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The Way We Live Now

Anthony Trollope

4.06 · Rating details · 11,494 ratings · 912 reviews

Trollope's 1875 tale of a great financier's fraudulent machinations in the railway business, and his daughter's ill-use at the hands of a grasping lover is a classic in the literature of money and a ripping good read as well. ...more

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Paperback, (Wordsworth Classics), 776 pages

Published June 5th 1995 by Wordsworth Editions (first published 1875)

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Oct 09, 2013 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing

”There are a thousand little silly softnesses which are pretty and endearing between acknowledged lovers, with which no woman would like to dispense, to which even men who are in love submit sometimes with delight; but which in other circumstances would be vulgar,— and to the woman distasteful. There are closenesses and sweet approaches, smiles and nods and pleasant winkings, whispers, innuendoes and hints, little mutual admirations and assurances that there are things known to those two happy o ...more

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Jun 18, 2020 Baba rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, classic

Consisting of 100 chapters and nearly a 1,000 pages in length, this satirical saga was one of the last great Victorian serials, and it was savaged by critics when it first began being periodically published in 1875. After years in the British colonies, Trollope returned to London and the South East only to be shocked by what he saw was the immorality and dishonesty that had seemed to go hand-in-hand with the growth of capitalism. He put together this, his longest work, taking no prisoners, satir Consisting of 100 chapters and nearly a 1,000 pages in length, this satirical saga was one of the last great Victorian serials, and it was savaged by critics when it first began being periodically published in 1875. After years in the British colonies, Trollope returned to London and the South East only to be shocked by what he saw was the immorality and dishonesty that had seemed to go hand-in-hand with the growth of capitalism. He put together this, his longest work, taking no prisoners, satirising business, politics, religion, the literary world, the media, the upper classes etc. and he also did not hide way from writing about prejudice, snobbery, domestic abuse, gender-based double standards, white collar crime and what is essentially male privilege!

This book is tremendous, the characters although emblematic of certain traits are still well rounded and very lifelike, and I felt as much pity, as I did horror, at even some of the worse characters. The attack on the idle rich is scathing, showing a world of buffoons swanning around smoking, boozing and gambling their lives away, and all this when they're not out there trying to get rich heiresses to fall in love with them. There are at least eight(!) entwined major story lines, but the coup de grace is the story line centred around one of the richest men in London trying to swagger his way to respectability, by lavishing money everywhere, seeking a place in Parliament... by using underhand white collar crime, and that's when he isn't busy trying to force his daughter to marry into aristocracy for his own betterment.

But what really makes this such a tremendous read is the whole being the sum of so many parts and being so meticulously and tightly plotted. You start off reading about these 30-40+ people from the mostly entitled past where millions live in deep poverty, and by the end of the book not only do you know each and everyone of them, you care about them! 10 out of 12, Five Star Read.

The killer thing is that nearly every thing he wrote about then, is pretty much still going on - white collar crime involving huge amounts of funds, that everyone goes along with as long as they get their cut; the insularity of the church; domestic abuse; gender-based double standards; privilege; the literary elite and paid for reviews; laddishness... Indeed the only thing that has changed in 150 years is that patriarchy has much less power in some house holds! ...more

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Sep 03, 2014 Alex rated it it was amazing

Shelves: rth-lifetime, 2014, top-100

Virginia Woolf called Middlemarch "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," one of my favorite things anyone's ever said about a book. They're sortof surprisingly rare, right?

Top Five Novels For Grown-Up People
5. Remains of the Day
4. War & Peace
3. Mrs. Dalloway
2. The Way We Live Now
1. Middlemarch

Here's another book for grown-up people. It has that vertiginous insight into human nature. It has a vast, complicated, working plot. And it's about grown-ups, by which I guess I mean ...more

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Apr 07, 2007 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: trollope

A great novel, perhaps Trollope's best. But it's not the one I usually recommend to those who have never read Trollope and want to try him. For one thing, it's very long. For another, it's pretty dark. There are a lot of characters in this novel, and almost every one of them views money as the summum bonum. That, after all, is the way we live now.

