The Eustace Diamonds (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

The Eustace Diamonds follows the declining fortunes of a beautiful but devious anti-heroine Lady Lizzie Eustace. A young widow of relatively wealthy means, Lizzie becomes entangled, or rather entangles herself in a series of legal muddles as she attempts to hold on to a fabulous necklace from her late husband's family estate. Through her scheming and deceitfulness she manages to reduce her options from many to one and alienate all her would-be friends and lovers. Anthony Trollope again employs all his considerable wit and craft in this the third of the "Palliser" novels. My personal favourite of his literary tricks occurs as he lays down the background history of Lizzie Eustace and with perfect timing, warns us against comparison with Thackeray's Becky Sharpe just at the moment I was doing so. Lizzie is not a likeable protagonist and the main story does not end as decisively as I would have liked but this is still an exceptionally enjoyable read for fans of Anthony Trollope.

Six months ago I had never read a Trollope-novel. Then - for no particular reason - I read 'The Warden' and have been addicted to Trollope ever since. I read the other five Barsetshire-novels in a row, and then immediately started on the Palliser-novels, of which this is the third (although 'The Eustace Diamonds' is only very loosely connected with the Palliser-family, Lady Glencora is the only one playing a role, and a minor one at that too).

In 'The Eustace Diamonds', Lizzie Greystock marries the wealthy but terminally ill Sir Florian Eustace, and when he dies shortly afterwards he not only leaves her an ample inheritance but - according to her claims at least - also an extremely valuable necklace. However, the Eustace family, and most of all their lawyer Mr. Camperdown, claim that the necklace is a family heirloom and as such was not Sir Florian's to give and should be returned. Before long London society is divided between 'Lizzietes' and 'anti-Lizzietes', and Lizzie goes to ever more desperate acts to keep the jewels.

Lord Fawn, Lizzie's fiancée, wants to break off their engagement because of the scandal surrounding the necklace, while Lizzie's cousin Frank Greystock (himself engaged to the governess of Lord Fawn's sisters, Lucy Morris) takes up her defence. Before they know it, they are all inextricably mixed up in the affair and have to deal with moral dillemmas: Lucy finds herself staying with the very family her fiancée Frank Greystock is attacking, Lord Fawn comes to realize Lizzie is definitely not the sort of woman he'd like to marry but is afraid is the scandal should he break off the engagement, Frank Greystock finds himself attracted to Lizzie and is in doubt whether he should give up Lucy (who is poor and cannot help his career as an MP) for Lizzie (who may be duplicitous, but is definitely also rich), ... Trollope, as usual, examines every aspect of his characters' thoughts and emotions in his 'habitual relaxed colloquium with the reader' (as John Sutherland and Stephen Gill call it in their excellent introduction).

What Trollope gives us here is a thorough examination of upper society, in which values and principles that used to be 'absolute' are rapidly changing: thruth (Lizzie lies and schemes incessantly but in spite of that remains an accepted, albeit controversial, member of society), honour (both Lord Fawn and Frank Greystock have to acknowledge to themselves that Lizzie's foremost attraction is her money). Though there is humour in the book, all in all it's a rather bleak picture Trollope paints here and there's little of the sense predominant in other Trollope-novels that, in the end, all will turn out well for the 'good' characters. In fact, Trollope shows that no one is entirely 'good' or 'bad', his characters (as we all, surely?) are a bit of both. Even Lizzie Eustace, who schemes and lies without any scrupple whatsoever, has some redeeming qualities while Lucy Morris, good and honest as she may be, quite frankly is also a bit of a bore...

The main reason why I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5, and why it isn't my personal favorite Trollope-novel, is Lizzie Eustace herself. I think Trollope intended to make her into a sort of Becky Sharp (from 'Vanity Fair') or Lady Audley (from 'Lady Audley's Secret') but - to me, that is - she falls short of both of these and fails to captivate one's imagination and dominate the entire novel as those two other ladies do so eminently.

But rest assured, a 'good' Trollope-novel is still a very good book by any standard, and reading it was definitely a very rewarding experience which has by no means lessened my appetite for more. So it's on now to 'Phineas Redux'!

I won't deny this is a book that takes some getting through. Like all vintage Trollope, it is very long and packed full of characters and plot, and I have to confess I did give up on it for a while. But I'm glad I went back to it. Lizzie Eustace proves that you don't necessarily need a sympathetic central character to make a good story. She isn't outright evil, but she isn't someone you feel very concerned about either. That doesn't matter though as you get very drawn into how her ceaseless machinations (she lies so much she forgets what she's lied about) eventually alienates everyone around her, and how men who were once besotted with her eventually become revolted by her. Some of the other characters are even more unpleasent, such as the mercenary Mrs Carbuncle and the unspeakably self-centred and negative Lucinda Roanoke. Lucinda's "love scenes" with Griffin Tewett (the Alan B'stard of his era) can leave a very bad taste in the mouth. The Pallisers themselves wander in and out of the story to occasionally give us their narrative on what is happening, although most of this is down to the very likeable Lady Glencora, and they all act as a vital antidote to the odious characters they are observing. This is all very good absorbing stuff, although by the end of it you agree with one of Planty Palliser's friends that he's had quite enough of hearing about Lizzie Eustace!