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The Way We Live Now

by Anthony Trollope

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2,837574,955 (4.17)4 / 284
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

The Way We Live Now is a satirical novel by Anthony Trollope. In it he lashes out at the political, financial, commercial and moral dishonesty of the age, inspired particularly by the financial scandals of the 1870s. It was considered by many of his contemporaries as his finest work, and was one of the last Victorian novels to be serialized.

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» See also 284 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 55 (next | show all)
I enjoyed this book. It is a stand alone. It was easier to read than the Barchester Chronicles since it doesn't go into Church politics. Mrs Hurtle's portrayal seemed very inconsistent. Her actions are motivated by moving the plot along. Everything is wrapped up very neatly at the end.The focus on greed is still relevant. I really enjoyed Paul Montague growth from a push over to standing up for himself and what he believed was right. ( )
  nx74defiant | Nov 1, 2023 |
As pertinent today as it was in the 1870’s when it was first published. A Robert Maxwell type character swindles and commits fraud on such a large scale that much of society overlooks his vulgarity, swept up by his seeming wealth. Feckless aristos gamble their inheritances away. And female heads are turned by a handsome face.

With a large, well-drawn cast, Trollope shows that he understands people and how they battle with themselves. ( )
  LARA335 | Jan 12, 2023 |
Trollope's great novel makes fun of the society of late 19th century London's so-called fashionable, well-to-do and titled class. The pretensions are ridiculous, and all the people pretending to have money and struggling to marry money and titles makes for a merry circus in the social scene. One example of a family who is struggling to make ends meet while trying outwardly to show that they have plenty of money is the family of Lord Longestaffe. The younger daughter is desperate to catch a husband with a title and money, but this 29-year-old "old maid" has been informed by her father that he can no longer afford to keep taking the family up to the London townhouse for'the season.' how is she supposed to catch a husband? Her father receives an invitation for Georgiana to stay with Me Melmotte's family for the season, as his family will be renting the Longestaffe's family's townhouse. Georgiana is disgusted at the thought of staying with a family of such lower social class than her own, and the spoiled thing complains bitterly to her mother, before begrudgingly accepting the invitation.
P.169:
" 'of course I am anxious. What other chance have I, mamma? And, oh dear, I am so tired of it! Pleasure, indeed! Papa talks of pleasure. If Papa had to work half as hard as I do, I wonder what he'd think of it. I suppose I must do it. I know it will make me so ill that I shall almost die under it. Horrid, horrid people! And papa to propose it, who has always been so proud of everything - who used to think so much of being with the right set.'
P.196:
"but miss longestaffe already perceived that her old acquaintances were changed in their manner to her. She had written to her dear friend Lady Monogram, whom she had known intimately as Miss Triplex, and whose marriage to a Sir Damask Monogram had been Splendid preferment, telling how she had been kept down in Suffolk at the time of her friend's last party, and how she had been driven to consent to return to London as the guest of Madame Melmotte. She hoped her friend would not throw her off on that account. She had been very affectionate, with a poor attempt at fun, and rather humble. Georgiana Longestaffe had never been humble before, but the Monograms were people so much thought of and in such an excellent set! She would do anything rather than lose the Monograms. But it was of no use. She had been humble in vain, for Lady Monogram had not even answered her note. 'she never really cared for anybody but herself,' Georgiana said in her wretched solitude. Then, too, she had found that Lord NidderDale's manner to her had been quite changed. She was not a fool, and could read these signs with sufficient accuracy. There had been little flirtations between her and Nidderdale -- meaning nothing, as everyone knew that now Nidderdale must marry money; but in none of them had he spoken to her as he spoke when he met her in Madame MelMotte's drawing room. She could see it in the faces of people as they greeted her in the park - especially in the faces of the men. She had always carried herself with a certain high demeanor, and had been able to maintain it. All that was now gone from her, and she knew it. Though the thing was as yet but a few days old she understood that others understood that she had degraded herself. 'what's this all about?' Lord Grasslough had said to her, seeing her come into a room behind Madame Melmotte. She had simpered, had tried to laugh, and had then turned away her face. 'impudent scoundrel!' she said to herself, knowing that a fortnight ago he would not have dared to address her in such a tone."