At the center of the novel is Augustus Melmotte, an ill-mannered foreigner of undetermined background, with whom in better times, Trollope believes, no ...more

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May 04, 2012 Sean rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: victorian, 19th-century, read-in-2012, trollope

The more that I read Victorian literature the more I am convinced that back in those days it was all about authors showing off. The educated public who could actually read and write were in much smaller proportion to the whole society than today. These people wanted to spend their hard earned shillings on something that was truly worth their time and money. The thought of watching television or films to fill people’s downtime would not appear until another half century or so. So what did people The more that I read Victorian literature the more I am convinced that back in those days it was all about authors showing off. The educated public who could actually read and write were in much smaller proportion to the whole society than today. These people wanted to spend their hard earned shillings on something that was truly worth their time and money. The thought of watching television or films to fill people’s downtime would not appear until another half century or so. So what did people do to entertain them and fill their time when they weren’t working? They read BIG ASS books.

Books such as Bleak House, Middlemarch, Vanity Fair, and this monstrosity, The Way We Live Now, were all (and still are) enormously popular. All hailed as masterpieces, all over 800 pages long, all demanding more time and attention than your overly possessive girlfriend. Yet these books still are read today from cover to cover and are placed prominently on all bookstore shelves.

My next question for you is this. Is reading a BIG ASS book such as The Way We Live Now, really worth my time and attention? Or am I better off turning on the television and watching reality TV which is obviously less difficult, no less time consuming, and requires significantly less brain power? My answer is simple. I believe that a book such as TWWLN is worth the time and effort. We read these old BIG ASS books because they take us to a long bygone time free from reality television, iPhones, and emails. They keep our minds sharp and words plentiful. They explore human imagination and they simultaneously entertain us. And they do so for what seems to be an eternity.

But what about TWWLN? How does this book, Trollope’s most famous novel, stand out as an absorbing read in its own right? Well, the first thing that I have to say about this is that Trollope’s writing here is about as good as it gets in the English language. Trollope, like his peers Collins and Dickens, is a master wordsmith. He can take an ordinary sentence and turn it into something clever and delicious. The second thing, which concerns plotting, is that this book is very average. The central plot concerning a Ponzi scheme initiated by a notorious French swindler among the aristocrat class of Victorian London was in itself groundbreaking and original. However, the various subplots which incorporate love triangles galore and the tedious drama and woes of marrying for money seem a little tired. Obviously, this book, written as a social commentary, dwelled upon these themes because they were the concerns of the time. My only issue with this is that these themes, like much of Victorian literature, follows too much in the footsteps of Jane Austin and doesn’t really add anything too imaginative to the genre. Also, I believe the love triangles were a little too numerous and various characters could have been removed to enhance the pacing of the novel.

Regardless of some of the flaws of this novel, I believe that TWWLN was a thoroughly enjoyable read and contained some of the most interesting and lifelike characters in all of literature. Trollope was known for his consistency so I will continue to explore his work. With over 40 novels written by his pen, there is a lot of ground to cover. Yet, TWWLN, has satisfied my current desire to read Trollope. At least for now.
...more

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Jul 14, 2019 Paul Bryant marked it as probably-never

Shelves: novels, abandoned

Given up for now, probably for ever. Too many Victorian novelists thought the only subject they could possibly make a novel out of was the broad satire of the upper classes, these awful families with their country houses in Berkshire and their town houses in Westmoreland Square and the huge comedy of their attempts to make Good Marriages and the endless parade of bad sons who gamble away the family porcelain so their brilliant sisters must marry fat old Lords and they all go to balls that all ge ...more

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Apr 20, 2019 Issicratea rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1800-1900, reviewed

I can see why people speak of The Way We Live Now (1875) as Trollope’s masterpiece. It’s quite superb. It’s a vast novel (a hundred chapters), but it never dragged in the least for me. Trollope is fairly light on description and leans hard on dialogue, with which he has a wonderfully deft touch.

