Book Notes: Anthony Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds

Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds is hardcore good. It’s the best I have read by him so far. I often say that Trollope does an amazing study of character but he’s not big on plot. The Eustace Diamonds, however, is not remotely lacking in the plot department. There’s a crime, a police investigation, and even a bit of courtroom drama. It’s an edge-of-your-seat novel that is a joy to read.

The novel is built on the contrast between the penniless, homely and saintly Lucy Morris and wealthy, lying and pretty Lizzie Eustace. Lucy is so saintly that Trollope is clearly bored with her and describes the flawed Lizzie with much greater gusto. Lizzie is a fascinating character. She is cognitively incapable of fully understanding what’s happening around her. She lives in an intellectual fog, confused by much of what’s happening around her. To avoid having to unravel the complexities of her domestic economy and the relationships of people who surround her, Lizzie swaps the bits of reality that befuddle her for comforting stories she invents. This always leads to trouble because reality cannot be changed with words.

The only people who can read a novel by Trollope are those with an IQ way above Lizzie’s retardation level. When they meet a Lizzie, they find such a person impossible to comprehend. Why is she lying in such obvious ways and for no visible gain? Why is she mismanaging her life to such an extent? In The Eustace Diamonds, we get a chance to peek into the mind of a low-intelligence fantasist and understand her better.

The novel also takes a look at a very dark subject in its exploration of the suffering of a young girl who is pushed into adult sexuality for which she is not ready and which terrifies her. Lucinda Roanoke is 18, and her aunt Mrs Carbuncle is forcing her to marry an older man. Lucinda is so petrified by the expectation that she will have to be physically intimate with a man that her suffering would melt a stone. Still, everybody around her looks with indifference at the agony of a teenager who is simply not ready for an adult sex life.

We no longer have families forcing young girls to marry against their will but our age witnesses an identical suffering of many modern Lucindas. We can see them in the videos of falling-down-drunk young girls in the streets of London or New York as they try to anaesthesize themselves with alcohol into a compliance with the myth that their sexuality should faithfully imitate that of their male peers. There is no exploitative aunt forcing them into it because they have taken that duty fully upon themselves.

Many things changed since Trollope’s times but his plots and characters read as mega relevant today. He’s an extraordinary writer, and I highly recommend his books.