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Available
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Publication
Vintage (1955), Mass Market Paperback, 260 pages
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML: Opening with the famous line "This is the saddest story I have ever heard", The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is Ford Madox Ford's 1915 novel. Set at the dawn of World War I, it tells of the lives of two seemingly perfect couples; with the result that neither the characters nor their relationships are what they seem..
User reviews
LibraryThing member brenzi
”This is the saddest story I have ever heard.”
So begins the 1915 novel by Ford Maddox Ford, a book that even he, ten years after its publication, was surprised by the combined intricacies of voice and non-linear construction that make this narrative confusing and just a bit odd. But dang, it
The story itself is fairly straightforward: two wealthy couples, one English (Edward and Leonora Ashburnham), one American (John and Florence Dowell), spend many seemingly happy years together after meeting in a German spa town. At some point, it is revealed that Edward and Florence have carried on a long affair which Lenora knows about but Dowell does not. This affair appears to be the vehicle for a bleak string of deaths, suicides, and one woman’s spiral into mental illness.
To say that Dowell is an unreliable narrator would be true but it is not the whole story. He has been duped so he doesn’t really know the whole story but as he pieces it together it goes through several revisions as he tells the story from several different points of view through time, shifting back and forth through many years. This was all very daring and cutting edge in 1915 but also very jumbled and had me scratching my head wondering where the clarity would come from. The clarity does come eventually, and then you think the narrative is finished but wait, Ford throws in the explanation for one last suicide.
Dowell’s narration has always been a matter of controversy and for good reason. It’s random, chaotic, sprawling and for the most part, he is looking for sympathy. He actually admires Edward, who carried on with Dowell’s wife for years, right under his nose.
”I can’t conceal from myself the fact that I loved Edward Ashburnham---and that I love him because he was just myself. If I had had the courage and virility and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what he did. He seems to me like a large elder brother who took me out on several excursions and did many dashing things whilst I just watched him robbing the orchards, from a distance.” (Page 257)
Huh. That is brilliant. The fact that a reader can be taken in by such a narrator, well, you just have to give a lot of credit to the author. But wait---does he just think I’m incredibly stupid? Whatever the answer is, I am going to have to read this book again in the not too distant future. And that must mean Ford’s a genius.
So begins the 1915 novel by Ford Maddox Ford, a book that even he, ten years after its publication, was surprised by the combined intricacies of voice and non-linear construction that make this narrative confusing and just a bit odd. But dang, it
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seems to have left me considering a reread in the not too distant future.The story itself is fairly straightforward: two wealthy couples, one English (Edward and Leonora Ashburnham), one American (John and Florence Dowell), spend many seemingly happy years together after meeting in a German spa town. At some point, it is revealed that Edward and Florence have carried on a long affair which Lenora knows about but Dowell does not. This affair appears to be the vehicle for a bleak string of deaths, suicides, and one woman’s spiral into mental illness.
To say that Dowell is an unreliable narrator would be true but it is not the whole story. He has been duped so he doesn’t really know the whole story but as he pieces it together it goes through several revisions as he tells the story from several different points of view through time, shifting back and forth through many years. This was all very daring and cutting edge in 1915 but also very jumbled and had me scratching my head wondering where the clarity would come from. The clarity does come eventually, and then you think the narrative is finished but wait, Ford throws in the explanation for one last suicide.
Dowell’s narration has always been a matter of controversy and for good reason. It’s random, chaotic, sprawling and for the most part, he is looking for sympathy. He actually admires Edward, who carried on with Dowell’s wife for years, right under his nose.
”I can’t conceal from myself the fact that I loved Edward Ashburnham---and that I love him because he was just myself. If I had had the courage and virility and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what he did. He seems to me like a large elder brother who took me out on several excursions and did many dashing things whilst I just watched him robbing the orchards, from a distance.” (Page 257)
Huh. That is brilliant. The fact that a reader can be taken in by such a narrator, well, you just have to give a lot of credit to the author. But wait---does he just think I’m incredibly stupid? Whatever the answer is, I am going to have to read this book again in the not too distant future. And that must mean Ford’s a genius.
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LibraryThing member thorold
This is one of those books that everyone seems to describe as an under-appreciated classic. Obviously it isn't -- you can hardly open a book on 20th century literature without seeing its praises sung -- but for whatever reason, I hadn't read it before.
It's not quite what I was expecting. It comes
However, this is very definitely not James. The language is light and the syntax flows readily at room temperature; ideas are communicated explicitly and directly; there is even the occasional joke.
Fundamentally, this seems to be a book about the process of narrative itself. There are only four main characters: the narrator, his wife Florence, Edward Ashburnham (the "Good Soldier"), and Edward's wife Leonora. The sequence of events described is quite short and straightforward, and the narrator goes through them over and over again, each time getting a different, further insight into what happened and how the events relate to the characters and motivations of the people involved.