I was always rather suspicious about this book when I read about its subject matter. I knew it was about a parvenu financier of suspiciously foreign origins, who was supposed to embody the corruption of I can see why people speak of The Way We Live Now (1875) as Trollope’s masterpiece. It’s quite superb. It’s a vast novel (a hundred chapters), but it never dragged in the least for me. Trollope is fairly light on description and leans hard on dialogue, with which he has a wonderfully deft touch.

I was always rather suspicious about this book when I read about its subject matter. I knew it was about a parvenu financier of suspiciously foreign origins, who was supposed to embody the corruption of the modern world; and I imagined it would be rather conservative and xenophobic in its values. In fact, it’s nothing of the kind. It’s the aristocratic Londoners who allow themselves to be bewitched by Augustus Melmotte’s dubiously-acquired lucre who come in for the keenest of Trollope’s satirical barbs. Melmotte himself, though certainly a monster, is allowed to acquire a certain tragic grandeur in his painfully protracted fall from grace. His illegitimate daughter Marie, meanwhile, who spends most of the novel being dangled as prey for impecunious titled fortune-hunters, finishes up as a splendid, scene-stealing, table-turning heroine—for me the standout character of the book.

The chief moral theme of TWWLN, as identified by Trollope in his autobiography, is the disturbingly contemporary one of the corrosive social effects of dishonesty when gilded by wealth and power. London in the 1870s is portrayed here as feverishly enthralled to money and disinclined to earn it by any form of solid labor. Melmotte’s dangerous games with the stock market are mirrored in the hapless, addictive gambling of the rabble of young London toffs who meet nightly in a louche club, the Beargarden—a brilliantly rendered comic location. In one tellingly symbolic scene, the handsome but rankly feckless anti-hero Sir Felix Carbury trades a fistful of worthless Beargarden IOUs for an equally nebulous handful of Melmotte’s mysteriously managed Mexican railway shares.

I broadly agree with Trollope’s own judgment that “the interest of the book lies with its wicked and foolish characters,” but I think he is a little hard on himself when he dismisses as tedious the more serious characters, who are the vehicles for the novel’s main, entangled love story: Hetta Carbury, Felix’s sister; Roger Carbury, their cousin and Hetta’s rejected lover; and Paul Montague, the young man Hetta loves. I thought Roger, in particular, was subtly handled. As a ruggedly honest country squire, the self-declared representative of old-fashioned values, his role initially seems to be that of moral antidote to “the way we live now.” Trollope is too clever for that, however. Although Roger is a mainly admirable character, he has his own flaws and snobberies and rigidities of judgment. The answer to the glittering corruption of the modern world is not a retreat into the old.

I could go on for pages here: this great, generous sprawl of a novel encompasses so many riches. I haven’t even mentioned the fabulous Winifred Hurtle, Paul’s complicating, spirited former love interest, nor the scheming, amoral, but not entirely unendearing would-be author Lady Carbury, Felix and Hetta’s mother. It is a sign of Trollope’s quality that he can even carry off fairly well a sub-plot involving a couple of Suffolk rustics, Ruby Ruggles and John Crumb, whose comic names and dialect-tinged speech made me initially fear some cringeably patronizing “let’s laugh at the peasantry” comic business. (One detail that struck me: domestic violence against women features in the stories of Ruby, of Lady Carbury, and of Marie Melmotte, in all cases sympathetically treated. That is a theme I don’t remember coming up explicitly in many other Victorian novels, with the exception of Wilkie Collins’s Man and Wife.)

