The Small House at Allington

If there is only one thing I remember about this book it will be the word “hobbledehoy” which I thought was a word Trollope had invented until I googled it and found out that it had a long history that had nothing at all to do with the master Victorian novelist. But every time it appeared, and it appeared often, I had to giggle. It’s a good description of our hero, John Eames, a country bumpkin who leaves his little country village to enter the work force in the Income Tax Office in London. And it’s one of those words that sounds like its meaning. (For the uninitiated, that is the definition of Onomatopoeia.)

”There is a class of young men who never get petted, though they may not be the less esteemed, or perhaps loved. They do show more not come forth to the world as Apollos, nor shine at all, keeping what light they may have for inward purposes. Such young men are often awkward, ungainly, and not yet formed in their gait; they straggle with their limbs, and are shy; words do not come to them with ease, when words are required, among any but their accustomed associates. Social meetings are periods of penance to them, and any appearance in public will unnerve them. They go much about alone, and blush when women speak to them. In truth, they are not as yet men, whatever the number may be of their years; and, as they are no longer boys, the world has found for them the ungraceful name of hobbledehoy.” (Page 51)

John is in love with one of the daughters of Mrs. Dale, Lily Dale, who lives in the small house at Allington. She, unfortunately, considers him a good friend but has eyes only for the much more polished and worldly, Adolphus Crosbie, who is a rising star in the government, and as such, mingles with the upper crust. But he’s very fond of Lily and eventually proposes to her. That triangle, John, Lily and Adolophus, comprise the largest part of the story, and when Crosbie proposes to a (unknown to him) penniless Lily, the main theme of the book is set in motion. Money, money, money rules the day and definitely rules the country. Another theme of the book is unrequited love and the author gives us several examples of this to chew on. Trollope goes on to point up in great detail the class differences in the novel and how hard it is to move among the classes and to move anywhere without money, boatloads of it. Poor John seems to be left in the dust even as he overcomes his hobbledehoy and becomes a mature man. And I don’t know if Trollope meant Lily to be a sympathetic character but I found her to be absolutely annoying.

This is another winner from Trollope and one that covers a lot of ground as we even get our first glimpse of Mr. Plantagenet Palliser of The Paliser Novels. The best thing about Trollope is that he is such a sensitive observer of human psychology and of the world. He understands people so well. And he manages, time and again, to create a palpable sense of being someplace real and definite, whether we are in the country lanes near Allington, the drawing rooms of the earls and countesses, a seedy rooming house in the city, or in a government office in London, we are comfortably aware of our surroundings because of Trollope’s skillful drawing of the location.

I was happy to get a slice of Barchester life with the reappearance of Septimus Hardy, and Dr. and Mrs. Grantly. Just one novel left in this Barsetshire series and I will shed a tear when I am finally through the last of them, they’ve been that enjoyable. But then again, I can look forward to the Paliser novels and then, of course the many, many stand-alone novels. Sheer bliss. show less

Trollope once again casts a thousand characters doing almost nothing in this sort of 19th century parlor drama. We get all worked up about various matrimonial and career prospects all centered around that Small House that really isn't in Barsetshire. The main caterwauling is about Mrs. Dale and her two daughters and whether anybody will actually get up the nerve to say what they really want marriage-wise. We're on the edge of our seats as the suspense builds. After about 600 pages half the young people are disappointed in their amours and especially Lily Dale is held up as a model woman because she stays "true" to her rakish and self-centered lover, that "swell" Mr. Crosbie who spurns her for a more financially sound mate. As our gorge show more rises thinking about good women that know their proper place and duty it finally all finishes and nobody moves out of the Small House.

Trollope likes to make fun of class distinctions but can't quite find a way to really give it up in the end so we're never really sure if he's just fooling. The end would be truly sad except in 19th century fashion Lily just suffers honorably instead of trying to get what she wants even when everyone else throws it in front of her. You want to strangle her just so she'll quit letting herself be the victim. I'm glad I don't live back then or in England even now.

