Please tell me Trollope stops trying to write about The Perfect Man. He is much better writing about people he doesn't approve of.

I never really mind his perfect people; first, because there aren't really that many perfect people in his novels, and second, because the few there are seem so painfully aware of their niceness and how badly it hampers them. The stalwart and often-spurned noble young man of Can You Forgive Her? is indeed stalwart and patient and virtuous, but also often sadly resigned to being spurned and having to wait for the heroine to get her head out of her ass. He's not flashy or gaudy or dangerous, and he knows it, and he's patient under the burden of his own niceness, but also a little galled and quietly frustrated by it.

And Planty Pall in the last of the Palliser novels unexpectedly and quietly broke my heart.

And now that I think of it--dammit, here I am desperately wanting to reread the Phineas Finn novels, and all my Trollopes are packed up in my dad's closet owing to insufficient space in the San Francisco apartment.

He's not flashy or gaudy or dangerous, and he knows it, and he's patient under the burden of his own niceness, but also a little galled and quietly frustrated by it.

If I shared this perception, I would have liked him much better. But he was just eternally patient, self-sacrificing, and manipulative, and displayed no anger or frustration with Alice whatsoever, and for that matter very little with his rival.

And now that I think of it--dammit, here I am desperately wanting to reread the Phineas Finn novels, and all my Trollopes are packed up in my dad's closet owing to insufficient space in the San Francisco apartment.

Surely San Francisco has this amazing thing called a Library? They let you borrow books! For free!

t /bookworm snark

LITERARY EMERGENCY!!!

My flatmate needs the title of any novel of any genre containing a protagonist named Antonella. It's for a Secret Santa present.

I've assured her that the Buffista hivemind will produce results by the morrow. Don't make a liar of me, people! I'd be very grateful for any leads.

Angus, if you don't care about age of recipient, there's always Antonella and her Santa Claus by Barbara Augustin, or an adult novel you might like to choose is Tim Parks Mimi's Ghost, it's the second in a series about a serial killer, where the killer is the protagonist. Antonella is a secondary character. There's also a novel called Pure Weight of the Heart written by Antonella Gambotto that looks interesting.

Other possibilities: A telenovela by Andrea Del Boca called Antonella; a film called Bueno Fortuna about an Italian woman coming to live in LA written and directed by Cathryn de Prume; a film called The New York Ripper available on video, the heroine of which is named Antonella.

Have you tried using Amazon's "search within the books" feature for "Antonella"?

That's one of the things I did, Micole, to find the above.

There's also a book of short stories by Barry Gifford called American Falls: The Collected Short Stories. In it, one of the characters, though not the protagonist of the story, is named Antonella. There's another book of short stories by Dacia Maraini, Darkness: Fiction. In it, a murder victim in one of the stories is named Antonella.

That's all I could uncover.

Dayum, the hivemind is a thing of beauty.

I'm useless - my mind went straight to "My Antonia" and wouldn't budge.

a film called The New York Ripper available on video, the heroine of which is named Antonella

Warning - this film is truly, extremely violent, even by the standards of Italian horror movies. Very unpleasant, also.

Thanks Deena and Micole--actually it's for a primary school teacher, so the children's book sounds perfect (if my flatmate can get hold of it).