And so we come to the end of our conversations on Anthony Trollope’s The Warden, focusing, as always, on your questions. Join us as we dig into Trollope’s thoughts on the nature of the novel, whether he was doing theological commentary or social commentary, whether the novel works on all four levels of interpretation (and much more!). Happy listening!
Can someone give a link to, or the author and title of, the article Heidi mentioned regarding the 4 levels of interpretation as applied to a great novel?
This was my first time reading The Warden, but having read The Way We Live Now and The Eustace Diamonds I was totally surprised by how slow and dry The Warden felt. The Way We Live Now has (literally) 100 chapters and it felt shorter than The Warden!
Such a great discussion! Sorry about my poorly worded not-a-question! Ha! That was actually supposed to be further thoughts on my ACTUAL question at the beginning of the thread. I am such a substack newbie. 😉 Can't wait to start on The Road. What a wonderful year of reading so far! ❤️
Help me, Close Readers--and maybe Heidi if she wants to chime in! What she describes about her experience reading The Warden--being morally opposed to the narrator’s evaluation of the character’s actions (is that a fair summary?)--is something I’ve experienced many times with the books we’ve read together. Laurus is a good example--as a Protestant, I do not agree that any person other than Christ can suffer to atone for someone’s sins. But I was encouraged by our community to suspend my disbelief (as with other books) and accept the novel on its own terms. If I morally/theologically disagree with the premise or conclusions of a book, that’s not a necessarily a flaw in the book. But it feels like that’s what Heidi is saying about The Warden. Am I connecting the dots correctly? Or am I grossly misinterpreting the discussion (which is very possible)?
Can someone give a link to, or the author and title of, the article Heidi mentioned regarding the 4 levels of interpretation as applied to a great novel?
This was my first time reading The Warden, but having read The Way We Live Now and The Eustace Diamonds I was totally surprised by how slow and dry The Warden felt. The Way We Live Now has (literally) 100 chapters and it felt shorter than The Warden!
Such a great discussion! Sorry about my poorly worded not-a-question! Ha! That was actually supposed to be further thoughts on my ACTUAL question at the beginning of the thread. I am such a substack newbie. 😉 Can't wait to start on The Road. What a wonderful year of reading so far! ❤️
Help me, Close Readers--and maybe Heidi if she wants to chime in! What she describes about her experience reading The Warden--being morally opposed to the narrator’s evaluation of the character’s actions (is that a fair summary?)--is something I’ve experienced many times with the books we’ve read together. Laurus is a good example--as a Protestant, I do not agree that any person other than Christ can suffer to atone for someone’s sins. But I was encouraged by our community to suspend my disbelief (as with other books) and accept the novel on its own terms. If I morally/theologically disagree with the premise or conclusions of a book, that’s not a necessarily a flaw in the book. But it feels like that’s what Heidi is saying about The Warden. Am I connecting the dots correctly? Or am I grossly misinterpreting the discussion (which is very possible)?
Another t-shirt quote for Heidi:
Everything I do is my
ready-to-talk-about-books pose.