This section contains 7,753 words (approx. 26 pages at 300 words per page) |
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SOURCE: “That Peculiar Book: Critics, Common Readers and The Way We Live Now,” College Language Association Journal, Vol. 30, No. 2, December, 1986, pp. 219-40.
In the following essay, Ikeler defends Trollope's The Way We Live Now against charges that the work is too long, too cynical, and offers a negative and unfair depiction of foreigners.
Defending The Way We Live Now before a group of genial Trollopians is generally taken as a sign of bad manners.1 One of them invariably retorts, “You know, that's one book of his I never really liked.” The company nods its assent, and all wait through a deprecatory silence until another anecdote of Bertie Stanhope or Lily Dale repairs the breach. It is a failure of tact as grave, I suspect, as praise of Wuthering Heights would have been in the circle of Mrs. Oliphant's friends. Both novels are apparently guilty of the same offense...
This section contains 7,753 words (approx. 26 pages at 300 words per page) |
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