A word of advice, to end with, for anyone tempted to try this novel: I was lured into reading it by watching an excellent 2001 BBC dramatization, which achieves the impressive feat of compressing its four hundred thousand-odd words into a mere four episodes. It didn’t spoil the novel for me that I knew the plot before I started (it’s not the kind of work that depends crucially on suspense), and it was a pleasure to read it with Andrew Suchet’s and Shirley’s Henderson’s unforgettable incarnations of Augustus and Marie Melmotte stamped on my mind. ...more

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Nov 20, 2016 Lizzy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: england-britain, historical-fiction, classics-literay-fiction, stars-4, read-2017

“Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking, that first matutinal retrospection, and prospection, into things as they have been and are to be; and the lowness of the heart, the blankness of hope which follows the first remembrance of some folly lately done, some word ill-spoken, some money misspent - or perhaps a cigar too much, or a glass of brandy and soda-water which he should have left untasted? And when things have gone well, how the waker comforts himself among the bedclothe

“Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking, that first matutinal retrospection, and prospection, into things as they have been and are to be; and the lowness of the heart, the blankness of hope which follows the first remembrance of some folly lately done, some word ill-spoken, some money misspent - or perhaps a cigar too much, or a glass of brandy and soda-water which he should have left untasted? And when things have gone well, how the waker comforts himself among the bedclothes as he claims for himself to be whole all over, teres atque rotundus - so to have managed his little affairs that he has to fear no harm, and to blush inwardly at no error!”

It took me a long time to write about this amazing book that I read about five months ago, but I am finally made the effort and rescued a rare inspiration to write a few lines with my thoughts. Better later than never.

With a satirical wit, Anthony Trollope creates in The Way We Live Now a fantastic melodrama with a large and rich cast of characters that together depict a scene of greed as corruption abounds; while plots of marital intrigue thrive, as pretty much everyone is trying to get married. Trollope’s characters are each and every one of them different, as it is in real life. As we read we discover that many are despicable, some are greedy; while many others are naive and sweet, or simply vulnerable and weak. It is a fact that his views on people led to a creation where just a few are noble.

Reading The Way We Live Now, I realized that what makes this book great are its amazing characters, its dozen subplots, and a biting satirical wit. Players, large and small, all wind up being interconnected in some way, as Trollope applied what he saw as greed, the pursuit of social connections and lack of class evident in London of his time.

There is no doubt that Trollope's' melodrama gifts us here with an amazing insight into human nature, that has not changed much with the passing of time.

Highly recommended. ...more

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Apr 27, 2017 Hana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: britain-ireland, classics, business-finance

Not just the way they lived in Britain in 1873, but the way we live now in 2017 America. Trollop wrote with sharp satiric intent about

a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, [that] has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous pala

...more

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Oct 15, 2008 Heather rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: patient readers

Shelves: desert-island-books

I first read this book back in... hmm... 1998? 1999? Loved it, and was inspired to pull it off the shelf for a re-read in light of the unfolding financial collapse/bail-out. Everything I read about Wall Street firms reminds me of the 4 guys gambling in their private club, the "Beargarden" -- crazy web of credits and worthless IOUs, all the players betting money they don't have, each one making his bets based on what the others owe him, and no prospect of them ever being sufficiently sober and "i ...more

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Oct 10, 2017 Katie Lumsden rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, 5-stars

As good the third time as the first. A brilliant, engaging read, a fascinating exploration of money, power and class in the Victorian period.

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Jul 29, 2011 John rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Very long, but one of the most readable and enjoyable books I have completed in a long time. It is in many respects an analysis of society's greed and financial corruption, which is of course still relevant. The characters are also brilliantly drawn and I repeatedly saw in many of them aspects of many people I know. ...more

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Jul 06, 2019 MJ Nicholls rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: pre-1900s, penguin-classics, novels, sassysassenachs

This is TWWLN. We have Augustus Melmotte, a tinpot proto-Trump, weaselling his malign mannerless ass into power and parliament. We have heaven-kissed moral fulcrum Roger Carbury, with his pathological jonesing to shag his boring cousin. We have Hetty Carbury, the boring cousin with no life prospects other than choosing which dullard will knock her up. We have Lady Carbury, a novelist whose efforts are roundly patronised and trampled upon by the critic Mr Alf, and the author, whom one suspects ha ...more

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Mar 07, 2016 Chrissie rated it did not like it

Shelves: classics, deals, relationships, great-britain, philo-psychol, victorian, 2016-read, dnf, audible-uk, hf

I have listened to half and I cannot stand it any more. Endlessly long and boring. If you have read one Trollope, you really needn't read more. The same themes are repeated over and over and over again. The same humor repeated umpteen times just isn't funny any more. Let me be clear, read one Trollope and you'll laugh. Read more and you will start to be bored.