Great fun for the Upstairs-Downstairs, Downton Abbey crowd. I actually find it more fun to read than watch this sort of thing. show less

Here is an ah-ha moment for you: you cannot have a small house without the presence of a big house. Here is another: croquet is best played by the light of the moon.
Trollope is a bit like my mother when she hasn't talked to another living soul in over three months. Trollope's side stories in Small House at Allington have nothing to do with the main plot and are mostly ignored by reviewers. Some would argue Trollope is masterfully setting up his next series by introducing minor characters like Plantagenet Palliser and Lady Glenora (Duke and Duchess of Omnium) as they will be focal to the Palliser Series. But I digress.
The basic plot of Small House at Allington is one of relationships and a society full of gossips. Lillian (Lily) and show more Isabella (Bell) Dale are sisters with different successes in romance. Bell marries the local doctor while Lily falls for Adolphus Crosbie. Crosbie only cares about social status and when a more prosperous match comes along he leaves Lily. Enter Johnny Eames, the childhood friend with a secret crush on Lily. His outrage over Lily's abandonment prompts him to violently attack Crosbie when their paths cross. Despite this show of valiant devotion, Lily proclaims her everlasting love for Crosbie and cannot be swayed. show less

Too much, probably, is made of this being one of "the Barsetshire novels," seeing that Trollope did not at first include it with the five others classed in that category, and that there is no need whatsoever to have read any of them to be drawn deeply into the world of its characters -- characters the creation of whose palpable, individual realness is the author's great gift. The Small House at Allington is remarkable for the balance accorded to six different social strata: (1) the upper reaches of the aristocracy (the De Courcy family and also the first appearance of Plantagenet Palliser); (2) the minor gentry, represented by the squire Dale of Allington and his presumptive heir; (3) their respectable but somewhat impoverished show more dependents (Mrs. Dale and her two daughters, Bell and Lily, whose love interests provide the main substance of the plot); (4) the world of men who must work to make their way in the world (in which category fall most of the suitors of the novel); (5) those on the fringe of "respectability" (Mrs. Roper's boarding house in London); and (6) the class of domestic servants (especially one Hopkins, head gardener at Allington -- but Trollope seems to make an effort to portray other members of this class when the occasion provides an opportunity). Dozens of other minor characters appear briefly and vividly in the spotlight, each animated with the spark of life.

The plot is unspectacular in the extreme, but for lovers of Trollope, the ability to understand the drama and heroism of ordinary life, as well as its tedium, pettiness, and villainy, will always be his special appeal. This novel is slow, perhaps, to seize the reader's interest -- at least, so I found it -- but in the end the volume acquires a remarkable momentum from the progress of its various subplots and possesses in the final two hundred pages a sort of urgency in its narrative momentum that carries it briskly along. For me, the "hobbledehoyhood" of Johnny Eames is sometimes hard to bear. Trollope even says at the end of the novel that "I feel I have been in fault in giving such prominence to a hobbledehoy." But biographers tell us that such was Trollope in his youth, so a grateful reader is, I suppose, bound to cherish a special feeling for Johnny Eames also.

At one moment a character arrives at his sister-in-law's house in London and is obliged to wait several moments while the servant changes into livery before answering the knock at the door -- for it is thus that the daughter of an earl clings to the trappings of her rank. I love such glimpses into the ways of a vanished world, and they are one of the charms of reading Trollope. But the ways of the human heart have changed less than its outward customs, and the twenty-first-century reader will encounter the shock of recognition several dozen times in the course of reading The Small House at Allington.

The handsome Oxford University Press edition, a bargain at the price, has an insightful introduction by James R. Kincaid. If only it were presented as an afterword! Is there really any point in giving away the plot of a novel? show less

I've always thought there are worse things than being single, and Trollope seems to agree with this in The Small House at Allington. The book is full of love triangles and quadrangles, widows, spinsters, and confirmed bachelors. Happily married couples are hardly to be found. Some characters will only marry for love, while others seek social status or security through marriage. The characters' incompatible views of marriage make it appear almost certain that no one will get what he or she wants in a mate.

Most of the characters are flawed, and while this makes them seem more human, it also makes it hard to find one to really root for. It's clear from Crosbie's behavior that Lily Dale is much too good for him, but do readers really want show more her to settle for John Eames instead? Not this one.

