I'm reading Trollope novel #22, which has the improbable title Is He Popenjoy?, and we are just about to meet two characters whose advent has been the subject of exclamation-point-filled dread for many chapters. These characters come from the Bad Place: Italy.
Perhaps you have never thought of Italy as a bad place. Perhaps you even like Italy; perhaps you plan to visit Italy someday. But Trollope would like you to re-evaluate. Any time you encounter the label "Italian," know that it actually means "under a permanent cloud of suspicion."
It took me a while to figure this out. In Marion Fay, a character is discovered to be an Italian nobleman, and I failed to grasp the full implications of this discovery at the time. Would you want to be a nobleman under a permanent cloud of suspicion? I thought not. You'd probably renounce your title too.
I didn't tell you about Lady Anna aside from my introduction to it via the Trollope Society (I figure there are probably limits on the number of Trollope posts you are willing to read), but Lady Anna's father was a nasty piece of work. We know this in part because of his romantic involvement -- in Italy. (Parenthetically, to the few of you who are intrigued by Trollope, Trollope's treatment of Lady Anna reminds me of the ending he wrote for John Eames. Both of them surprised me.)
Oh! Also! I'd never thought about this before, but there's a character in Barchester Towers whom we're supposed to regard as indolent -- a sketchy guy with a sketchy family -- and guess where he just spent twelve years? Italy, that's where!
Italy seems like a strange place to vilify, but Trollope apparently had very firm ideas about it. I guess I'll have to wait and see what these characters get up to. It seems unlikely to bring happiness to our heroine.
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