tags: historical fiction, politics, romance, Victorian era, 1000 pages
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
from GoodReads
Alice Vavasor cannot decide whether to marry her ambitious but violent cousin George or the upright and gentlemanly John Grey - and finds herself accepting and rejecting each of them in turn.
Increasingly confused about her own feelings and unable to forgive herself for such vacillation, her situation is contrasted with that of her friend Lady Glencora - forced to marry the rising politician Plantagenet Palliser in order to prevent the worthless Burgo Fitzgerald from wasting her vast fortune.
In asking his readers to pardon Alice for her transgression of the Victorian moral code, Trollope created a telling and wide-ranging account of the social world of his day.
Wow. I finished reading this thousand-page book and I loved it! I've been on a Regency and Victorian era reading period because there are no new books worth my time. I reread some of Jane Austen's books then suddenly remembered I wanted to read Anthony Trollope's books written during the Victorian period. Goodreads readers recommend to start with more-than-a-thousand-page Can You Forgive Her? But what's up with the title?
“Poor Alice! I hope that she may be forgiven. It was her special fault, that when at Rome she longed for Tibur, and when at Tibur she regretted Rome.”
My answer is of course, I forgive her, Alice Vavasor that is, regardless of her being hard-headed and wishy-washy. She is a very independent young woman, growing up without a mother who died when she was a baby, and her father who hardly pays attention to her. Alice resents her elderly aunts telling her whom to marry and makes a mistake in taking back her promise to marry the handsome and moderately rich gentleman, John Grey. During this time, it's disgraceful for both parties to cancel the engagement and Alice feels she has sinned by doing so and doesn't deserve to be forgiven.
The other young woman, the wealthy heiress Lady Glencora Palliser, is married to a duke's heir, Plantagenet Palliser. Lady Glencora was in love with a beautiful idler, wastrel, and gambler, Burdo Fitzgerald but was "jumped on" by her titled aunts to marry the better man, Palliser. Both aunts are indeed correct for jumping on Lady Glencora and Alice Vavasor.
The third woman, the rich young widow Mrs. Greenow, the sister of Alice's father spends her time on matchmaking. She and the characters in her universe provide lots of funny moments although there are plenty of LOL scenes all throughout the book.
One of the love-to-hate characters is the heir to Vavasor Hall, George Vavasor, Alice's first cousin whom she was engaged to briefly when she was only 19 and then again after her disengagement from John Grey, but rejected him both times eventually. He is described as short in stature, with very dark hair and eyebrows, has small hands and feet, and has a scar running from under his left eye down to his jaw. He got the scar when he was just a boy for confronting a burglar in their home. In other words, he is as ugly as sin, even his grandfather says so often. He is also a penniless ne'er do well wastrel and even though a pauper wants a seat at the Parliament, carelessly using Alice's money. He is a brute and a violent man, a total villain. Alice who thinks she is still in love with him but realizes she isn't, is lucky to escape his clutches.
Anthony Trollope had managed to make George's character evil, murderous, and pathetic but funny in a way. When George was desperate and mad at everyone and everything whom he deems has wronged him including his grandfather, his sister Kate, Alice, John Grey, his uncle, the city, the country, the sun, the universe, he curses at them mightily and thinks of a thousand ways to murder them. Trollope had a way with words that I really like. I wasn't bored at all reading about the countless number of characters and the political parts of the novel. I'll try to read the rest of the series, 5 more books, that are more about the Pallisers and politics.
Highly recommended for British Victorian historical fiction readers.
