Reading He Knew He Was Right led me on to The Prime Minister. This is a sensitively written and very enjoyable story, part of a soap opera really, or to be fancy a roman fleuve. Sometimes Trollope talks directly to the reader. I don't like this as it breaks the illusion of being transported to a different world, and it reminds one that it's a book. People might say that this is post-modern, but whatever it is I don't like it. Jane Austen did all that 'dear reader' stuff and I think that perhaps that's where Trollope got it from. Thankfully it's out of fashion nowadays and I'd like it to stay that way.

While we're on this kind of topic, I don't like it in films or books where at the beginning someone looks into the middle distance and says, 'it all started on a damp Tuesday in Mayfair...' and then they go on to tell the story. I think Heart Of Darkness starts like this. It happens a lot in films too. I don't like it because it's like the story has already happened and it's all predetermined.