From the Bookshelf of Exploring Anthony Trollope…

The Eustace Diamonds (Palliser, #3)

Anthony Trollope,

Stephen Gill

Discussion: Palliser Novels

Find A Copy At

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 5 topics — 28 comments total

Palliser Novels

* The Series
By Elizabeth (Al… · 6 posts · 37 views

last updated Feb 25, 2014 10:29AM

The Duke's Children
By Elizabeth (Al… · 3 posts · 24 views

last updated Feb 08, 2015 02:43PM

showing 1 of 1 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Mar 31, 2022 Lisa (NY) rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2022-tbr-shelf, audiobook, classics-19th-century-earlier

Gossipy, long-winded and thoroughly enjoyable! I love the way the narrator (Trollope?) makes droll editorial comments about how odious our heroine Lizzie is. In fact, she doesn't even deserve the title of heroine according to him. But she is so much fun to read about! As are the other characters, who are preoccupied with whether to marry for love or money. ...more

37 likes · Like · see review

Jun 20, 2022 Vicky rated it it was amazing

Superb!The Anthony Trollope Society are currently reading and discussing this book which drew it to my attention.Like lots of Trollope novels it's a real "chunkster" challenge but I rarely put it down-if a little melodramatic in parts,it certainly held my attention! ...more

16 likes · Like · see review

Dec 19, 2011 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nineteenth-century, palliser, author-trollope

Another fun story from Mr. Trollope. His opening lines:

It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies, -- who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two, -- that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself. We will tell the story of Lizzie Greystock from the beginning, but we will not dwell over it at great length, as we might do if we loved her.

Perhaps Mr. Trollope forgot himself, for the majority of the novel is about Lizzie Greystock, but he was right in that ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Oct 16, 2017 Steve rated it liked it

Trollope’s novels are generally pretty slender, despite their great length. Their worth is in their charm and gentle entertainment value. His shtick is a nicely flowing sentence and a mock seriousness of tone, and he applies this approach well, across many pages and many works. Trollope is sometimes criticised for telling rather than showing, but this seems an unfairly rule-bound complaint to me. Authorial asides are the very heart of his style. As narrator, he is an avuncular companion, telling Trollope’s novels are generally pretty slender, despite their great length. Their worth is in their charm and gentle entertainment value. His shtick is a nicely flowing sentence and a mock seriousness of tone, and he applies this approach well, across many pages and many works. Trollope is sometimes criticised for telling rather than showing, but this seems an unfairly rule-bound complaint to me. Authorial asides are the very heart of his style. As narrator, he is an avuncular companion, telling a story, but also watching the characters with you, inserting ironic asides. And this suits his strengths: his insight is fundamentally emotional rather than intellectual. You don’t read Trollope for an exploration of an idea, but for his insight into people, which is real and deep, and therefore amusing. You read him because he is an entertaining persona. If you like Trollope’s novels, it’s because you like the man himself.

And yet The Eustace Diamonds is fundamentally the exploration of an idea, namely falsehood. I think this is why I found it to be the weakest of his novels that I’ve read so far. The first ~45% of the novel is largely empty, with few characters and little going on. The two key narrative questions – will Lizzie keep the diamonds, will Frank marry Lucy – are merely posed again and again with infuriating repetition. Trollope hates lizzie, but he has a lot more to say about her than “good-as-gold” Lucy Morris, whose honesty leaves him with little to comment upon. Whereas Lizzie is present on almost every page of the book, endlessly building her edifice of falsehood with a desperate energy. At the 45% mark, a wider cast of characters is introduced, and the action begins, but by then I’d lost a little of the goodwill that a genial, rambling uncle depends on in his audience.

As well as not playing to Trollope’s strengths, the topic itself undermines what is generally appealing about his work. A story about dishonest characters makes for a bad tempered book, which doesn't suit his avuncular style – indeed rather gives the lie to it. He is mean-spirited and contemptuous towards Lizzie, giving her the worst possible ending he can think of.

This contempt ultimately arises from a conservatism gradually revealed over the course of the novel. Usurpers are invading English upper-class life, grasping for what doesn’t belong to them: Social climbers with ideas above their station; Flashy preachers; Jews. Their weapons are words, dishonestly spun out at great length.

There is an anti-intellectualism in all this, which again is deeply conservative. We all know the diamonds “really” belong to the Eustace estate, though in fact their legal status is far from clear. Politicians of all stripes are consistently treated with cynicism: their words are contrived only to win battles. The truth is obvious, and needs only stating. The solutions are simple. Those who say it’s more complicated than that are schemers. The established order is for the best; only a scoundrel would propose otherwise. Believe the gentleman; disdain the newcomer.

As I say, (after the 45%-mark at least) Trollope delivers his entertaining storytelling the same as he ever did. But in tackling the subject of truth and falseness, I found Trollope showed a hand I didn’t like. It left a bad taste in the mouth, which I think will inoculate me from finding him a charming companion for some time. I’ll probably finish the Palliser series, but I think I’ll leave it a while before I do. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review