What is this book about? The importance of money and social standing. Who will marry who? It is a given that women have no choice but to ...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Sue rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: britain, classics, kindle, literature, read-2013

This an epic telling of the Victorian era business world of London, invaded by an outsider, one Mr Melmotte (of uncertain and questionable background) who proceeds to take this financial realm by storm. It is also the story of various marital contrivances and government parody, the nouveau riche and the newly poor gentry, seemingly based on who can make the best financial deal. And lest the Western Hemisphere feel left out, there is also a somewhat specious sounding investment scheme introduced ...more

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Jan 19, 2017 Toni rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-owned

A brilliant satire shockingly apt for current times. A rich man appears on the scene promising much, everyone fawns around him without knowing anything of him except for his apparent richness, he gets elected to a position he doesn't understand, and when the crash comes, everyone blames everyone else. Very, very timely...... ...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, kindle, author-trollope

This book couldn't be more aptly titled, but don't think that makes it in the least boring. There are enough interesting characters and plenty of plot to keep you reading through all of it's lengthy pages.

It's all about money, you see: who's got it, who flaunts it, who will do what to get it, and who will marry because of it. There are intrigues, both financial and matrimonial; and scandals, both financial and matrimonial. Some parts, admittedly, are a bit melodramatic, but Trollope is such good ...more

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Aug 30, 2014 El rated it liked it

Shelves: big-effing-books, 19th-centurylit-late

Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking, that first matutinal retrospection, and pro-spection, into things as they have been and are to be; and the lowness of the heart, the blankness of hope which follows the first remembrance of some folly lately done, some word ill-spoken, some money misspent - or perhaps a cigar too much, or a glass of brandy and soda-water which he should have left untasted? And when things have gone well, how the waker comforts himself among the bedclothes a

Who does not know that sudden thoughtfulness at waking, that first matutinal retrospection, and pro-spection, into things as they have been and are to be; and the lowness of the heart, the blankness of hope which follows the first remembrance of some folly lately done, some word ill-spoken, some money misspent - or perhaps a cigar too much, or a glass of brandy and soda-water which he should have left untasted? And when things have gone well, how the waker comforts himself among the bedclothes as he claims for himself to be whole all over, teres atque rotundus - so to have managed his little affairs that he has to fear no harm, and to blush inwardly at no error!
(p 274)

It's late and the wine has almost worn off, so I'm sleepy. But I was hellbent on finishing this book tonight. Thankfully for all, I don't have to wake up in a few hours to go to work, because no one in my office would care that I am crabby(ier) than usual because I stayed up too late finishing Trollope.

I feel like I've been reading this book forever. I was really into it for the first half of the book or so, and then took a break for themed reads in October. Returning to it in November was exceptionally difficult, and it's hard for me to tell if my mood towards the book changed or if there was a shift in the story's tone. I think, actually, there's a little bit of both.

There's been a lot of chatter about how Trollope was a better author than Dickens, but for some reason Trollope never got the same sort of lovin' that Dickens received. I actually agree with that - and that's after reading quite a few Dickens and this was my only Trollope so far. I feel like with Dickens you know what you're going to get; and since this was my first Trollope, it's arguable that I enjoyed it more in some ways because I didn't know what to expect.

That being said, as delicious as this book was in parts (where Dickens often can be really boring in comparison), I'd say even more delicious than Trollope was Benito Pérez Galdós - at least in Fortunata and Jacinta: Two Stories of Married Women.

The aspects of this book I enjoyed more involved Trollope's honesty. I've read a lot of Victorian novels, and I would say direct references to domestic violence, for example, are rather rare. There might be indirect references, maybe a metaphor for something, but in this book there is very open discussion, as flippant at times as it might be. I found this refreshing, actually.

