I have been inching along through Phineas Redux, reading my chapter a day but rarely more. It's fine; it's not riveting; I haven't especially cared about what's happening. But as I say, it's fine.
And then things get weird.
I am envisioning a fiery older sister whose opinion Trollope respected. One fine day she comes sailing into his house. "Anthony!" she bellows, smacking her fan against his desk, "what is the purpose of all this parliamentary nonsense? No one cares what Mr. Daubeny said about Mr. Gresham as they debated disestablishment! I've told you before: there was QUITE ENOUGH of that in book 2 of this endless series."
"But, Aspasia," he says meekly, "I think that speech by Mr. Daubeny is really rather fine."
"EXCITEMENT, Anthony," she says, narrowly missing his knuckles with another fierce rap of her fan. "The modern reader WILL HAVE excitement. Do you wish to lose all your readers to that theatrical Mr. Dickens, or only most of them?"
"Very well, Aspasia," he sighs. "I'll add in some gunfire."
She returns a week later. "Anthony," she said, "how you DO go on about these Cabinet appointments. What you really need to do is to bring back Lizzie Eustace."
"Oh, dear," sighs Trollope, "Lizzie Eustace is so vulgar that it pains me to write about her. It amuses me for a chapter or two and then she makes me positively dyspeptic."
Aspasia has been peering down at his newest chapter, and now she eyes him pitilessly over the top of her lorgnette. "If you aren't willing to suffer for your art, Anthony," she announces acidly, "then all the rest of us will have to do so."
"Very well, Aspasia. Lizzie Eustace you shall have."
Alas, after another week Aspasia is beside herself to discover that readers will be wading through more discussions of decimal coinage. "Anthony!" she roars. "Decimal coinage and disestablishment! Were you to seek out the most soporific subjects known to man you could hardly find any more suitable. I shudder to think what your readers have had to slog through. You must make it up to them."
Our long-suffering author has had enough. "Fine!" he says. "Out!" he says. "Excitement they shall have. Leave me in peace, Aspasia. I'll give them some excitement but you must let me write in peace."
What, he wonders, will keep Aspasia at bay? A murder, he decides. He'll throw in a nice little murder.
Whatever will become of the decimal coinage initiative now? The suspense! Who knew Trollope could be suspenseful?!
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