Trollope teaser

Reading Zola reminded me that it's a while since I've read any Trollope so I'm currently working my way through 'Phineas Redux', 'Phineas Finn' wasn't my favourite Trollope read and after the high of 'The Eustace Diamonds' I've been procrastinating a bit over finishing the Palliser series. This is also partly because even when he's good (and when he's good he's very good) Trollope can be quite hard work. The books are long, often repetitive, and full of details about hunting and in this case parliament. If I didn't find it interesting I wouldn't be reading the book in the first place, the humour is often in the details, and generally it's all part of the charm but it imposes a slower reading pace than I'm used to. In short it's taken me a week to read the first hundred pages because it's taken forever to wade through the early parliamentary stuff and I've found it impossible to dip in and out and have it make sense. The upside is that after a hundred pages it's all started happening, there are at least 4 plots on the go, murder the blurb mentions hasn't even happened yet, and somehow I managed to get through 80 pages over lunch.

I also found this quote which shows that some things really don't change ''Morals! Morals! We shall be able to say that we've done our best to promote domestic virtue and secure forgiveness for an erring wife. You've no notion, Finn, in your mind of what will soon be the hextent of the duties, privileges, and hinfluences of the daily press...''

Also, and I'm tempted to look into this but a bit worried about what I might find - when I googled images for 'Phineas Redux' a lot of stills from Xena Warrior Princess came up. That's odd isn't it?