Liedzeit

2021-06-17

The Kelly’s and the O'Kellys

2/17/30

Wie neulich schon mal angedeutet, habe ich mein (Minimal-)Lebensziel durch die Lektüre von 15 Trollopes erreicht. Alles jetzt ist on Top. Und da ich seit Jahren mit dem Gedanken liebäugelte, mir mal eine Gesamtausgabe zuzulegen, dachte ich schlau, wenn nicht jetzt wann dann? Nun gibt es leider keine echte Gesamtausgabe. (Ich sah mal irgendwo in Amerika eine schöne 80-bändige von 18hundertirgendwas, aber die war auch nicht vollständig und jenseits meiner finanziellen Möglichkeiten.)

Es gibt eine Ausgabe der Romane der Trollope-Society, aber ich mochte es bunt lieber und so erwarb ich die der Folio-Society, alle Romane und die Autobiographie. 48 Bände. Schade, da ich eigentlich mindestens noch die Cicero-Biographie wollte. Aber gut. (Kam aus England übrigens, und ich musste für das Privileg, dass die jetzt nicht mehr zu uns gehören, 40 Euro Zoll zahlen.)

Und los ging es mit dem zweiten Roman, den der Mann geschrieben hat.

Review

One of my favourite Lucky Luke comics is Les Rivaux de Painful Gulch which tells the fascinating story of the conflict between the O'Timmins and the O'Haras. The title of this Trollope makes me think about that. Only there is no conflict between the Kelly’s and the O'Kelly’s. In fact the heroes of our tale Martin Kelly and Frank O'Kelly are sort of friends. Not really friend of course, because Frank is a Lord and Martin just the son of a shop owner. There is a social gap and so we get stories of two different worlds.

Now, both have one thing in common. They are inclined to marry a woman with a lot of money. Frank’s love, Fanny just inherited a fortune because her dear brother just passed away. Not surprisingly the money would be welcome. Frank is in debt. And he tends to loose money with gambling. And keeping race horses does not help. In fact Fanny does not like it. She is not happy and she lets her Guardian announce that the engagement is off. It is clear though that in the end they will be united. There is not much of a conflict. In fact the story line would have been kind of boring but for the genius of Trollope. The way the Guardian tries to get his son, Lord Killcullen, (who is even more of a gambler but will be an Earl some day and could be regarded as a better match because of this) to go for his cousin is just magnificent.

The subplot is much more exciting. Martin toys with the idea of making poor Anty his wife. She is wealthy because her father (who had worked for Frank’s father and made the fortune by ripping him off) left her half his money. There is no love involved, not really. Anty likes his honesty though. We are not sure what will happen.

Anty’s brother, Barry Lynch, is the evil guy of the tale. He thinks he should have received all the money. And in his evil way he considers killing his sister. Or let her be killed. He beats her. She flees to the house of the Kelly’s. The stress is too much for her and conveniently she gets sick and is about to die. I really thought she would not make it. But she did.

Evil brother now tries to bribe her doctor into murdering her. And now, I will not spoil it. (The book did spoil it for me by the way, because there is an illustration just before the little chat showing the good doctor’s reaction.)

Anyway. Everything comes to a happy conclusion. The main characters are all sort of boring (with Barry a bit too evil and Anty too good) but Trollope can create really strong lively supporting characters. There is Martin’s widow mother, Frank’s friend Dot Blake and Killcullen’s sister and a lawyer who gets hired by Barry. All of them would deserve a little doctoral thesis.

Final remark. I like the title but even better would have been: The Kelly’s and the O'Kealy's. Sounds so much better. 9/10