"The Choir" involves the Cathedral of Aldminster and its boys' choir and school. The dean of the Cathedral, Hugh Cavendish, is a man who buries his disappointment with his four outrageous children and his insensitive wife in single-minded devotion to the architecture and history of the old cathedral and the buildings which encompass its close.

The headmaster of the school, Alexander Troy, is currently preoccupied with his independent wife's latest defection. Frank Ashworth, a councilman and a principled socialist of the old school who bemoans the cathedral close's elitist aspect, hatches a scheme to acquire the headmaster's beautiful old house for the benefit of the people of Aldminster.

The dean, appalled at the prospect of losing a treasured old building to the council, soon receives another blow - extensive and immediate repairs are needed to the cathedral's roof - and the amount would just about be covered by the sale of the headmaster's house.

But the dean sees a way out of his dilemma, a way which will also consolidate his power. He proposes to Frank that the council take over the choir, pointing out that access to it would then become more egalitarian. In return for Frank's support he will consider selling the house, having, of course, no intention of doing any such thing.

Meanwhile Frank's grandson, 11-year-old Henry, is the newest and most talented chorister. Henry's father is off making money in Saudi Arabia and his mother, Sally, is ready to end her unhappy marriage. Through Henry's talents Sally meets the organist and choirmaster, the divorced and mercurial Leo Beckford, who falls madly in love with her. And Ianthe, the dean's daughter, who owns a partial interest in a fly-by-night recording company, is suffering agonies of unrequited love for Leo. Then there's the sad and directionless former chorister who haunts his school seeking the sense of purpose he once found there - and finds again in the ensuing fight over the choir.

Lines are quickly drawn. The council (as expected) spurns the choir as expensive and irrelevant and the dean dooms it to disband. The headmaster digs in his heels, Ianthe sees her chance to make points with Leo, Sally cuts off contact with her father-in-law, Frank, and Frank, torn between his principles and his personal loyalties, sees all he has worked for in his life slipping away in political backbiting.

The ripples of the fight continue to expand as emotions rise, bringing several marriages and friendships to crisis even as the community cleaves together in ways that inspire and exhilirate the whole.

Trollope has a gift for seamless development. Although there's a lot going on, the novel never seems overcrowded or confused. And ever simmering under the common public effort are the myriad individual maneuverings and ambitions, all of which contributes to a delightful, absorbing story.

Those who have seen PBS' dramatization of The Choir should not bypass the novel - its emotions and motives are far more subtle, complex and comprehensible than the teleplay version and its characters much more appealing.


Classic Trollope   July 19, 2003
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

As a devotee of Joanna Trollope, I had always avoided this one book, due to the dreary book notes that invariably describe it as some row or other about a boys' school choir. I simply could not imagine such a topic holding my interest for more than five seconds, Trollope or not.

But it did.

Far from being the dismal plot described above, it turns out to be probably one of Joanna Trollope's very best, both in the writing and the plotting. Yes, it does take place in a boys' school, which is closely affiliated with the town's cathedral. The main characters are all quite Britishly normal, thank you, and not a bit precious. On the contrary. We have a runaway wife who always returns, a bored-stiff housewife (mother of a choir boy) who begins a torrid affair, four utterly horrid teenaged and twenty-ish offspring of the cathedral's long-suffering dean, and much, much more.

When a group of disaffected socialist (seriously) townspeople decides that the choir is antiquated and must go, that the headmaster's house must be sold out from him and his family and made into a town social hall, and that the catherdral, the deanery, and everything in between is a haven for the rich, the close-knit and relatively peaceful community is torn apart. Trollope's skill, as always, is in somehow effortlessly drawing us into the real feelings and anguish of very ordinary people who become less ordinary as they face the crises of their lives. In that, she is like her ancestor, the great English novelist of the 19th century, Anthony Trollope. Unlike any other of Joanna Trollope's books, this one most closely reminds this reviewer of the senior novelist's brilliant works.

As always, the end is not a happily ever after, but, as the British say, a "sorting out" of feelings, personalities, and lives. Some come out the better--others collapse.

"The Choir" is simply a wonderfully written work of art, and I am glad to have read it, and doubly glad to be able to recommend it to any reader who loves a finely drawn novel.


Girls' Voices not the Issue   February 15, 2003
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

the novel, which deals with church politics and life in a small community. I agree that the number of characters reduces the depth in which each is presented, but this is a technique deliberately chosen, as with Dickens, when socio-ecclesiastical-political matters are at the forefront. 'The Choir' is a well-written novel, an enjoyable read, with more serious concerns which never bog it down in authorial pontification.