The Prime Minister

This is just a wonderful book, although it is a bit odd. The plot seems almost incidental to the novel, and the most dramatic parts aren't even at the end. For me, the villain Ferdinand Lopez ("To give him his due, he did not know that he was a villain.") is far more interesting than the titular character, the Prime Minister, the Duke of Omnium. And to be honest, I don't even know who the protagonist is. There are about three or four different possibilities, although if it's the Duke he must be the most passive protagonist ever.

Perhaps the book seems so strange to me because it's the fifth in a series of six novels, the Palliser Novels. I didn't realize that when I picked this up. The story itself is compact enough, but many of the characters come from other novels. The Duke of Omnium, Plantagenet Palliser, was already a much-loved character when this was written, so it makes sense that Trollope doesn't waste a lot of time setting him up.

And yet, despite all this, the book is completely delightful. There's a subtle, wry humor in here that made me want to be Anthony Trollope when I grow up. Therefore, instead of writing about the book, I'm just going to quote some of my favorite parts.

I especially love the Victorian insults. Next time I'm in an argument, I want to remember this: "I think, Sir, that your proposition is the most unbecoming and the most impertinent that ever was addressed to me." Yeah, well, F you too.

And here's the Victorian way to tell someone that you're about to kick his ass, in letter form:

Sir,
Before this election you were guilty of gross impertinence in writing a letter to my wife -- to her extreme annoyance and to my most justifiable anger. Any gentleman would think that the treatment you had already received at her hands would have served to save her from such insult, but there are men who will never take a lesson without a beating. And now, since you have been here, you have presumed to offer to shake hands with me in the street, though you ought to have known that I should not choose to meet you on friendly terms after what has taken place. I now write to tell you that I shall carry a horsewhip while I am here, and that if I meet you in the streets again before I leave the town I shall use it.

Personally, I don't know if I could hold a grudge long enough to write a letter about it. I suppose this technique would help in reducing violence. It's like homework for your grudges. If you had to write a letter every time you wanted to beat someone up, you would probably think twice about it.

And finally, here's Anthony Trollope on the current financial crisis:

Sexty's fears were greatly exaggerated by the feeling that the coffee and guano [they were trading] were not always real.... His partner, indeed, was of the opinion that ... there was no need at all for real coffee and guano, and explained his theory with considerable eloquence. "If I buy a ton of coffee and keep it six weeks, why do I buy it and keep it, and why does the seller sell it instead of keeping it? The seller sells it because he thinks he can do best by parting with it now at a certain price. I buy it because I think I can make money by keeping it. It is just the same as though we were to back our opinions. He backs the fall. I back the rise. You needn't have coffee and you needn't have guano to do this. Indeed the possession of the coffee or the guano is only a very clumsy addition to the trouble of your profession."

This amused me even before I learned that guano is fertilizer, essentially bird dung. One man's guano is another man's mortgage-backed derivative.