Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Pallisers Part 6 - Mr. Finn Goes to London

"Everytime we say good bye...I cry a little..."

Yep - it is the end of "Can You Forgive Her" and the beginning of "Phinneas Finn". It ended well.

I still don't see how Alice is the hero, Kate, except she prevents Glencora from running away/chasing after Burgo. But, since Glencora does stay with Plantagenet, she falls in love (and he falls in love) and they have babies - so I guess Alice had a hand in it.

And Alice gets a man too - Mr. Grey finally showed some real spunk when he proposes. He ain't milk - he's gin :)

Plantagenet also SMILES in this part, a first for him. Very pleased that he could show emotion when he learns his first child is to be born.

The one thing I will credit Trollope with, as well as the series creators, is a smooth transition from Glencora and Plantagenet as protagonists to Phinneas Finn, an Irish ladies' man (bow-chicka...ok,ok, not appropriate...).

Phinneas seems alright - comes to London with big ideas and a lot of spirit. Let's hope it lasts.

The DVD set is sectioned into three parts: red discs, blue discs, green discs. I just have one more disc to go to finish the red ones, and I think I will do one more review of that (so a review of parts 7 & 8).

Then I will do a review of the blue and green discs separately. As much as I love writing all these little reviews, it is a bit much to review every disc or part, so I think just a review of the eight episodes would be good.

So, the next post will also have Phinneas Finn spoilers, so if you haven't read it yet, you might not want to read it (I will tag it).

Kate, you know I am talking to you :)

Overall, I didn't think I would like this series, but it is highly fascinating. The hubbster is always drawn in when I have it on.

But I have a feeling that the plot of the series has been very streamlined from the plot of the book. I own a book called "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Played" that gives an account of life in Victorian England overall - the politics, laws, and money system are discussed in detail (unlike the Victorian Home which is an equally fascinating book, but only describes the home life). I wanted to re-read parts of the book because of all the politics and seasons in the Palliser series.

When I looked up "Can You Forgive Her" in the index and examined the passages, 30% of the time the book mentions characters that were not in the series. So I am sure Trollope's books are much richer and detailed than the DVDs, but some how I think I will watch this series and not read the books.

Unless there are other Trollope books that folks recommend.

1 comment:

Katy said...

Well, I'm not too worried about spoilers since it sounds like Can You Forgive Her? was somewhat different from the book. The book was much more about Alice--she was the one the reader was asked to forgive, for going from George to Mr Grey back to George and then back Mr Grey again. Glencora and Mr Palliser were supporting characters, to my surprise (since I knew the TV series focused on them).

I have started reading Phineas Finn, and am taking it with me to the lake, so maybe I'll have it finished by the time I check your blog again.

So far I am not enjoying this series NEARLY as much as the Barsetshire novels--I'd really recommend those to you. The series starts with The Warden, which is a nice short intro.