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Rating: 
- Impressive
This is the first book of the so-called 'Palliser-' or 'political' novels by Anthony Trollope, and if the next 5 volumes are as good as this one that would be nothing short of amazing. If you've read the Barsetshire-chronicles, you'll immediately recognize the inimitable Trollope-style, with its painstakingly detailed analyses of the characters' feelings and emotions. And therefore, remote in time as the settings of these novels may be, ever so much is recognizable and relevant even in the 21st century. I found myself constantly thinking 'I would have felt so too', sympathizing with some characters and disliking others because all of them are painted so life-like you'll feel you've met them in the flesh.
In this particular novel the heroine, Alice Vavasor, is torn between two lovers: her cousin George (ambitious and attractive but with a temper) and the stoic gentleman John Grey. She in turn accepts and then rejects both and is unable to forgive herself for being a 'jilt' (hence the title).
There's nothing much sensational about the plot (is there ever with Trollope?) and the pace is slow, much slower probably than what we've become used to, but nevertheless this is a book thoroughly to be enjoyed.
Rating: - A masterpiece! utterly brilliant!
"Can you forgive her" is the best Trollope book I have ever read and although I am far from having read them all, I must have been through at least 12 of them. In "Can you forgive her?" spirited Alice Vavasor cannot reconcile herself to the idea of marrying the man she truly loves because his sedate style of life doesn't agree with Alice's idea that people who have knowledge and opportunity should make something useful of their lives.As a woman she cannot take an active part in political life and is therefore determined to be the helpmate of someone willing to take risks and to serve his fellowmen. She becomes engaged to her cousin whose political ambitions she respects but finds herself distraught at having promised herself to a man she cannot love... and then starts the long campaign of Mr John Grey, jilted lover of the resolute Alice, who is unable to come to terms with the fact that the woman he cherishes is not to be his and who is determined he shall overcome all obstacles and marry her after all.
The book is peopled with unforgettable characters from the wonderful aunt Greenow to the memorable farmer Cheeseacre who is desperate to get married but whose ideas of romance consist in telling the woman he covets how lucky she is to have been selected as his prospective bride...
And we meet Glencora Palliser, Alice's cousin, a young woman who has been married off to a prominent member of the establishemnt and who is deeply unhappy as she cannot forget the good-for-nothing but handsome and blue-eyed Burgo Fitzgerald her heart longs for...and a host of other people just as brilliantly sketched.
It is a very accomplished book, great fun and superbly written , with fewer repetitions than in other Trollope books, a book I have already read 3 times and which I will re read again as I find it incredibly good, and as its heroine, although complicated and sometimes annoying, is one of the best creations ever brought to life. You cannot help but feel for Alice whose unhappiness is all of her own doing but who will not resign herself to a life of empty social obligations and who yearns for more... and you have to respect her for that!
Rating: - Passionate, wise and surprisingly entertaining
I started reading the Palliser novels after seeing a review describing them as "still the best description of British political life". They do, indeed, contain a lot of politics - particularly the later volumes, "Phineas Finn" and "Phineas Redux"; and this remains astonishingly contemporary. But the most up-to-date aspect of this extraordinary series of books is the sexual politics, as a series of vividly drawn women and men struggle to find happiness between social convention and sexual attraction. "Can You Forgive Her", which features the headstrong Lady Glencora Palliser and the intense Alice Vavasor both torn between desirable rakes and steady pillars of society, is to my mind one of the best of the series. It's also very funny, alive with irony and sophisticated wit.
For: beautiful writing, unforgettable characters, entertaining read.
Against: nothing. But it is quite long.
Rating:
- Complex characters
As one reviewer below has mentioned, this book does indeed take a while to grab your attention. For me it took at least 300 pages to really get going but once it did there was no putting it down.
Trollope's great trick is to get you to care about people you only half like and partially approve of. He very skillfully shifts your sympathies around from one character to another until by the end of the book you percieve them all fully rounded, with faults and virtues equally. You can even manage a small corner of sympathy for the most clearly 'bad' character in the book George Vavasor.
The other great thing about Trollope is his enormous understanding of women, their social position and the choices they face. What would he make of women today?
Rating: - Trollope begins his Palliser novels.
Having almost completed chronicling the ecclesiastical affairs of Barchester in 1864, Anthony Trollope began a further series of six novels, this time depicting the English political scene of his day in general and the members of the Palliser family in particular.
This one, the first of the six novels, carries a title that carries no hint of any political content whatsoever. Indeed, the "her" of the title is a perverse young lady, Alice, who refuses for almost 900 pages to marry the man whom all agree is so eminently suitable. Alice is one of at least four women that Trollope presents, all of whom struggle to answer the question, "What should a woman do with her life?" As usual with his female characters, Trollope is a sensitive, sure and unsentimental narrator. The business of the men, and the political issues they address, seem to consist in keeping solvent, gaining a seat and an office in parliament, and sniffing out any parliamentary intrigues. All of which might suggest that this is one early Victorian novel that today's feminists could pick up, read, and enjoy.
I enjoy any Trollope novel immensely. No matter how slow moving, no matter how often he intrudes to comment on his characters and tell us what he does and does not know about them, every page of his novels and perhaps every sentence carries the stamp of a great novelist and language craftsman at work. Nevertheless, I must admit that "Can You Forgive Her?" has featured by my bedside for more than a year. This is not, therefore, a recommendation for something to quickly and thrillingly absorb the reader. It takes a long time to get to the novelist's final words, "But as they all ... have forgiven her, I hope that they who have followed her story to its close will not be less generous".
