Review: The Way We Live Now

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For a few years the book bots that track my reading habits have be nagging me with suggestions of Trollope and for no good reason I have ignored these electronic nudges. Now that I've finished my first Trollope book, I know why they pestered me so persistently. I was wide awake several nights in a row at "What the devil-o'clock!?!and now I am scouring the internet for a used copy of his full collection.I have been officially Trolloped.

The Way We Live Now is considered by many to be his masterpiece. I can't say anything about that as it is my first. But, it was breath-taking in its scope and depth of savage commentary on mid-Victorian England. The most amazing thing about novels set in this time period, to me, is the fact that you do not have to change many of the names and places to feel like you are reading yesterday's news. Truly.

In this book we have a liberal vs. conservative election, drenched in nonsense, misinformation and greed. We have a burst-bubble which costs many their entire fortunes, scoundrels making money off the honest, religious zealots seeking to convert others at every turn, conniving women and feckless men, drunks and gamblers, women struggling to emancipate themselves, anti-semitism, and an astounding preoccupation with material things and money, money, money.

Every sentence is perfectly turned-out. This is what I love more than anything about this book.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him."
"Shall a woman be flayed alive because it is unfeminine in her to fight for her own skin?"
"Rank squanders money; trade makes it; -- and then trade purchases rank by re-gilding its splendour."
"Any newspaper that wishes to make its fortune should never waste its columns and weary its readers by praising anything."
"A liar has many points to his favour,—but he has this against him, that unless he devote more time to the management of his lies than life will generally allow, he cannot make them tally."

I hope you read this book. It does not disappoint.

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