Matrimonial lawyers are often called upon to quiet the inflamed
emotions of their clients, but beneath the sober suit and the
ameliorative demeanor may beat a passionate heart. Stanley
Plesent is one such lawyer, and that is why, last Tuesday evening,
he was rushing around a cocktail reception at the New York Bar
Association, distributing large buttons bearing the slogan
"Trollope Lives!"
The occasion was a lecture on the subject of family law and
Victorian fiction, delivered by Valentine Cunningham, a professor
of English literature at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. It was
organized by the matrimonial committee of the Bar Association,
the Trollope Society, and the Cardozo Law School for the purpose
of honoring Plesent, in whose name a family-law program was recently
created. Plesent, who just turned seventy-five, became a devoted
Trollopian six years ago, and has since read all forty-seven novels.
(In the same period, his firm, Squadron Ellenoff Plesent & Sheinfeld,
has handled the divorce of, among others, Rupert Murdoch.) "Reading,
other than briefs and cases, has been a lesser aspect of my life, but
Trollope has helped open me up to literature," Plesent said.
Monroe Price, a Cardozo professor, introduced Professor Cunningham
as "having written many of the books that members of the audience
would like to have written." This drew rueful laughter from the crowd,
which was made up of family-law types and members of the Trollope
Society. Professor Cunningham, who wore a beard, a silver crewcut,
and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses but eschewed the "Trollope Lives!"
button, began his lecture with a nod to Plesent, and remarked, "Any
lawyer who is keen on Trollope is rather like a poacher who is keen
on gamekeepers." He then proceeded to discuss, with donnish
mellifluousness, the fascination that the law held for Trollope and
his peers. "Victorian fiction is obsessed by law and lawyers," he
said--a wise observation to make if one wants to get on the right
side of a group of lawyers obsessed with Victorian fiction. Cunningham--
his speech augmented by many persuasive "is it not"s and "did he
not"s, sometimes both in the same sentence--went on to draw
comparisons between novelistic power, legal power, and the power
of God. "Novelists are legislators of the worlds of their own fictions,"
he said. "The law decides stories: judges judge, juries decide, and
the end of a trial is like the end of the world in miniature. And this,
of course, is like the last pages of a novel."
The assembled lawyers were attentive--if not wholly comprehending--
as Cunningham did some fancy stuff with the etymological link between
lex (Latin for "law") and legere (Latin for "read"), and talked about the
"post-Saussurean nightmare" of the legal papers piling up in "Bleak House."
When he got to Trollope, he pointed out the author's reverence for the
law of inheritance. "Think of the magic of legal paperwork," he said, as
he discussed the scene in "Doctor Thorne" in which the doctor produces
and sorts out documents that reveal Mary Thorne to be the surprise
inheritor of the Scatcherd fortune. "The absolute power of the legal
papers just vibrates on the page," he noted with enthusiasm.
After the talk, Professor Cunningham fielded a few questions,
and, while his audience seemed pleased to be addressed by someone
who recognized the magic of legal paperwork, some took umbrage
at Cunningham's assumption of the primacy of English Victorian
literature. Conrad Harper, a Trollope enthusiast and a partner
at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, pointed out that, for all the
English novelists' fascination with crime and detectives, "they
had an earlier master, and he was one of us"--Edgar Allan Poe.
Sandra Jacobson, a past president of the New York Women's Bar
Association, who sat in the back row in a blue suit and New Balance
sneakers, observed with satisfaction that many of Trollope's plots
concerning marriage and property could never have happened here,
because of the introduction, in 1848, of the Married Women's Act.
After he stepped down from the podium, Professor Cunningham
expressed surprise that Trollope's more unattractive aspects--his
anti-Semitism, for example--didn't get him into more trouble among
his New York devotees. "Some of it is a fetish about England--an
extraordinary love of Englishness," the professor said, reflectively.
"Trollope can get away with murder. He can do no wrong. But
then you do just sink into the arms of Trollope."
copyright 2001, Rebecca Mead
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