm?

>95 kac522: I'm not going to try to argue you out of your view of the book. But I can offer you perspective from someone else.

One of the major points that my book's introducer, Juliet McMaster, made is that the book is "an experiment in meta-fiction and self-referentiality", and George Robinson is a highly self-conscious narrator. Thus, Trollope keeps "the reader guessing about just how to judge this narrator-protagonist" by having him make far-fetched claims and advertising and at the same time be the dupe of his partners. George's own narrative is edited by "one of Smith and Elder's young men". Examples of George's flights include the mock-heroic, adapted to George's self-conscious artistry and his posturings as a lover (the open barrel of gunpowder, the crocodile). His advertising ploys both ruin the business and have an "ingenious grandeur".

McMaster points out that one of the things that makes BJR different from Trollope's usual work is that while normally his style is intended to be invisible, "in this brief novel he draws attention to language, and jokes about his medium. . . . Robinson plays and basks and wallows in words . . . ." Other characters also use language in an original manner; for example, Maryanne says in response to George's "'But surely, Maryanne--'": "'It's no good you surelying me, George, for I won't be surelyed.'"

Finally, McMaster says, "The yawning rift that opens up between words and deeds, mind and matter, brains and brawn, is humorously allegorised in Robinson and Brisket." Robinson is brains; Brisket is brawn. Maryanne herself says, "'I hate words! What I want is deeds'."

McMaster's other major point is about Trollope and women. "It is true that in BJR Trollope continues to exploit the standard male joke about domineering women." She compares Mrs McCockerell and Mrs Morony to Mrs Proudie, noting: "The woman of the lower classes fares even worse among her men than the lady of the bishop's palace." But, she concludes, "Trollope was progressing from the satire on the power-hungry bishop's wife who usurps her husband's authority towards his powerful dramatisation, in Lady Laura Kennedy of the Phineas novels, of the agonising plight of the woman hungry for meaningful employment. And Maryanne the shopkeeper's daughter, deprived of the dignity and independence of an occupation, is a necessary step between the bishop's wife and the lady."

I own a copy of Trollope: The Critical Heritage, edited by Donald Smalley (1969). This is a collection of contemporary reviews of each of Trollope's novels. Many are just excerpts; some books have half a dozen reviews. BJR has just one, on page 138:

Unsigned notice, Westminster Review, July 1871, XCV. 574-5
We deeply regret, for Mr. Trollope's own reputation, that "The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson" should have been published. It was universally felt, when the story first appeared in the "Cornhill Magazine," that the whole affair was a blunder. Most people were unwilling to believe that the author of "Framley Parsonage" could have written such unmitigated rubbish. The story is meant, we suppose, for a satire upon a certain class of unscrupulous tradesmen. No better subject could there be for a satirical tale.....But Mr. Trollope's satire is as coarse as the people whom he describes....It is wasting time to say another word upon this miserable production.

I'm not going to try and talk anyone out of anything, because I think ALL those points are completely valid.

To use a 19th century expression---this novel is like the curate's egg. Or to use Trollope's own expression - which, ironically enough, he himself applies to Maryanne - The Struggles Of Brown, Jones, And Robinson fails because it fall between two stools.

Which is to say, while Trollope may have set out to write a Thackeray novel, finally he couldn't help writing a Trollope novel.

If this was going to work as satire, it needed to be nastier. Much more ruthless. But Trollope being Trollope, he can't help pulling back---so that it becomes just a story about a business that fails rather than an exposé of dishonest business practices.

I agree with much of what Kathy says about George. What I feel we ought to have had was a split-vision narrative told in his grandiloquent, self-exculpatory style but really telling the story of how he ruined his partners - Jones as well as Brown - and Maryanne - and walked away scot-free.

This is partly what we get but Trollope keeps pulling his punches. So George's writing style becomes a joke instead of what it should have been, a smokescreen.

Alternatively it should have been the story of how nice Mr Brown was ruined between Jones' dishonest business practices and George's dishonest (and expensive) advertising. It nearly is, too, but again not quite.

The suggestion that it is actually a book about the use of words is intriguing, as is the positioning of it as a work of meta-fiction.

The phrase I keep sticking on is to an extent.

To an extent the book is all of these things we've touched on, but it is none of them altogether and none of them entirely successfully. It veers around too much instead of having a consistent theme, and its tone is all over the place.

Consequently, while individual passages are effective and often funny, it is impossible to be sure what Trollope really meant us to take away from it.

I don't think, though, that we were supposed to take this book as a commentary on the terrible position of financially dependent women, but that is where it is least ambiguous.

