The Perfect Enabler

This book is 767 pages long in the Penguin Classics paperback edition. I am only 579 pages in, and definitely recommend this book. As I go along I wish to point out some traits in the characters. Lady Carbury is the the perfect enabler for her son Felix. Those of you who have been into 12-step programs already know what this means. Perhaps without Lady Carbury her son might have become a responsible and successful person. Two young women also love him blindly as their hopeful future husband, thus adding to all the destructive enabling. He is a real loser, and all his natural qualities, like exceptionally good looks, will never help him overcome his wretched fate (addiction to gambling and alcohol). His mother has made this impossible because she loves him too much. How many "mama's boys" are their among us, whose lives have been totally ruined because of the well-meaning but self-serving love lavished on them by mothers or other relatives and "friends"? At the same time, Lady Carbury ignores and even despises her daughter Hetta, who appears the most admirable woman in the book. Her mother always places the worst interpretation on whatever Hetta does. Hetta reminds me of other women heroes in Trollop's novels, for example, Lillian Dale and Mary Thorne in the Chronicle of Barsetshire series, who were victims of circumstances, but who made the best of it anyway. The other character who stands out in bold type is Melmotte. The problem with Melmotte is that he seems one-dimensional, in spite of all the attention given him by the author. The only thing we learn from him is that socially important people can get away with murder. I'll wait and see what happens at the end to find out if he receives what's coming to him. Then I'll get back to you.