Young Irishman Phineas Finn went to London
to study for the Bar, but having achieved admission his professional progress seems
to be sluggish. Not so his social life, based around membership of the Reform
Club, where he rubs shoulders with the sons of the aristocracy and young
Members of Parliament. One of these, fellow countryman Barrington Erle,
suggests he stands for his local constituency of Loughshane in the coming
General Election.
To his good fortune Loughshane is a ‘pocket
borough’, in this case in the pocket of the Earl of Tulla, an old family friend
who has just quarrelled with the sitting member and is only too glad to turf
him out and put in Phineas, who thus becomes, at 24 years old, an Irish Member in
the Mother of Parliaments.
It is eighteen-sixty-odd and turbulent times
in politics with voting reform and ‘the ballot’ the big issue between the Whigs
and Tories. But Finn’s induction into the political world is more social than
political as he is befriended by the influential Standish family – the earl of
Brentford (a Whig grandee), his daughter Lady Laura and son Oswald (aka Lord
Chiltern).
He goes hunting with Chiltern and gets
closer to Lady Laura, but she is pursued by the landed Mr Kennedy, so he
transfers his attention to the Standish’s close friend Violet Effingham, who is
half-committed to Oswald, while Phineas himself is eyed up by the rich and
mysterious Madame Max Goesler, herself courted by the aged but active Duke of
Omnium. And there is the girl back home, Mary Flood Jones, who simply, and
perhaps hopelessly, just holds a candle for Phineas.
These are not so much love triangles as
interlocking polygons that provide multiple moral dilemmas for Phineas to negotiate;
at the same time he has to wrestle with his conscience as his first steps in a
government career are threatened by opposition motions he feels honour bound to
support.
The book is long but never heavy, and I like
Trollope’s style as he takes the reader into his confidence while he speculates
on his characters’ motivations and thoughts. It is just a good read with a
likeable, but all too human, hero whose interests the reader cannot help taking
to heart.
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