It is made clear to us that it is the process of telling the story that allows him to do this. In other words, the events are defined and redefined by the process of reporting them. Interestingly, this was ten years before Schrödinger and Heisenberg established that the act of measuring a physical system inevitably changes the system. Probably too fanciful to describe this as quantum-literature!
Another thing we are made to realise as the successive layers of meaning are pealed away is that there is no externally-verifiable "right answer". We only have the unreliable evidence of the narrator, and he himself has no way to go back and establish that one or other version of events is somehow privileged. The narrator's conclusion that Edward was a good and lovable man and Leonora a selfish and manipulative woman is plausible, but he presents it as his own subjective view.
This is clearly a book that has had a big influence on western literature. For instance, I was reminded very strongly of the narrative technique used by Günter Grass in his memoir Beim Häuten der Zwiebel, which I read a few months ago. Grass uses exactly this idea, of the influence that fictional narrative has on the events it describes, and of the impossibility of getting back to a single, true, version of events.
It's not quite what I was expecting. It comes
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as a Penguin Modern Classic with cover art by John Singer Sargent, it's written by an American and set mostly in a German spa-town in the years before World War I, the characters are upper middle-class British and New Englanders -- everything is telling you to expect Henry James. And of course there are Jamesian elements: there is a hint of the old "naïve America meets sophisticated Europe" idea, and there is a huge amount of analysis and very little action. However, this is very definitely not James. The language is light and the syntax flows readily at room temperature; ideas are communicated explicitly and directly; there is even the occasional joke.
Fundamentally, this seems to be a book about the process of narrative itself. There are only four main characters: the narrator, his wife Florence, Edward Ashburnham (the "Good Soldier"), and Edward's wife Leonora. The sequence of events described is quite short and straightforward, and the narrator goes through them over and over again, each time getting a different, further insight into what happened and how the events relate to the characters and motivations of the people involved.
It is made clear to us that it is the process of telling the story that allows him to do this. In other words, the events are defined and redefined by the process of reporting them. Interestingly, this was ten years before Schrödinger and Heisenberg established that the act of measuring a physical system inevitably changes the system. Probably too fanciful to describe this as quantum-literature!
Another thing we are made to realise as the successive layers of meaning are pealed away is that there is no externally-verifiable "right answer". We only have the unreliable evidence of the narrator, and he himself has no way to go back and establish that one or other version of events is somehow privileged. The narrator's conclusion that Edward was a good and lovable man and Leonora a selfish and manipulative woman is plausible, but he presents it as his own subjective view.
This is clearly a book that has had a big influence on western literature. For instance, I was reminded very strongly of the narrative technique used by Günter Grass in his memoir Beim Häuten der Zwiebel, which I read a few months ago. Grass uses exactly this idea, of the influence that fictional narrative has on the events it describes, and of the impossibility of getting back to a single, true, version of events.
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LibraryThing member julie-lou
This is a book about ambiguity. Is it a tragedy or a comedy, or even a tragicomedy? Can we trust the narrator - the eponymous, personality-less John Dowell? Does he believe in what he's telling us, or is he trying to convince himself as much as us? Reflecting on his marriage to Florence Dowell and
In 'The Good Soldier' silence tells us more than words, and the relationship between truth and fiction is laid bare. In narrating his life, Dowell attempts to control it; imposing his own version of 'truth' over that which has been decided for him. The novel is structured as an imagined a conversation between Dowell and the 'silent listener'; in other words, the narrative leaps around like a frog on hot coals, telling us more about Dowell's state of mind than about the tangled plot which enveloped him. Ultimately, Ford lets us draw our own conclusions, leaving us with a sense that we have only a glimpse of a much, much larger picture.
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their friendship with the Ashburnhams, Dowell claims to be unaware of his wife's affair with Edward Ashburnham. As he attempts to peel back the layers of truth and fiction which make up his life, there is much which remains unsatisfactory and unresolved. If he is unaware of his wife's affair, he is beyond gullible. If he felt no pain upon enlightenment, he is either completely unfeeling or unwilling to admit it. His persistent reference to 'poor dear' Florence and his determination to justify the 'good' Edward would seem to suggest he has adopted self-delusion and denial as bulwarks against truth and 'reality'. In 'The Good Soldier' silence tells us more than words, and the relationship between truth and fiction is laid bare. In narrating his life, Dowell attempts to control it; imposing his own version of 'truth' over that which has been decided for him. The novel is structured as an imagined a conversation between Dowell and the 'silent listener'; in other words, the narrative leaps around like a frog on hot coals, telling us more about Dowell's state of mind than about the tangled plot which enveloped him. Ultimately, Ford lets us draw our own conclusions, leaving us with a sense that we have only a glimpse of a much, much larger picture.
