The Way We Live Now

Parts 1 & 2

By: Anthony Trollope

Narrated by: Flo Gibson

Everyone thinks Augustus Melmotte, a new arrival in London, is a wealthy financier - until he is caught in a forgery scheme.

This is a satirical look at immorality and dishonesty as Trollope saw them in the worlds of business, politics, journalism, literature, and society on his return from the colonies in 1872. Scoundrels, coquettes, swindlers, and intriguers abound in this novel, which is often called his masterpiece.

Public Domain (P)1995 Audio Book Contractors, Inc.

Critic reviews

"One of the great English Victorian novelists....A sharp but sympathetic observer of Victorian social and political life." (Daniel S. Burt, The Biography Book)

Quality problems mar the production!

This is my favorite of all the Trollope novels, but I'm sad to say that this is the only download I have ever had from Audible that has quality problems. The recording is flawed, or perhaps the cassette tape was worn, about 2/3 of the way through part 1, and this keeps happening. Flo Gibson's voice does take a bit of getting used to. Choose the other Audible version of this wonderful novel, in which we see our own times reflected so well.

Great book, uneven narrator

I love Trollope, and I think this is his very best book. Great characters and a very dramatic plot. I'd highly recommend the book to anyone who likes Victorian novels or anyone who wants a little historical perspective on our current financial crisis. The main character would have fit in real well in the Wall Street of today. At times I absolutely loved Flo Gibson's narration. She was especially good in doing the various dialects for some of the minor characters. She did a good job of differentiating among the different characters' voices. But sometimes there was a kind of singsong quality that was quite distracting. However, as the book went on, I think she got more into the book, and I didn't find her style as distracting.

Good story, terrible narrator

This is an average to good story. I'm not with those who would call this Trollope's best. Most of the characters I found extremely unlikable, in large part because even the "good" ones were annoying in that they certainly could have used a little more spine.
But the real difficulty for me was the narrator's voice and reading cadence, which was VERY annoying and unenjoyable.

Trollope is one of the Greats!

This was my first Trollope novel, and I enjoyed it entirely. The sound quality is a bit uneven, but the lively characters and the masterly commentary make this both entertaining and profitable reading. It is satire; you are meant to chuckle or shake your head over these characters rather than identify closely with them. Still, there are lessons to be learned from many of them.

Contrary to an earlier reviewer's comment, I think it is clearly wrong based on this novel to state that Trollope was anti-semitic. Certain of the characters display very sharp, almost absurd anti-semitic views. Yet it is the Jewish banker, Mr. Breghert, who is one of the nobler characters in the story. You should also be prepared for the anti-American views expressed by many of the English characters in the story. Here again, however, one of the nobler and most interesting characters in the novel is the American, Mrs. Hurtle.

best in small chunks

Good social satire but, as in other Trollope novels, the beginning of episodes as they must have been originally published are often evident and can be very repetitve summations of previous "installments." Because this was my main listen over a couple of weeks, I found the novel at times tedious, but at other times very comic and, well, "Trollope." So - if you are looking for a 19th century social satire to listen to in bits and pieces, here and there, this might be enjoyable; but as a "long listen," the novel seemed to me flawed. (It contains excellent Trollope passages, though, so I can't seem to rate below four stars.)

Flo Gibson is not a favorite narrator of mine, and she read this one at even more of a gallop than usual -- but this somehow suited the novel's tone and helped ease the more tedious passages. As other reviews point out, Trollope expresses the contemporary antisemitism, but I also wonder if in THIS novel he is not also satirizing his society's anti-semitism along with classism? I'm not sure ---This is where print pages are useful in examining and referring back to the tone and attitude of passages.