One of the Longestaffe's neighbors, down in Suffolk, was Squire Carbury. He is cousin to Hetta Carbury, to her mother Lady Carbury, and to Hetta's brother, Sir Felix Carbury. Squire Carbury had mentored a young man named Paul Montague, who had shares in the Pacific Railroad Company, and Paul had facilitated the introduction to Mr Melmotte of this grand speculating plan. Once Paul Montague meets Hetta Carbury, he falls in love with her, but as Squire Carbury has let him know that he himself loves Hetta, and desires to marry her, Paul is reluctant to let Hetta know his feelings. But Paul has a skeleton in his closet that complicates his plan for Hetta. Mrs Hurtle, a divorced American who he met, and wooed on shipboard, has followed him to England, and shows up in London, expecting him to marry her. Since hearing some racy gossip about Mrs Hurtle's past, he has come down with cold feet, and no longer wants to marry her. But he's too much of a coward to tell her the truth, and thinks he can let her down gently. Meanwhile, she expects him to take her all about London, and treat her like his fiancee. She says...
P.200:
" 'how are they changed? I am two years older, if you mean that.' as she said that she looked round at the glass as though to see whether she was become so Haggard with age as to be unfit to become this man's wife. She was very lovely, with the kind of beauty which we seldom see now. In these days men regard the form and outward lines of a woman's face and figure more than either the color or the expression, and women fit themselves to men's eyes. With padding and false hair without limit a figure may be constructed of almost any dimensions. The sculptors who construct them, male and female, hairdressers and milliners, are very skilful, and figures are constructed of noble dimensions, sometimes with voluptuous expansion, sometimes with classic reticence, sometimes with disheveled negligence which becomes very disheveled indeed when long out of the sculptor's hands. Colors indeed are added, but not the colors which we used to love. The taste for flesh and blood has for the day given place to an appetite for coarse hair and Pearl powder."

Lady Carberry believes her son Sir Felix to be the most beautiful young man in the whole world, and desires for him a marriage to a titled woman with a fortune. She is a very low, contemptible woman, who has let her spoiled rotten son take every penny from her, and who so continues to take her money that they are all headed for the workhouse. Marie Melmotte, though she is not titled, is the daughter of the Great Speculator Melmotte, and so is known to possess a fortune. Lady Carbury desires Sir Felix to secure the engagement of himself to Marie, which he is reluctant to do, as he prefers to be a Playboy, and play cards in his club all night. Mr Melmotte also does not desire this match, as he wants his daughter to marry a title, Lord NidderDale, whose family is impoverished, but Melmotte believes this will secure his respectability in London society. He visits Lady Carbury at her "Tuesday night literary" salon, and tells her that Sir Felix must withdraw any idea of a match with Marie. If he does this, Mr Melmotte's will help Sir Felix with making some money.
P.232:
"There was very much to be considered in this. She did not doubt that Felix might be 'made' by mr. Melmotte's City influences, but then any perpetuity of such making must depend on qualifications in her son which she feared that he did not possess. The wife without the money would be terrible! That would be absolutely ruin! There could be no escape then; no hope. There was an appreciation of real tragedy in her heart as she contemplated the position of Sir Felix married to such a girl as she supposed Marie Melmotte to be, without any means of support for either of them but what she could supply. It would kill her. And for those young people, there would be nothing before them but beggary and the workhouse. As she thought of this she trembled with true maternal instincts. Her beautiful boy -- So glorious with his outward gifts, so fit, as she thought him, for all the graces of the grand world! Though the ambition was vilely ignoble, the mother's love was noble and disinterested."