- ImpressiveThis is the first book of the so-called 'Palliser-' or 'political' novels by Anthony Trollope, and if the next 5 volumes are as good as this one that would be nothing short of amazing. If you've read the Barsetshire-chronicles, you'll immediately recognize the inimitable Trollope-style, with its painstakingly detailed analyses of the characters' feelings and emotions. And therefore, remote in time as the settings of these novels may be, ever so much is recognizable and relevant even in the 21st century. I found myself constantly thinking 'I would have felt so too', sympathizing with some characters and disliking others because all of them are painted so life-like you'll feel you've met them in the flesh.
In this particular novel the heroine, Alice Vavasor, is torn between two lovers: her cousin George (ambitious and attractive but with a temper) and the stoic gentleman John Grey. She in turn accepts and then rejects both and is unable to forgive herself for being a 'jilt' (hence the title).
There's nothing much sensational about the plot (is there ever with Trollope?) and the pace is slow, much slower probably than what we've become used to, but nevertheless this is a book thoroughly to be enjoyed.
Rating:
- A masterpiece! utterly brilliant!"Can you forgive her" is the best Trollope book I have ever read and although I am far from having read them all, I must have been through at least 12 of them. In "Can you forgive her?" spirited Alice Vavasor cannot reconcile herself to the idea of marrying the man she truly loves because his sedate style of life doesn't agree with Alice's idea that people who have knowledge and opportunity should make something useful of their lives.As a woman she cannot take an active part in political life and is therefore determined to be the helpmate of someone willing to take risks and to serve his fellowmen. She becomes engaged to her cousin whose political ambitions she respects but finds herself distraught at having promised herself to a man she cannot love... and then starts the long campaign of Mr John Grey, jilted lover of the resolute Alice, who is unable to come to terms with the fact that the woman he cherishes is not to be his and who is determined he shall overcome all obstacles and marry her after all.
The book is peopled with unforgettable characters from the wonderful aunt Greenow to the memorable farmer Cheeseacre who is desperate to get married but whose ideas of romance consist in telling the woman he covets how lucky she is to have been selected as his prospective bride...
And we meet Glencora Palliser, Alice's cousin, a young woman who has been married off to a prominent member of the establishemnt and who is deeply unhappy as she cannot forget the good-for-nothing but handsome and blue-eyed Burgo Fitzgerald her heart longs for...and a host of other people just as brilliantly sketched.
It is a very accomplished book, great fun and superbly written , with fewer repetitions than in other Trollope books, a book I have already read 3 times and which I will re read again as I find it incredibly good, and as its heroine, although complicated and sometimes annoying, is one of the best creations ever brought to life. You cannot help but feel for Alice whose unhappiness is all of her own doing but who will not resign herself to a life of empty social obligations and who yearns for more... and you have to respect her for that!
Rating:
- Passionate, wise and surprisingly entertainingI started reading the Palliser novels after seeing a review describing them as "still the best description of British political life". They do, indeed, contain a lot of politics - particularly the later volumes, "Phineas Finn" and "Phineas Redux"; and this remains astonishingly contemporary. But the most up-to-date aspect of this extraordinary series of books is the sexual politics, as a series of vividly drawn women and men struggle to find happiness between social convention and sexual attraction. "Can You Forgive Her", which features the headstrong Lady Glencora Palliser and the intense Alice Vavasor both torn between desirable rakes and steady pillars of society, is to my mind one of the best of the series. It's also very funny, alive with irony and sophisticated wit.
For: beautiful writing, unforgettable characters, entertaining read.
Against: nothing. But it is quite long.
Rating:
- Complex charactersAs one reviewer below has mentioned, this book does indeed take a while to grab your attention. For me it took at least 300 pages to really get going but once it did there was no putting it down.
Trollope's great trick is to get you to care about people you only half like and partially approve of. He very skillfully shifts your sympathies around from one character to another until by the end of the book you percieve them all fully rounded, with faults and virtues equally. You can even manage a small corner of sympathy for the most clearly 'bad' character in the book George Vavasor.
The other great thing about Trollope is his enormous understanding of women, their social position and the choices they face. What would he make of women today?
Rating:
- Trollope begins his Palliser novels.Having almost completed chronicling the ecclesiastical affairs of Barchester in 1864, Anthony Trollope began a further series of six novels, this time depicting the English political scene of his day in general and the members of the Palliser family in particular.
This one, the first of the six novels, carries a title that carries no hint of any political content whatsoever. Indeed, the "her" of the title is a perverse young lady, Alice, who refuses for almost 900 pages to marry the man whom all agree is so eminently suitable. Alice is one of at least four women that Trollope presents, all of whom struggle to answer the question, "What should a woman do with her life?" As usual with his female characters, Trollope is a sensitive, sure and unsentimental narrator. The business of the men, and the political issues they address, seem to consist in keeping solvent, gaining a seat and an office in parliament, and sniffing out any parliamentary intrigues. All of which might suggest that this is one early Victorian novel that today's feminists could pick up, read, and enjoy.
I enjoy any Trollope novel immensely. No matter how slow moving, no matter how often he intrudes to comment on his characters and tell us what he does and does not know about them, every page of his novels and perhaps every sentence carries the stamp of a great novelist and language craftsman at work. Nevertheless, I must admit that "Can You Forgive Her?" has featured by my bedside for more than a year. This is not, therefore, a recommendation for something to quickly and thrillingly absorb the reader. It takes a long time to get to the novelist's final words, "But as they all ... have forgiven her, I hope that they who have followed her story to its close will not be less generous".