Enter Sir Robert by Angela Thirkell

I read some place that in any trilogy the middle book or work is always the weakest because its only role is to act as a place holder in between what was introduced in the first work and culminates in the third and final.  I can think of a number of cases where this is true, for example in Arnold Bennett's Clayhanger trilogy, the middle work Hilda Lessways is by far the weakest - in fact one could skip it without missing much.  The first (Clayhanger) and third (These Twain) are in my opinion great books.  Other examples come to mind as well - the middle work of the original Star Wars triliogy and even to some degree, The Two Towers in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  One case where this is not true (or at least in my view) is in the three parts of Henry VI by Shakespeare - Part II is much more than a place holder containing some of the key parts of the three plays.  That might be evidence for theory that originally there were only two parts (Parts II and III) and that part I is a later addition.

I was thinking about this while finishing latest venture in to Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels - Enter Sir Robert.  Anyone who writes a series of almost 30 books can be excused for doing some place holding and there seems to be more of that in this book.  The novel focuses on the Graham and Halliday families, the latter have played only a minor part in the series primarily around Sylvia Halliday's marriage into the Leslie family.  The Grahams, however, are a major part of the series, Agnes Graham was Agnes Leslie and the Leslie family plays a prominent role throughout.  The Sir Robert in the title is Agnes' husband who is a career army officer, always away from home except for weekends that are never described in any of the novels.  I think I am correct in saying that up to this work, he is included only once in a report of a brief conversation between he and Agnes.  Sir Robert does enter this book, but as usual it is done with a Thirkellesque touch and I will say no more than that.  Another major character in the book is their youngest child Edith, the Grahams have six children, three of each, yet interestingly the boys are hardly mentioned while all three daughters play significant roles.

While Edith's age is not mentioned, she is clearly now a young woman and not surprisingly her future especially related to marriage seems like it will be the usual romantic element in the novel.  However Thirkell departs from her standard formula which is a major reason why the book seems more designed as a place holder for what will follow in the last five (I think) books.  I am not going to say anything more than that so as not to spoil the ending for anyone - I accidentally learned the ending shortly before finishing the book and that is never enjoyable.

None of this is to suggest that I didn't enjoy Sir Robert.  More than some of her other works it seemed like every page was full of the beauty and charm of the English countryside.  Part of what I think Thirkell's novel accomplish is to give a fuller picture of the landed gentry - a group that is sometimes portrayed elsewhere as simply living in unearned luxury on the backs of the poor lower class.  These novels give a more complete picture - a sense of landowners as people with a business to run with responsibilities to those who are tenants and live on their land.  A lot of this way of life comes to an end during the period covered by the novels, I don't completely know the history, but I think it has to do with high inheritance taxes on people who are land rich, but cash poor, making it hard to pass on a way of life to the next generation.

Inheritance taxes are not the only death related issues in Thirkell's novels, any series that covers 30 or so years is going to include some deaths in additions to births and growing up.  All of the deaths seem to come of old age and most of them take place off stage as it were.  At the same time there is some reflection on the what it means to approach the end of one's life.  Take, for example, the following passage that appears fairly early in Enter Sir Robert about the aging squire Leonard Halliday:

"For when the appointed hour has come, we have to go and the willingness is all.  Leonard Halliday had done his duty as well as most or us do, indeed better, and now he must go through the door."

Mr. Halliday is still alive at the end of the book, but much is written about how difficult it is for him to be unable to be out running the farm.  What struck me from this passage was the line "the willingness is all," which is, of course, a corruption of the famous line from Hamlet, "the readiniess is all."  Thirkell uses this corruption frequently in the later Barsetshire novels and since she clearly knew she was changing the Shakespeare original it makes me wonder what she was up to.  While both readiness and willingness can mean the same thing, to me "readiness" in Hamlet seems to suggest taking some action so that "willingness" at least in this case seems to mean something more like acceptance.  Perhaps there is a connection to a country way of life where the changes of the season and the cycles of life are more evident.  Possibly "willingness" has to do with accepting what is the natural course of life allowing each of us to make a good ending.  Regardless of whether there is anything to my speculations this to me is another example of how much deeper Thirkell's work is than it might at first appear.