This is the weakest novel in the Palliser series because the protagonist, Phineas Finn, is a trifling, uninteresting person. He is a young man with political ambitions but no money, so he runs around London trying to foist himself on some rich woman who can finance his career. Phineas Finn’s superficiality makes his endless “fallings in love” with one woman after another feel quite repetitive.
By the end of this coming-of-age novel, Phineas is thirty and finally, with enormous effort and endless whining, manages not to be a complete toad. That’s a great achievement for him but fails to impress readers used to Trollope’s complicated, deep, and admirable male characters.
It’s still a good novel that I enjoyed because of the humor, the language, and the quirky portrayal of England’s political system. But I hope nobody makes it the first Trollope novel they read because it’s not representative of how strong the rest of his writing is.
Clarissa's Blog 
I think that Phineas Finn becomes a more interesting character in the later books than he is in this one. Even so, his entire career throughout the series is based on acquiring the help of influential patrons and wealthy women.
Although that’s a trajectory shared by many of the men in Trollope’s books. It’s more pronounced in the Barsetshire series. I’m thinking mainly of the romance plots that serve as the “B” plots in those novels*. My recollection is that for quite a few of the male characters their main job is to marry a rich woman. Even then, it seems like they mostly go hunting and hang out at their clubs while the women arrange everything. Their only real job is to show up at the alter.
*I appreciate how honest Trollope is. In one of the books, he introduces the romance subplot by coming right out and telling the reader that he’s not really interested and is only including it because it’s expected that novels will have one.
(commenter formerly known as AcademicLurker)
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I never got into the Barsetshire series. The Warden was so tedious, it put me straight off. I’ll try again because I don’t want the whole series to escape from me.
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The Warden is definitely the least engaging of the bunch.
(commenter formerly known as AcademicLurker)
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