John Garforth (–2014)

This novelisation of the 26-episode 1970s BBC series based on Trollope's six Palliser novels is in a sense hack work. But, with some caveats, I must admit that it is well-done hack work; it flows and reads easily and its 250 pages tell a cogent story. Indeed the casual reader might not even notice the fact that time is telescoped considerably from that covered by the novels.

Another thing that reader might not notice is that two of the six novels have been mostly dispensed with. 'The Eustace Diamonds' rates only a couple of rather off-hand allusions, which appear rather strange and might better have been left out altogether. I do not blame the writer for such treatment, because it is true that that particular volume, as well as being uninteresting, is distinctly semi-detached from the rest of the series and it is hard to see how it could be easily made part of a sensible continuous narrative.

But the last novel, 'The Duke's Children' fares little better: barely ten pages suffice to summarise its content, with the futures of the three Plantagenet children pretty much omitted, as well as one of Trollope's best creations, Isabel Boncassen. This reduction goes further than the TV series does and is a great pity.

In the part of this work which covers 'The Prime Minister' we also see much less than in the TV series, let alone the original novels; Emily Wharton and her father make no first hand appearances at all although Trollope laboured long and hard over drawing them distinctively. The reality is that this book only deals properly with 'Can you Forgive Her?' and the two Phineas Finn books. It relentlesly concentrates on The Pallisers rather than seeking a rounder picture.

So overall this is a condensation of a TV series which despite its length (now well beyond TV budgets) is already a considerable condensation of Trollope's work. Much is lost, but I suppose that if just some people are encouraged to read the six novels then something good is left behind.… (altro)