While some of the characters of fantastically portrayed, I feel others were there merely as plot points, which made them feel bland in comparison. I found this disappointing at times; for such a long book one would expect more character development all around, though in reality I feel we only got a good sense of a select few.

This is a heavy book and covers a lot of ground with a lot of characters. I agree with many readers in that the wrap-ups at the end left a bit to be desired, but also that I want for them what I would expect from a 21st-century perspective which would have been crazy idealistic (and unrealistic) for the 19th-century.

Whatever. I need more wine. ...more

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Nov 21, 2013 Joe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

With the financial/economic turmoil over the last several years, (mortgage bubble/crisis, bank bail-outs, trading losses, Bernie Madoff, etc.), greed and avarice in the news and the air, The Way We Live Now has made a resurgence. For instance the 140+ year old novel making the recommended reading lists of The Daily Beast/Newsweek. The story goes that Trollope, after returning home from a lengthy trip abroad, was appalled at the new England he found - greedy and money obsessed, with financial sca With the financial/economic turmoil over the last several years, (mortgage bubble/crisis, bank bail-outs, trading losses, Bernie Madoff, etc.), greed and avarice in the news and the air, The Way We Live Now has made a resurgence. For instance the 140+ year old novel making the recommended reading lists of The Daily Beast/Newsweek. The story goes that Trollope, after returning home from a lengthy trip abroad, was appalled at the new England he found - greedy and money obsessed, with financial scandals aplenty. So Trollope being Trollope, put his impressions down on paper and the result is this, the author’s longest novel – that last bit – the good news and bad news.

At its core The Way We Live Now is satire – jaded and cynical - and one needs to keep that in mind when reading this very lengthy novel. And although there are protagonists, there are no heroes here. In fact virtually all of the characters in this novel are unlikeable; you will be rooting for no one. (There is a newspaper editor and a Carbury cousin – each tolerable, but only in comparison.) That doesn’t mean this novel isn’t engaging and entertaining – it is – if for no other reason than thanking your lucky stars you are not one of the cast. Because although they may be unlikeable - in fact a few are downright loathsome - the characters are extremely well-developed and real enough to trip your schadenfreude switch.

The plot revolves around financier Augustus Melmotte - aloof, mysterious and “foreign” – he’s also not all he claims to be. Most of the other characters are in one way or another trying to get a piece of the Melmotte financial pie – which includes the hand of his unmarried “daughter”. (The select few who aren’t involved in the hunt find the money man odious.) And that’s the “fun” of this novel – everyone is scheming and everyone knows everyone is scheming.

Just to highlight –

There is Widow Carbury, a mediocre author at best, narcissist extraordinaire and mother of two adult children - a vapid and insipid daughter and a true bum of a son – both progeny living at home. Momma C. is doing her best to advance their interests, meaning really her own. The son and his chums, none of them employed, spend most of their waking hours at the only club that will have them – the Beargarden – drinking, playing cards and swapping gambling IOUs.

Also worth mentioning is “young” Georgiana Longestaffe, the epitome of a spoiled brat. And several minor characters that could have come straight from a Charles Dickens novel – Attorneys Slow and Bideawhile and literary agents Leadham and Loiter.

I’m just scratching the surface here. There is a U.S. connection and the Carbury son mentioned above – Felix – is one of the better scoundrels of Victorian literature. Ironically when first published The Way We Live Now was panned – possibly the mirror Trollope held up to his countrymen resulting in too stark a reflection. That the novel is still topical speaks volumes. The complaint that this novel is too long is accurate. It is too long, but still a wonderful read. ...more

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Feb 12, 2010 ·Karen· rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: brits, 19th-century

I have to admit that I got a tiny little bit impatient with this. It is admittedly a comprehensive portrayal of an age, the 1870s when money, and indeed speculative money, stock market gambles and credit based on nothing more concrete than a reputation for being rich began to take over as the ticket to high society, instead of the privilege that went with the aristocratic title. The Lords and Baronets and other gentlemen are all impecunious, none can any longer afford to continue to live in the ...more

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Jul 03, 2013 J. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: this-england, nice-day-for-a-white-wedding

Quid Pro Quo
With a large book of recognized stature, there is some tendency to create a similarly big review, something that mirrors the scale and gravitas of the work at hand. Better to think small here, but we'll see.

