Baddies in books: Obadiah Slope, the calculating curate

Anthony Trollope’s master manipulator, whose pious style veils monstrous ambition and lust, brings a timeless menace to leafy Barchester

No one dies, except in old age. No violence occurs, aside from a sudden slap to the face. But something truly evil lurks in sleepy, leafy Barchester. It begins with a creeping sense of dread. Then comes a remorseless feeling that one’s livelihood, and everything on which it depends, could be entirely controlled by someone who has no interest in your welfare and cares only to better their own position. This may sound like very contemporary villainy, but there are few more dangerous baddies than the ambitious, ever-plotting, slimy Obadiah Slope, the calculating curate who sends shockwaves of unease through the diocese of Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers.

Slope has an instantly unsettling physical presence. “His hair is lank, and of a dull, reddish hue, lumpy masses, cemented with much grease.” He is “saucer-eyed”. “His face is not unlike beef of a bad quality. A cold, clammy perspiration always exudes from him, the small drops are ever to be seen standing on his brow, and his friendly grasp is unpleasant.” But such things are only skin deep. It is Slope’s methods that cause greatest recoil.

Continue reading...