Vendee, La (World's Classics) [Paperback]

After two critically successful yet unprofitable novels, Trollope decided for his third outing to leave the apparently unpopular Irish setting behind. This time, he would not only try a new location, but a different era as well. Relocating his narrative skills to 1790s France, La Vendee is Trollope's first and only work of historical fiction, a genre of writing that was nearing the end of its popularity in his time.

Admittedly, Trollope knew nothing of the French country which he was portraying, a stark difference from his supremely authentic Irish debut novels. Relying almost exclusively on Memoirs from one of the eye witnesses of the counter-revolution (and the travel writings of his family), Trollope attempts to blend characters both real and fictional to tell the story of an uprising that took place shortly after the French Revolution had claimed the life of King Louis XVI.

The novel opens as troops from the newly formed Republic of France attempt to draft peasants into their army. In the district of Vendee, the locals stage an uprising and build up a sizable resistance comprised of an odd blend of nobles and peasantry, all of whom are loyal to the Monarchy. For a little over a year, this small contingent managed a mostly successful guerilla war. Though the uprising was ultimately crushed, Trollope focuses on this "good year," to provide the reader with a number of rousing battles and narrow escapes from capture.

As this is ultimately a war novel, it shows Trollope at his least .... Trollopian. For that reason alone, it stands out as a weaker entry in his library. Nevertheless, there is still much to admire here. The characters, though fairly broad for this author, still manage to evoke sympathy in the reader. The battle scenes, if short, are adequately suspenseful. The love stories, required as they are in a Victorian novel, are par for the course.

The novel opens on a fairly exciting note, showing us the beginning of the uprising. However, the remainder of the opening third of the story spends far too long building up to what will be the first major battle of the uprising. Characters spend far too many words telling us how patriotically they will fight and how noble is their cause. It's as if Trollope is more interested in showcasing his own patriotism and political leanings, as he is quite subjectively showing his support for the Monarchy of France over the Republic - an issue which had indeed resurfaced during the time period in which he wrote (1840s).

This opening act, however, is not without its interesting elements, unintentional as they may be. While Trollope points to military drafting as the issue that sparked the rebellion, it is ironic that this entire first third of the novel then shows how the rebels used scare tactics and religion to essentially "force" the local peasantry into their own counter-army. I'm not sure how much Trollope was aware of the irony, but he does make certain to show the lengths to which religion was used to influence these peasants - particularly in a chapter showing how the nobles put forth a "false bishop" to rally the ignorant locals into joining the rebellion. These elements make up a fascinating perspective to readers in OUR day, in which religion is similarly thrown about as a cause for war.

Trollope interweaves his wartime scenes with domestic sequences featuring the par-for-the-course romance stories. As these characters have less time than usual to develop their own personalities, these romances are particularly bland and do more to slow the story down than anything else.

Lifting the novel out of strictly bland territory, however, is the character of Alphonse Denot. A total creation of Trollope, Denot represents what is an often recurring character in the authors works - the slow-burning rogue. Trollope sets him up from the get-go as an insanely jealous character, so his eventual betrayal catches nobody off-guard... nevertheless, the insight into his madness and later guilt and redemption show the author at his usual best. Trollope also peppers his cast with several lower class characters who are fully aware of the extent to which they are being used for the ultimate glory of the nobles. As much as he clearly supported the counter-revolution, this element was not lost on the author.

The introductory essay and text notes from editor W.J. McCormack are particularly uninteresting in this WORLD'S CLASSICS edition - focusing more on the weaknesses of the novel than actually giving much insight into the story. However, it is interesting to learn that Trollope altered his main historic characters, both by making them younger, and by making them single, in order to create more romance for the reader. The real figures were already married with children at the time these events took place. So, looks like artistic license has been around for quite some time!

Trollope would finally find success with his next novel, THE WARDEN. However, in this and his first two novels, it is interesting to see the genesis of the writer who would go on to pen 44 more successful novels. La Vendee is far from his best work, and even as war fiction it is average at best - even so, it provides some interesting, if biased historical knowledge of a period in time I knew next to nothing about.