On The Make
While Trollope's The Way We Live Now does manage to instill an appreciation of the sizeable effort it must have taken, there is simply way too much here to really merit the giant appreciative kudos. Eight hundred and twenty-five pages in the Modern Library edition, and ...more

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Nov 24, 2016 Helen rated it really liked it

After having just binge read all of George Eliot’s novels, I, at first, missed Eliot’s beautiful prose, but soon got lost in Trollope’s story and all was good. For such a long book with so many characters, I found it actually quite easy to follow the characters and plot. That alone is much to Trollope’s credit as a writer. There was bad and good in all the characters to one degree or another. The Way We Live Now is still the way we live now - nothing has changed fundamentally - corruption abound ...more

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Nov 17, 2014 Sherwood Smith added it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, history-19th-c, satire

I think it’s fairly well known by Trollope readers what he said about this book: he came back to England after a long trip (which included San Francisco) to discover how sordidly his fellow countrymen delved into shady financial shenanigans. Morality, he felt, went right out the window if the fortunes were high enough.

And so he set out to write a satire.

Trollope is one of those authors whose novels make absorbing reading, but who never quite attain greatness. His contemporaries scorned him, esp ...more

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Sep 08, 2007 Sharon rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Anyone

Shelves: booksalreadyread

This is one of the author's greatest work. Among its greatnesss is the irony of the title--it is truly, with a few adjustments for modern technology, the way we live NOW. We have much more in common with the Victorian's than we ever think about--they too were bombarded by the media, attracted by the lure of easy money in an unpredictable stock market, thrilled by the possibilities of travel that had opened to them even as they were ambivalent about foreigners coming into their country and earnin ...more

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Aug 28, 2015 Jane rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Before I fell in love with Trollope, sometime in the spring of last year, I couldn’t have told you a great deal about his books, but I would have told you that I understood ‘The Way We Live Now’ to be his biggest, his greatest, his most enduring work. That was why I felt I should read it in the year of his bicentenary, as, in between his two famous series, I explore his stand-alone novels.

Now that I’ve read it I can’t disagree with my earlier evaluation. I found the Trollope I loved, but I found ...more

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May 14, 2017 antiquarian reverie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: trollope, english-writer, 1800, romance

This is my second time reading Trollope and I enjoyed all 100 chapters. I was hoping for another ending but mine was not as realistic. I find his characters so engaging and especially the American divorcee who had so much spark and life to her which made me feel akin to her because of her spunk. There are several storylines which do connect to the characters to each other and keeps things very active to the very end. The business of marriage is quite interesting in these times as well as the cha ...more

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Feb 28, 2008 Susan Harter rated it it was amazing

I'm just re-reading this and wow, what a fabulous book. A great big rollicking read, and the BBS version of this with David Suchet (famous as Inspector Poirot on PBS's "Mystery") is amazing as the financial swindler, Melmotte. In fact, the BBS version is one of those rare adaptation that I don't sit through muttering about how they "ruined" the book! ...more

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Nov 30, 2010 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: victorian, rich-people, england, audiobook, british-literature, classic, literary, all-time-favorites, 19th-century

This was a fantastic melodrama, worthy of being compared with any other Victorian novel, with a large cast of characters, a dozen subplots, and a biting, satirical wit that Trollope applied to what he saw as the greed and lack of class evident in London in his day. Other reviewers have commented on how Augustus Melmotte is entirely believable as a 19th century Bernie Madoff, and his ponzi scheme house of cards has been seen over and over again on Wall Street. But if The Way We Live Now were just This was a fantastic melodrama, worthy of being compared with any other Victorian novel, with a large cast of characters, a dozen subplots, and a biting, satirical wit that Trollope applied to what he saw as the greed and lack of class evident in London in his day. Other reviewers have commented on how Augustus Melmotte is entirely believable as a 19th century Bernie Madoff, and his ponzi scheme house of cards has been seen over and over again on Wall Street. But if The Way We Live Now were just a book about greedy high society types being taken in by a con man, it wouldn't have as much to recommend it. What makes this book great are the characters, from Melmotte himself to the many other players large and small, all of whom do wind up being interconnected in some way, though not all tie into the central storyline.

