The Prime Minister (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

What I love about Trollope is his scope and vision. He writes so brilliantly about politics and just makes them come alive. There is not a moment of boredom from start to finish, and that is because Trollope has a fundamental understanding of what politics is all about, it is about people, and he cares passionately for people. I get so attached to the characters in his novels because they are given real, interesting lives. This book is about compromise in politics, about how ideals have to be tempered for real life and is an interesting precursor to the final book in the series "The Duke's Children" for what Palliser learns in politics here he has to learn more brutally in his private life next. Fantastic

The Prime Minister contains two interlacing stories: the career of Plantagenet Palliser, the hero in the series of which this novel is the crowning part, and the tribulations of the London heiress Emily Wharton in love and marriage. I thought the insider's view of parliamentary and cabinet politics would be the novel's attraction. Actually the struggles of Emily Wharton, who has made a love match to a dangerous adventurer, turned out to be more exciting. Trollope was a master storyteller, and that tale is full of interesting surprises as well as sharp, entertaining dialogue. The political story tends to form a lighter backdrop to it.

The Prime Minister is indeed half social comedy and half psychological. It is a cross, perhaps, between Evelyn Waugh and George Eliot. It tends, besides, to be interested in the emotional side of politics and in the effect of social mores on private life, not the other way around. It is also prejudiced (the villain is a swarthy Latin, and he is an arch-villain), though somehow that doesn't shock too much (so am I: a swarthy Latin, I mean, not an arch-villain). But most importantly, it is a compelling read.

Two more points. First, it is not necessary to have read the previous Palliser novels to enjoy this one. Second, in spite of its length, it is quickly read, even if the last hundred pages are superfluous (the work was serialised and expected to reach a certain length).

This, the fifth novel in the Palliser series, is according to David Skilton in his introduction `the key work in the (...) series'. Now I wouldn't know about that, not having read the sixth and last novel, but what I do know without a shadow of a doubt is that this is a very very good novel in its own right.

Trollope loosely intertwines two plots in `The Prime Minister'. In the `political' plot Plantagenet Palliser is asked and eventually (though reluctantly) accepts to become prime minister, to the great pride and joy of his wife Lady Glencora. In the `social' plot, Emily Wharton, daughter of a wealthy lawyer, falls in love with and marries, against the advice of all her friends and relatives, a certain Ferdinand Lopez (about whom nobody seems to know much, not who his parents were, or how he makes a living). In both cases the protagonists come to realize before long that it's not all gold that glitters: Palliser learns that being prime minister is not all it's made out to be, and Emily discovers how deceptive appearances can be when she gets to know her husband better.

Trollope investigates several themes in `The Prime Minister' by (implicitly) comparing and contrasting the main characters. As to the men: Plantagenet Palliser is indeed `the perfect gentleman' but this has its drawbacks too, or so it seems: he is scrupulous to a t, unable to socialize and `joke around' with other men, and ever in doubt of his own capability to be a good prime minister. The question Trollope raises is ultimately: can a true gentleman be a good prime minister? Ferdinand Lopez on the other hand is the opposite: he has all the outer trappings of a gentleman, but it turns out that beneath this thin veneer he is a ruthless and egotistical opportunist. However, Lopez has an energy and `can do' mentality, a will to succeed, that Palliser lacks.

The two main female characters too are contrasted: Lady Glencora has been married for years now and, in spite of his shortcomings, truly loves her husband. She tries to support him in all his efforts but in doing so `puts her foot in it' and causes him severe embarassment. Emily Wharton on the other hand tries to love and obey her husband as she feels she should, but finds this increasingly difficult when she discovers he sees her father as nothing but a milch cow (with her as the dairy maid).

Although there is a happy end of sorts, the overall effect of the novel is clearly rather gloomy and depressing, but I hasten to add that this for me by no means detracted from the joy of reading it. It's the eleventh Trollope-novel in a row I've read now, and to me one of the very best so far! And so, with a mixture of both anticipation and regret, it's on to the sixth and final part in the Palliser series, `The Duke's Children'!