I agree completely with the points that Ninie makes via Julia McMaster regarding Maryanne. However, I question whether Trollope meant it or not---that is, whether he intended to say as much as he actually did. Certainly Maryanne possesses none of what we know Trollope considered essential qualities in a woman, and his handling of her is more unkind than it needs to be. But her situation - having to stand by while what should be the means by which she may purchase her security are wasted on ridiculous schemes - is horrifying; much more so than is acknowledged.

And George goes on, in effect, to profit from her ruin by selling her story to the magazines---again, in my opinion, without the novel displaying sufficient awareness.

Still, I do believe, as I said earlier, that Trollope lets himself say things about and via Maryanne that he would not have let himself say if he had been dealing with "a lady", and they are things that very much needed saying.

All good points, Liz. I thought McMaster's views were worth sharing, especially because they fit in with points already shared here. And I don't think McMaster tries to argue that Trollope was successful, more that he was trying something different and interesting.

>100 lyzard: You have said what I thought much better than I could. Thanks.

ETA: One comment that Trollope repeatedly put in George's mouth resonated particularly with me: that consumers are complicit in this dubious way of business by insisting on low prices and their unwillingness to pay for quality. That is why we ended up where we are now.

>101 NinieB:

I wonder if there were any women amongst the first critics of this novel? - or whether, given its general unpopularity, McMaster is the first to give it proper consideration?

I'm just interested in the fact that we as a group all went, Yes, but what about Maryanne? I can't find any contemporary reaction which mentions her; though as Kathy alludes to in >99 kac522: there don't seem to have been all that many.

>102 MissWatson:

Well, I think I've been quite critical. You on the other hand came out and said you liked it when you finished it, so maybe you could say a bit more about what you liked?

Passing thought if I can express it properly:

We've touched on George as unreliable narrator and suggested there needed to be more intent about the gap between what he says and his actions.

I'm thinking now of that five hundred pounds he gets out of Brown and throws away on more futile advertising. He must have understood (i) that it was futile, and (ii) that this was the money Maryanne was counting on. He must have understood the impact on her.

Yet his feelings for Maryanne are presented "straight" as genuine.

This is what I mean about Trollope writing a Trollope novel. George is his protagonist and therefore has to be honest in his romantic feelings if not, perhaps, everything else.

But it's easier to read that as passive-aggressive punishing of Maryanne than as him being oblivious to the consequences of his actions.

This is the kind of thing I mean when I say the book needed to be nastier.

>103 lyzard: I think I didn't pay sufficient attention to the fact that George is unreliable as a narrator. I enjoyed the glimpses at the means of advertising of the day, the way George composes his flowery prose, and the hints that he has a concept, in the way that he sticks to colour design. I wasn't looking so closely at Trollope's intention and the actual outcome, I suppose.

ETA: There's the scene where the auctioneers criticise George's design for the sale announcement which reminded me of the comments in Murder must advertise that clients are the main obstacle to good (i.e. effective) advertising. Trollope may have misliked the whole idea, but he has a good knowledge of how it is made. That's the aspect I found most interesting in the book.

>105 MissWatson:

George isn't an unreliable narrator in the usual sense of that expression - I guess my point was that he should have been - but there is certainly a gap between his actions and his perception of his own actions.

The advertising aspects are more successful than Trollope probably intended or wanted: he would have been hoping that this was a phase of business practice that would die out, since its hollowness was so patent.

But as so often, he ended up recording a snapshot of his society that is both of its time yet wholly recognisable to readers now.

Anyhoo---

Thank you to those who took the plunge and joined in for this admittedly rather untypical Trollope work.

Next up in this series of reads will be 1863's Rachel Ray, another of Trollope's shorter standalone works.

As yet I have not thought about a definite time for this: it would be helpful if those interested could indicate whether they would like to squeeze it in before - eep! - the end of the year, or leave it a little longer.

I should also mention for those who might be interested that there will be a group read of Margaret Oliphant's Salem Chapel next month, conducted through the Virago group.

Hope to see some of you there! :)

>107 lyzard: I'm happy to jump into Rachel Ray before the end of the year.

>107 lyzard: I'll be there whenever, but if I had my druthers it would be November or later.

>108 NinieB:, >109 kac522:

Thanks!

It won't be earlier than December; I was thinking them or January, according to people's druthers.

>107 lyzard: I'm still on the fence about the Margaret Oliphant group read. I'd love to join, but my September list is pretty full already. Would you post the group link here just in case?

>111 cbl_tn:

Will do. i should be putting up the thread tomorrow morning.

The thread is now up for the group read of Salem Chapel - here.

Hope to see you there! :)

The thread is now up for the group read of Trollope's Rachel Ray - here.