Here's what I wrote after reading in 1985: "Another picture of Victorian England provided by Trollope. The dominant themes are the American senator's blunt observations of English life and Arabella Trefoil's calculative manipulations to gain a Lord as husband. ('English marriage market')". Not a well-known Trollope although has gain attention for it's strong descriptions of fox-hunting (well, there you go). ( )

Trollope's one of those authors where I always feel that my favourite of his books is whichever one I've most recently read. I think this is because the characters and places he writes about feel so real to me that they almost carry on living in my mind after I've finished the book. The American Senator is one of his less well known works but no exception to this rule.

Despite what the title might lead you to believe this novel is entirely set in the small, rural English town of Dillsborough (as Trollope comments in one of his direct remarks to the reader, the book might perhaps have been better called The Chronicle of a Winter at Dillsborough). I found the first few chapters to be rather hardgoing as Trollope rapidly introduces us to the majority of the inhabitants of the town and their history (so many characters were introduced so quickly I had to write out a list) but once I got into the swing of things I was completely absorbed with Dillsborough and its inhabitants.

The American Senator was published serially in 1876-1877 and, like his other novels written around this period, challenges the role of women in Victorian society, the marriage market and other aspects of upper class English life. In this book he does this mainly through the character of Arabella Trefoil, who is now one of my faourite anti-heroines in literature, and her attempts to catch herself a husband. Arabella is 'cold, clever and conniving', she is the niece of a Duke but not beloved of society or rich and has to work hard to get invitations for herself and her mother (who is truly awful). Arabella isn't portrayed totally without sympathy however - she is honest and upfront about what she's doing (in a way that Lizzie Eustace in The Eustace Diamonds isn't) and I think Trollope shows that in a sense all the other society women are basically doing the same thing as Arabella. They just have better support from family and friends and less honesty about it.

The eponymous American senator is a Mr Gotobed who has been invited to England by Arabella's fiance, Mr John Morton. Mr Gotobed weaves in and out of the narrative viewing England with a foreigner's eyes and providing comedy and criticism of English society at the time. It's to Trollope's credit that a number of the criticisms Mr Gotobed levels against English life are against things like fox-hunting that I know Trollope was passionately fond of and to a 21st century reader most of the Senator's criticisms seem very valid and form some of the funniest parts of the book.

Personally I think this deserves to be more well known and it was lovely to read a slightly lighter and more comic novel as an interlude to the Palliser series. ( )

Arabella and her mother (despite their extreme poverty!) have been travelling in the US and met John Morton, the British ambassador to Washington and Senator Gotobed from the state of Mikewa. Arabella has become engaged to John and all four return to England and stay at John's country home. Senator Gotobed has come to observe English habits and customs and throughout the book behaves in a thoroughly annoying (both to me and to those he meets) fashion, acquiring a very superficial knowledge in a given area and pontificating on how irrational it all is in a way offensive to his host and listeners. Arabella, who has been trying to get a husband for 12 years (so she must be 30ish), goes off John and transfers her attentions to the richer Lord Rufford. Rufford kisses her but has no intention of marrying her and then the efforts she makes to entrap him and those he makes to escape take up most of the book. There is also a sub-plot involving John's cousin Reginald, the attorney's daughter, Mary, and her suitor Mr Twentyman.

This was in many ways a frustrating novel; Trollope and Gotobed had some good points about the absurdity of hunting (oh yes, pages and pages of the stuff), suffrage and church patronage and if Trollope had given Gotobed a sense of humour or an ability to appreciate nuance or to really listen, then I as reader might have been willing to listen. As it was, I longed for the chapters where the senator was absent. Arabella and Rufford started off entertaining, but the attempts to pin him down began to drag for me. Also, while she was clearly a heartless adventuress, he did behave really badly, so perhaps Miss Penge was a just punishment. Mary and Reginald, on the other hand, were lovely. Reginald's character blossomed out of all recognition and the proposal scene was very nicely done. ( )

I listened to the audiobook, which was of varying quality but mostly quite enjoyable. I'm finding the trend in Trollope that getting through the opening chapters that lays it all out is the hard part and then I'm completely sucked in once it gets going. It was the same here, hard to follow in the opening chapters and then I couldn't stop. At one point I thought it almost too cynical for even me but I began to find more of the humanity in some of the characters and loved to dislike others. I think I am well on a Trollope kick now.

Of all Trollope's novels this has perhaps the most complex opening chapters, setting the scene for a story of what happens when an american senator comes into contact with a particular layer of English county society. The whole intricate tale is very carefully done, and the end result is satisfying but you need patience at first. Has a good deal on fox hunting so not necessarily for the squeamish. ( )