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LibraryThing member kant1066
"The Good Soldier" follows two well-to-do couples, John (the narrator) and Florence Dowell and Edward and Leonora Ashburnham through the course of their relationships, especially Edward's endless philandering with any woman who will submit to his relentless sexual advances. The story, told long
Marked by a radical break with the earlier, traditional Victorian novel, "The Good Soldier" is highly evocative of the society novels of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and even some D. H. Lawrence. Adultery is discussed frankly and directly, and instead of the morally certain, honest, objective narration that we see in work before it, Ford's narrator is bereft when he finds his search for meaning and simplicity an empty one, finding in its place an ambiguous and unreliable world. This is a hard pill to swallow for those who have been weaned on Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope. Its subtlety and sensitive psychological representations mirror the complexities of people, not stock characters.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the story is how utterly conflicted Dowell remains throughout the novel. The authority of his narrative voice waxes and wanes (mostly wanes) through the entire story, which might be frustrating for some readers, but was a welcome relief for me. Concomitant with this voice is an overall ambiance of moral turpitude and decadence, and not simply as a result of Florence and Ashburnham's affair. Dowell is never slow to remind the reader that he knows little, that he might be wrong, that this was only the way things seemed to him. It is hardly a surprise that Ford, who considered himself an "impressionist," has very much up to the name and written a novel of fleeting impressions and reminiscences which always fall short of cohering into a unified story whose characters motivations are convincingly delineated.
One of the results of Ford's technique is that it breaks with one's usual response after having completed a novel: since Aristotle, we have come to find some sort of intellectual catharsis from tragedy, but this is a story that complicates that expectation, even if we are afforded some sort of edification in human moral psychology. The novel was written in 1915, no doubt a perilous time in European history. At the risk of committing an egregious post hoc ergo propter hoc, it may be that Ford's narrative is indicative of a world on the precipice of the Great War, whose social and cultural orders have shifted from firmly hierarchical to nebulous in less than a generation.
Even if you do not care for the novel itself, it would be difficult to deny its important place in a canon of works that need to be carefully and thoughtfully read to have a fuller and more appreciative knowledge of twentieth-century English literature. I cherished it, and its characters seemed like some of the most artfully drawn I've ever read. Weeks after having finished the novel, the various tête-à-têtes and interrelationships continue to dance through my head while I imagine sitting down next to Dowell while he tells me his story.
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after the events have actually transpired, details Dowell's conversion from innocent onlooker in the four-way friendship into a man whose world has been turned upside down by the discovery that his wife has tried to seduce his best friend. Even then, Dowell chalks up Ashburnham's dalliances to mere "sentimentalism," a need to paternalistically place himself in a situation where he is seen as the selfless hero, as the "good soldier." While Dowell is sometimes more than fair with Ashburnham, at times he relentlessly mocks him, commenting on his stupid expressions and his petit bourgeois concern with "keeping up appearances," even in the face of a sham of a marriage. Ford seems to be looking for answers to explain such behavior, but doesn't even seem convinced by his own dubious explanations.Marked by a radical break with the earlier, traditional Victorian novel, "The Good Soldier" is highly evocative of the society novels of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and even some D. H. Lawrence. Adultery is discussed frankly and directly, and instead of the morally certain, honest, objective narration that we see in work before it, Ford's narrator is bereft when he finds his search for meaning and simplicity an empty one, finding in its place an ambiguous and unreliable world. This is a hard pill to swallow for those who have been weaned on Dickens, Thackeray, and Trollope. Its subtlety and sensitive psychological representations mirror the complexities of people, not stock characters.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the story is how utterly conflicted Dowell remains throughout the novel. The authority of his narrative voice waxes and wanes (mostly wanes) through the entire story, which might be frustrating for some readers, but was a welcome relief for me. Concomitant with this voice is an overall ambiance of moral turpitude and decadence, and not simply as a result of Florence and Ashburnham's affair. Dowell is never slow to remind the reader that he knows little, that he might be wrong, that this was only the way things seemed to him. It is hardly a surprise that Ford, who considered himself an "impressionist," has very much up to the name and written a novel of fleeting impressions and reminiscences which always fall short of cohering into a unified story whose characters motivations are convincingly delineated.
One of the results of Ford's technique is that it breaks with one's usual response after having completed a novel: since Aristotle, we have come to find some sort of intellectual catharsis from tragedy, but this is a story that complicates that expectation, even if we are afforded some sort of edification in human moral psychology. The novel was written in 1915, no doubt a perilous time in European history. At the risk of committing an egregious post hoc ergo propter hoc, it may be that Ford's narrative is indicative of a world on the precipice of the Great War, whose social and cultural orders have shifted from firmly hierarchical to nebulous in less than a generation.
