The Small House at Allington - Book 50

The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope had me totally enthralled.  I listened to it on audio CDs that I took out of the library.  The reader, Simon Vance, was very good, except occasionally he didn't switch voices enough so that it was hard to tell who was talking during a conversation.  This only happened a few times.   He was actually pretty amazing because he had a lot of voices to do, both male and female.  So all in all, he did an amazing job.

The Small House at Allington is part of Trollope's Barchester chronicles.  I've read the first two books, The Warden and Barchester Towers a long, long time ago.  I've decided for 2019, I'm going to read the whole series.

The plot revolves around two sisters and their mother.  They live at the small house at the generosity of their uncle, the squire, Christopher Dale.  He lives at the great house.  This has never been a comfortable situation for Mrs Dale the widowed mother of the two girls, Bell and Lily.  Gruff Uncle Dale never approved of his younger brother's marriage.  Mrs. Dale, though, is a lady through and through, and she has raised two wonderful daughters who are now at marriageable ages.  Along comes handsome and suave Aldophus Crosbie to steal Lily Dale's heart.

Crosbie, however, makes a selfish, bad choice and ruins the chances of happiness for himself and several other people as well.  The novel is actually very sad, though Trollope ends it on a comic note with the curmudgeonly but kind Hopkins the gardener.

While Bell and Lily are contrasted in how their marriage possibilities work out; John Eames and Crosbie are another parallel.  Eames is a poor neighbor of the Dales and he's long been in love with Lily.  He declares himself to her after he knows of her engagement to Crosbie.  One can feel his heartbreak throughout, though he is young and callow.  We see him mature into manhood, while we see Crosbie settle into the narrow life he's created for himself out of his own shallow selfishness.

I did find myself feeling sorry for Crosbie.  He seems to have no family, no one to turn to for wisdom.  He immediately regrets what he has done, but can't turn back.  Eames is better able to extricate himself from a foolish engagement.  Both John Eames and Adolphus Crosbie have an Amelia to deal with.  Eames gets himself almost engaged to Amelia Roper, who is a manipulative, grasping sort of person (though I often think, how did women who were forced to rely so much on marriage to keep them secure, not resort to such methods that were available to them. It seems like they are put in a very difficult situation and then looked down up when they have resorted to flattery and flirtation to win their beau).  Crosbie has to deal with his wife, Alexandrina's, sister Amelia, who tries to manage him too.

I found myself also getting angry with Lily, who is our heroine, strong, deep, steadfast, witty, charming, loving.  But she's maybe more in love with her notion of love than she was with the actual Crosbie.  She'd only known him two months.  And that stubborn loyalty to her ideal of love closes her off to John Eames's as a suitor.  But one is left hoping that maybe one day when she has grown older and softened a bit and Eames is older too and more mature and self-confident, they may find each other again.  That's what everybody is hoping may happen.

There's more characters than these.  The novel is peopled with so many and all wonderfully drawn.   Honestly, the book is so good, it ought to be better known than it is. 

Two enthusiastic thumbs up!   For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.