An apealing character
As I have commented on other reviews of Trollope's books, his characters and dramatic situations tend to be narrowly focused. You will encounter people in financial distress in his books, but you will almost never encounter the kind of poverty found in the pages of Dickens, or other writers of that era. None of the writers of this era believed in brevity, and the verbosity in Trollope is often repetitive. Phineas Finn, for all that, is one of Trollope's most appealing creations. He is a lower middle-class Irishman elected to the British Parliament as a young man. Women flock to him, and he returns the interests of several of them. He even fights a duel over one of the women he pursues. The other dueler remains a close friend to Finn, in spite of all that. There is, by the way, no dueling scene. That part of the story is narrated second-hand, mostly. If you want fire, smoke and dead bodies in your reading, Trollope is not the writer for you. With reservations, however, this is a worthwhile book. Simon Vance does his usual outstanding job reading the story. Vance really keeps interest up, which, given the surplus of words in this book, is a fine achievement.