Can You Forgive Her?, despite its title, is the first of Trollope's six political or "Palliser" novels. It deals with the marriage prospects of a young woman of independent means, and her struggle as she wavers between two suitors–the upstanding but dull John Grey and the exciting but dangerous George Vavasor. It is also a great deal about securing political alliances and the difficulty in being returned for a seat in the House of Commons. And, hell, while I'm warning you, it runs a good 800 pages.
A lot of Victorian novels are about marrying well. A few of them are about the House of Commons. Either you find the subjects interesting or you don't, and for a long time, I stayed clear of English literature because, on average, I want to punch more than 80% of the characters in the face for not saying what they mean. If you've ever read, for instance, Thackeray's Vanity Fair, that was a face-punching extravaganza.
Most of the characters in this story, however, are sympathetic. You like Alice Vavasor (whom you are asked eponymously to forgive), and you like her cousin Kate, and you like Glencora Palliser and her husband, and you like Aunt Greenow and virtually everybody in her arc, and the only characters you don't like are the ones you are supposed to dislike.
As for the writing itself, Trollope talks to his readers and references what he wrote earlier in a way that would make John Barth proud, and in particular, I like his habit of guessing what else the characters might have done that day, as if he hadn't seen it or had no definite knowledge of it. I suppose it makes for inconsistent narration, since at times he knows what a character is thinking and at times he cannot account for their actions, but hell, it's cute. There are a couple of long passages about hunting, which may not be for everyone, but which, according to the introduction, were Trollope's favorite passages to write, so I think we can forgive him that.
The trouble, of course, is that there are five more novels in the series. I got a lot of reading in the last month, and it tool me the entire month of December to get through this. It could conceivably be another whole year of Trollope for me, even if I stop at the end of the Pallisers and ignore the other entire series of novels he wrote. I have already ordered Phineas Finn, and will probably begin it this week.
Anyway, great book, probably deserves more acclaim that it (or Trollope in general) usually gets, worth putting on your bookshelf. The end.