Of the first five Barsetshire novels, this one seems to be the most domestic. The main object for most of the characters is securing domestic comfort, whether through marriage or simply through a change in residence. While church politics has had a prominent role in earlier Barsetshire novels, it is largely absent from this one. Differences of birth and class aren't a primary source of conflict, either. Most of the conflict revolves around money and the cost of happiness. Maybe the absence of larger concerns is why I liked this one less than the other Barsetshire novels I've read. It's still full of Trollope's insight into human character, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss passages like this:

We constantly talk of the thoughtlessness of youth. I do not know whether we might not more appropriately speak of its thoughtfulness. It is, however, no doubt, true that the thought will not at once produce wisdom. It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution. show less

Trollope in slightly bleaker mode: this fifth book in the Barsetshire Chronicles is a caustic look at the way the marriage market works for upper and upper-middle class families in mid-Victorian England. Various young people are trying to hitch up, playing a complicated game in which affection and the prospect of future happiness have become negotiable qualities to trade off against social and financial advantage. Picking the right partner could give you financial security and the first steps on the road to power; a mistake could destroy your career or leave you on the shelf. Plus ça change. In a sense, this is the plot of all Victorian fiction: what's different about this book is the extent to which Trollope pushes the cynical nature show more of the participants' calculations into the foreground. And the way he makes it clear that these actions have serious, long term consequences, not just for the ambitious young men and women and their relatives (who clearly deserve what they get), but also for innocent bystanders. Not everyone ends badly: there is at least one love story that comes unspectacularly to a kind of happy-end. But this isn't a book that you should give as an engagement present. show less

The summary of this novel, which I read first, gave away a surprising amount of the story. In all honesty I think Trollope’s novels are less about the plot than they are about the social interaction and moral development of the characters, so it didn’t really bother me.

"Engaged to the ambitious and self-serving Adolphus Crosbie, Lily Dale is devastated when he jilts her for the aristocratic Lady Alexandrina. Although crushed by his faithlessness, Lily still believes she is bound to her unworthy former fiancé for life and therefore condemned to remain single after his betrayal. And when a more deserving suitor pays his addresses, she is unable to see past her feelings for Crosbie.”

The Dale women, Lily and her sister Bell and their show more mother, were wonderful. At their core all they want is for the others to find true happiness. They are fiercely protective of each other and their wishes. Some of my favorite scenes in the book are when they stand up for the decisions someone in their family has made, without asking any questions of each other. Lily talks to the local doctor, James Crofts, in an effort to secure happiness for her sister. Their mother talks to the girls’ uncle about a potential match but refuses to force or encourage her daughter to make the match against her will. They are strong women who refuse to betray each other for a shot at money or luxury.

I keep finding shades of Austen in all of the Trollope I read. Both authors share similar themes and styles, though Austen's work has a bit more bite. This one reminded me so much of Sense and Sensibility. Bell is like Eleanor, steady and logical. Lily is brasher and reminded me so much of Marianne. She falls in love with an unworthy man, turning down someone who would truly be a great match. Unfortunately for Lily, unlike Marianne she never quite recovers from that love.

The girls’ mother is an interesting character as well. She struggles with whether she's done right by her children, even though they love her dearly. She worries that they are possibly giving up opportunities out of a loyalty to her. It's the endless struggle of any parents, constantly asking yourself if you’re making the best choices for your kids.

The male characters in this novel are a mixed bag. Eames is a worthy man, I found myself rooting for him. The girls’ uncle is harsh and struggles to connect with them. He does love them, but that feeling is wrapped deep within his other layers of formality and stiffness. He has such a hard time conveying his feelings and his actions often come across as obligation instead of love. Crosbie is just a jerk, to put it nicely. I wanted to smack him and he deserved his fate.

Side note: We also get to see Griselda again and it’s a bit tragic to see what her life has become.

One of the books best lines comes from Lily’s mother’s reaction when her daughter is jilted by Crosbie:

“Mrs. Dale had felt in her heart that it would be well if Crosbie could be beaten until all his bones were sore.”

My only real complaint about this one was that I wanted something better for Lily. I wanted her to find love. I wanted her to realize that she deserved someone better than Crosbie. I wanted a happy ending for her because it seemed like the novel was begging for one! It’s definitely not that I think everyone needs to be married to be happy, but it felt like she gave up on pursuing any happiness in some misplaced sense of loyalty for a man that didn’t deserve her.

BOTTOM LINE: Another delightful read. It’s not my favorite of the series, but I once again enjoyed being lost in Trollope’s world of Barsetshire. show less