Of course a great deal of the book is taken up by marital intrigue -- that is to say, pretty much everyone is trying to get married. Some are trying to marry for love, some for financial security, some start seeking one and wind up choosing the other, but there are so many couples and would-be couples in this book, you almost need a dance card. They're each and every one of them different, with their own vividly described motives. Some are dastardly, some are grasping, some are naive and sweet, some are vulnerable, some are just weak. A few are even noble. But it's all a grand drama, and Trollope, paid by the word like most authors in his day, gets to indulge the reader in chapters full of resolution for each individual character in a way that modern novels, which favor tightness and paring away of unnecessary subplots and secondary characters, don't allow. It's a big, wordy book but if you like dramas, every bit of it is entertaining.

Fans of Dickens or Austen should love this; of course Trollope was a late Victorian author, so a contemporary of Dickens and well after Austen's time, but the class inequality, mismatched lovers, and balancing of love and affection with financial security is certainly reminiscent of Austen's themes. Trollope writes from a male POV, of course, but his women turn out to be just as well realized (and have as much agency, within the restrictions their society allows them) as the male characters; I think Dickens often didn't do as good a job of writing female characters.

Lastly, I listened to this as an audiobook (32 hours! It's one of those books that Audible.com periodically puts on sale for $4.95), and I think it made it even more entertaining. The narrator was excellent, and brought just the right tone to his reading to bring out the wry humor that might not be quite as evident if you're reading Trollope's rather dry, stiff 19th century prose off the page. ...more

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Jan 03, 2010 Jane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics

I just reread this wonderful classic and was as entranced as ever by the vivid portraits. Because of David Suchet's unforgettable portrayal of Mr Melmotte, I pictured him in that part!

How is it that Trollope manages to portray each of his characters so well that we feel a certain sympathy for even the villains? He is somehow able to explain the workings of the mind of very flawed people in such a way as to make them a sort of individual Greek tragedy. Each of his characters always seem to end up ...more

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Mar 08, 2013 John rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, audible

Timothy West did an excellent job narrating this book! The 32 hours flew by, with only one plotline that actually dragged the story a bit (Sir Felix - Ruby Ruggles - John Crumb). If you've seen the BBC Production starring David Suchet, you've got the basic idea, but the book goes into greater detail of the characters' lives, especially Melmotte's daughter Marie. All of those good-for-nothing nobility were obnoxious enough to have me considering membership in the Socialist Workers Party! ...more

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Never too Late to...: 2020 April-June The Way We Live Now	50	37	Jun 05, 2020 05:26PM
The Readers Revie...: The Way We Live Now: May 3-9: Ch 89-96	17	17	May 22, 2020 01:47PM
The Readers Revie...: The Way We Live Now May 10-16: Ch 97-100 and overall impressions	35	22	May 17, 2020 06:02PM
The Readers Revie...: The Way We Live Now: Reading Schedule	15	42	May 09, 2020 07:44PM
The Readers Revie...: The Way We Live Now Apr 26-May 2: Ch 81-88	15	15	May 05, 2020 12:58PM
The Readers Revie...: The Way We Live Now Apr 19-25: Ch 73-80	9	13	May 03, 2020 04:54PM
The Readers Revie...: The Way We live Now Apr 12-18: Ch 65-72	25	19	May 01, 2020 01:34PM

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About Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope

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Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day.

Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans ha ...more

Books by Anthony Trollope

The Warden (Chronicles of Barsetshire, #1)

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“Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.” — 46 likes

“There was but one thing for him;- to persevere till he got her, or till he had finally lost her. And should the latter be his fate, as he began to fear that it would be, then, he would live, but live only, like a crippled man.” — 19 likes

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