The Other Side

Reading Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? I'm oddly reminded of the world of Jane Austen. Odd I suppose because Trollope tends to be regarded to some degree as the meat and potatoes man of the Victorian novel. Tasty, in his way, but a trifle stodgy. But Can You Forgive Her? has, at times, a subtlety worthy of the finest light gourmet cuisine. It lacks Austen's delicious irony, but it has the same piercing insight into its characters' social behaviour, especially - and this is the surprising thing - the young women at its centre.

I'm just about at the halfway mark and, so far, whatever has concerned Alice Vavasor, Kate Vavasor and Lady Glencora has been remarkably convincing and generally riveting. Our novelist really gets inside their minds in a way that is quite remarkable for its time, or any time at all. Whatever else Trollope was, he was in touch with whatever feminine side he possessed.