This, the fourth, of Trollope’s ‘political’
novels features the return (or more literally translated, the bringing back or
revival) of Phineas Finn whose parliamentary and romantic entanglements were
the mainstay of the second volume. At the conclusion of that novel Phineas had
exited parliament on a matter of conscience, cut his ties with the society
women he courted, taken a local government post back in Ireland, and married
local girl and first love Mary Flood Jones.
Now with his wife dead and the job tedious,
he is tempted back into politics, where he contests the Tankerville seat in an
acrimonious election; the longer term goal to gain a remunerative post in the
government of the day. Amid much politicking he is also back amid his society
women - quite a fan club he has, though two are married (one happily, one
disastrously) and the other is a regular companion of the all-powerful, but
aging, Duke of Omnium.
As is his wont, Phineas gets into scrapes;
publically sniped at by his old enemy the editor of The People’s Banner, more
literally shot at by a disgruntled husband, and put into in a perilous
situation when a political rival is bludgeoned in the street. All the while he
struggles to come to terms with his current romantic feelings and how much they
are just echoes of past loves, misdirected expressions of gratitude, and coloured
by his need for independent means.
Trollope moves the reader through the
political, emotional and moral issues that arise with an assured hand and graceful
prose to a resolution of sorts; though as ever with this author, not
necessarily the outcome all readers would choose.
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