The Way We Live Now

This novel is widely considered Anthony Trollope's strongest individual novel, that is not one that is part of the Chronicles of Barsetshire or the Palliser Novels, and it is also his longest.  And indeed it is generally noted as one of the last of the Victorian doorstop novels.  It was not fully appreciated in its day, in part because it was such a condemnation of English society, but has grown in reputation since then.  Given the frequency of financial scandals wracking the U.S. (the Savings and Loans crisis of the 80s, Enron, A.I.G., Lehman Brothers, the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and so forth), there are always fresh memories of financiers behaving badly and taking advantage of less-informed investors and generally bringing ruin to everyone else (and only occasionally to themselves!).  The somewhat mysterious (and quite likely Jewish) Augustus Melmotte is an appropriate literary forefather of these conniving con artists.  There is a slightly different angle in this novel in that Melmotte really does want respectability (for Marie's (his daughter) sake if not his own) and he tries to buy his way into society.  He comes quite close to succeeding, and indeed it is likely this ugly mirror held up to London society that so upset readers of the day.  I won't go too deeply into the plot (and indeed I have to admit I forgot many aspects of it as I read the novel back in early 2018), but here is a pretty good summary with some interesting interpretations along the way, and I will touch on a few plot points, so SPOILERS ahead...   

In one sense, Melmotte drives a harder bargain than some of the characters in Henry James's later novels in that he isn't willing to support a penniless lord (Sir Felix Carbury) simply for the sake of Marie being established in society, though he most likely could have afforded it.  Sir Felix is definitely not a worthy husband, as is established in several ways, most definitively when he essentially allows himself to be cajoled into playing cards with someone he knows is a card cheat.  But perhaps Trollope over-egged the pudding as it were.  The reader ends up quite relieved for Marie when her elopement with Sir Felix fails, but maybe it would have been more interesting if it wasn't so clear that he was such a poor choice.  I vaguely remember being not terribly interested in the whole Paul Montague-Hetta Carbury subplot.  I suspect that if Marie had to choose between Sir Felix and Paul, that might have been a more interesting dynamic, whereas the actual denouements are perhaps just a bit too pat.  I did enjoy it, and I generally enjoy Trollope after I get back into the rhythm of reading a really long book.  I'd probably not reread the whole thing, however, but I might reread individual chapters, which is pretty much the same way I feel about Vanity Fair.  I thought Trollope had a pretty good take on how important marriage was for the minor aristocrats in terms of trying to save themselves from slipping down further in society if they weren't willing to actually get their hands dirty and work, especially in cases when previous generations had divested too much land or otherwise blown through the inheritance.

Austen's work also really connects with the economic realities driving many marriage proposals or at least the women seeking out wealthy husbands at any rate.  In Pride and Prejudice, she definitely lets Lydia (who pays no attention to such matters and is immature and easily swayed) off far too easily, as in "real life" she would have been completely ruined.  That said, there are few real obstacles standing between Elizabeth and Darcy, other than he is too proud and she finds him annoying (and is justifiably angry that he blocked Jane's marriage, which is itself too easily resolved).  Sense and Sensibility, which actually was written before Pride and Prejudice, has these same themes but more serious difficulties to be overcome by the various heroines.  I think S & S to be a stronger novel overall than P & P.

It's interesting that economic necessity is just as urgent in the mid- to late Victorian novel (say Middlemarch) but it is at least a bit muted.  I can't recall Eliot introducing characters by pointing out the worth of their estates or livings (if in the church), but perhaps she did.  However, then in Trollope's The Way We Live Now, money comes roaring back.  It is front and center of every transaction, romantic or otherwise.  Fathers and sons are at odds over inheritances.  Many minor nobles are impoverished and look to their sons to marry heiresses (also a theme in Henry James's European novels), though there are certainly still poor but genteel women on the make for rich lords (sometimes ending up with land-owners not nearly as rich as they portray themselves).

And then there is a bit of a swing away from this, certainly by mid Century.  Money is not talked about as openly in many contemporary middle-class novels.  The Great Gatsby is one of the last where class played a truly critical role in moving the plot forward, though Dos Passos's USA Trilogy and a lot of Depression-era fiction dwells on people who have been financially ruined.  But if you think about the mainstream novelists (Philip Roth, John Updike, John Irving, Jonathan Franzen, even Saul Bellow), there might be occasional financial difficulties and certainly arguments over how the family budget is spent, but money doesn't seem such an over-riding, all-encompassing concern.  And of course most of the writers in the Brat Pack all seemed to be trust fund kids, whether this was literally true or not.  Obviously, this is a completely reductive literary history, but I'd say it is broadly true that most contemporary fiction tries to sidestep economic realities.  Feel free to present counter arguments in the comments.