As I remember it, when I read the Trollope Parliamentary novels in
college, I thought this was the weak one, and I don’t see any reason
to change my mind.
Lizzie Eustace is an example of a character who is on the surface
normal, but ends up being self-destructive. But she’s not anything
like as interesting as the one in “He knew he was right”.
And of course it suffers by having almost nothing to do with all
the characters Trollope has set up in the other novels that we want to
hear more about.
There are also other novels where the course of a lawsuit is
followed more interestingly.
One character whom you would expect to be better examined is
Mr. Camperdown, the family lawyer who pushes the Eustace’s to recover
the diamonds from Lizzie. He seems just as monomaniacal as Lizzie,
with far less excuse.
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