Someone affirmed my struggling by telling me the only approach to the political sections in Phineas Finn was 'endure or skip', and somehow it's still a bit of reading advice that makes me smile...and encourages endurance.

I'd still tell Trollope he needs, not necc. an editor, but to make those sections more detailed so they either tie to character conflict, with the reader knowing all the named characters better, or go more deeply into a specific topical political issue, if not both, just to commit himself more instead of being too vague. He got more into the swing of writing the parliament scenes as he went on with the series, partly just due to having worked out how to develop a fictional government: his serious interest in real politics, having stood for election unsuccessfully, resulting in a miserable time in his life (Phineas' difficulties are more sharply depicted than his integration into parliament), may have initially hindered as well as helped, since writing a series of parliamentary novels really ended up requiring inventing and deviating from the real historical government.

So, I've certainly whined while reading before, counted pages, cursed, but even when I've felt an aspect of an otherwise good novel genuinely isn't quite working, find there's still something to get out of that.

You can think about why something works or doesn't, including considering if it simply doesn't work for you personally, compare to what does, it's a way to think about the construction of a work. Reading often imperfect eighteenth century political texts, having had in mind the specific goal of wanting to better understand the period and individuals involved, I've also become very interested in precisely those aspects, moments of hesitancy, where the writer seems to get stuck, lose confidence, perhaps get bogged down and even seems to go on excessively, their quirks and what they get hung up on, in what they don't say so feels missing from the text and what perhaps cannot be said. It can be a form of character study and lead to more of a feeling for the period.

Back to Trollope, I'm forever frustrated by his beloved fox hunting scenes, as a hunt sab supporting vegan (yes, I know hunting with dogs is supposed to be illegal here today, the law isn't enforced, fellow UK people, support your local hunt sabs!). Which is why one of my most memorable literary moments is how utterly moving the letter the Archdeacon writes to his son, ostensibly on the subject, is. I had to figure out how he'd done that, while using a topic I hated so much, and so chose the section for a close reading exercise. As much as I might prefer he'd had a different hobby and want to get through these too-long-to-me scenes ASAP, they generally illustrate character, and that's his key strength as a writer.