Though Melmotte is seen in high society, still he is a speculating scoundrel, and not respected. Trollope gives an example of the kind of thinking that changed the course of our own soon-to-be 3rd-world, shithole country, from a young country that had a chance to be a great and true democracy, to what it is not 250 years after its birth...
P.423-4:
" 'you think Melmotte will turn out a failure.'
'a failure! Of course he's a failure, whether rich or poor - a miserable imposition, a hollow vulgar fraud from beginning to end - too insignificant for you and me to talk of, were it not that his position is a sign of the degeneracy of the age. What are we coming to when such as he is an honored guest at our tables?'
'at just a table here and there,' suggested his friend.
'no; -- it is not that. You can keep your house free from him, and so can I mine. But we set no example to the nation at large. They who do set the example go to his feasts, and of course he is seen at theirs in turn. And yet these leaders of the fashion know -- at any rate they believe -- that he is what he is because he has been a swindler greater than other swindlers. What follows as a natural consequence? Men reconcile themselves to swindling. Though they themselves mean to be honest, dishonesty of itself is no longer odious to them. Then there comes the jealousy that others should be growing rich with the approval of all the world -- and the natural aptitude to do what all the world approves. It seems to me that the existence of a MelMotte is not compatible with the wholesome state of things in general.' "


( )
  burritapal | Oct 23, 2022 |
This one took me a while to finish, but I really enjoyed it. I would consider this one of Trollope's best stand alone novels. Many of his common themes make an appearance. I'm always particularly struck by how the misbehavior of the wealthy with their money was apparently as much of an issue back in the 1800s as it is today.

Central to this novel is the Melmotte family. The father is a wealthy financier type who has zero social standing. And is apparently more of a swindler than an actual businessman. His daughter attracts several men with the promise of her father's wealth, but her choice (a poor one!) is not to her father's taste. We also meet several young men who are stringing along one woman that they prefer to marry and one woman who they are more in love (or lust) with. And Lady Carbury, an author and mother of two of the adult children struggling with their love lives and money. And Roger Carbury who holds the money in the family but is out of luck in the love department.

It's really amazing that Trollope can convincingly keep track of all of these characters and plot lines and satisfactorily tie it all up in the end. I'm glad he wrote so many novels, because I really enjoy them. ( )
  japaul22 | Oct 6, 2022 |
Amazon says that this stand-alone is " widely acknowledged to be the masterpiece of Trollope's prolific Victorian career." I would definitely put it at or near the top of my favorites of Trollope (though I have only begun to scratch the surface of his works). This is also a very relevant book for our time with one of its major themes/plot lines being how a financial wheeler-dealer/con artist is able to scam the denizens of society and government.

The book is chock-full of characters and plot-lines. It opens with Lady Carbury, who left in straitened circumstances has taken to writing potboilers to keep up the family finances. Her overriding purpose is to secure good marriages for her children, particularly for her ne'er-do-well son Felix who has squandered his inheritance on gambling and drinking. The potential mate she has chosen for Felix is Marie, the daughter of the great financier Augustus Melmotte. Melmotte, a Bernie Maddoff-like character, is suppposedly fabulously wealthy, but behind the scenes of his financial manipulations his suppposed wealth is only a paper facade. His sole function is to get people to invest in a great American railroad, not to actually build the railroad, but to to obtain the funds to entice more investors. Politics does not escape Trollope's wit, either, as Melmotte's supposed wealth earns him a seat in parliament.

The book sets forth a vast panorama of Victorian society and highlights its avarice and obsession with money. It satirizes the literary world and publishers, class divisions, gender stereotypes, political systems and much more. The book is on The Guardian's 100 Best Novels in English. I loved it. ( )
  arubabookwoman | Sep 17, 2022 |
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» Add other authors (56 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Anthony Trollopeprimary authorall editionscalculated
Brooks, DavidIntroductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Case, DavidNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Dodd, Marion E.Introductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Jacques, RobinCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Osborne, HughNotessecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sutherland, JohnEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
West, TimothyNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Let the reader be introduced to Lady Carbury, upon whose character and doings much will depend of whatever interest these pages may have, as she sits at her writing-table in her own room in her own house in Welbeck Street.
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In the City Mr. Melmotte's name was worth any money,-though his character was perhaps worth but little.
As for Felix,—he had grovelled in the gutters as to be dirt all over. Nothing short of the prolonged sufferings of half a life could cleanse him.
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Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML:

The Way We Live Now is a satirical novel by Anthony Trollope. In it he lashes out at the political, financial, commercial and moral dishonesty of the age, inspired particularly by the financial scandals of the 1870s. It was considered by many of his contemporaries as his finest work, and was one of the last Victorian novels to be serialized.

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Penguin Australia

An edition of this book was published by Penguin Australia.

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