Even if you do not care for the novel itself, it would be difficult to deny its important place in a canon of works that need to be carefully and thoughtfully read to have a fuller and more appreciative knowledge of twentieth-century English literature. I cherished it, and its characters seemed like some of the most artfully drawn I've ever read. Weeks after having finished the novel, the various tête-à-têtes and interrelationships continue to dance through my head while I imagine sitting down next to Dowell while he tells me his story.
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LibraryThing member JVioland
An impressionistic work of English life right before the outbreak of WWI. Told in a series of flash-backs, it skips around and is nonchronological. Somewhat difficult to read, but worthwhile. You get different views of the "good" soldier and two Americans, each of whom are married. It has twists.
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What you believe of a character may turn out not to be true. Show Less
LibraryThing member vguy
2nd attempt to take this on, and got to the end by force of will. Still not sure if I hate it or just bored by it. Broken time-line and few major "events" make it hard to get to grips with. More importantly, the characters are all well-lined upper-class types who do nothing. Money is readily
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available (millions) but referred to with sublime indifference. Much jealousy and rivalry and breaking of relationships, an occasional reference to 'emerging from the bedroom' but no sensuality, no sex, no passion - in fact very little physical or visual detail. Seems to be about feelings but much of that is about having no feelings. Much about what is 'correct' or 'normal', with a curled lip, raised eyebrow sort of way, and quite a few reference to the differences between Catholic and Protestant views of the relations between the sexes. So, who the heck cares? And how come this is seen as a classic? Show Less
LibraryThing member Dorritt
Ford Madox Ford begins the tale with the words “This is the saddest story I have ever heard,” which is a little nervy, I think – kind of like Babe Ruth stepping up to the plate and calling his shot. As if that weren’t enough, FMF “doubles down” in the preface to the version I read,
The art of this novel isn’t in the story, which is almost tauntingly simple: an upstanding, well-meaning British officer with a romantic nature that makes him a little bit too susceptible to falling in love ends up inadvertently ruining the lives of his wife (a Catholic who feels unable to divorce him), a good friend (whose wife he succumbs to), and at least two sweetly innocent but emotionally fragile ladies.
The art of the novel is a little bit in the characterizations, which are authentic and intricate in a way I associate with Graham Greene, the highest compliment I am capable of giving. With few exceptions, no one in this terribly sad tale is actually evil: indeed, you could make the case that most of them demonstrate the capacity for extreme nobility – Edward, the tale’s tragic swain, is a generous and compassionate landowner; Leonora, his wife, willingly sacrifices her own happiness to secure his; Dowell, the tale’s narrator, similarly sacrifices his needs to accommodate the requirements of his wife’s (supposedly) ill health; Nancy, Edward’s final, fatal femme fatale, is sweet and patient and good. Each, however, additionally possesses a flaw – one tragic, inevitable, Aristotelean little flaw – that ends up perverting their nobility into something corrupt and awful and … yes … terribly sad. As summarized by Dowell (our first person narrator), part-ways through the tale: “I call this the Saddest Story, rather than “The Ashburnham Tragedy,” just because … there is about it none of the elevation that accompanies tragedy; there is about it no nemesis, no destiny. Here were two noble people … drifting down life … causing miseries, hart-aches, agony of the mind and death. And they themselves steadily deteriorated. And why? For what purpose? To point what lesson? It is all a darkness.”
Mostly, however, the art of this novel is in FMF’s masterly and novel storytelling. The tale is effectively inverted - told from end to beginning - by a narrator who assumes the reader is already familiar with the ending. In this way, FMF crafts a tale that, instead of building towards tragedy, starts with the tragedy already established and then unfolds the details in a way so maddeningly careless that the effect can only have been achieved through the most deliberate and careful writing imaginable. Instead of waiting and watching for tragedy to unfurl – as happens in most novels – tragedy meets us on the first page and accompanies us all the way through our subsequent journey. Which isn’t to suggest this is a miserable or unpleasant read: on the contrary, I would argue that FMF’s wonderfully ingenious storytelling is what makes this “saddest story ever told” not only bearable, but hauntingly human.
No short review could ever hope to capture all the worthy intricacies of this work. The title alone deserves its own paragraph: FMF’s introduction raises more questions than it answers about whether “The Good Soldier” is a literal reference to Edward, or meant in a figurative sense as a reference to all folks in this tale of act the role of “good soldier,” selflessly (or selfishly?) sacrificing themselves for the perceived good of others. Another paragraph might be devoted to FMF’s perception of Catholicism, which takes a beating in this tale. Another might be devoted to an analysis of the actual reliability of FMF’s supposed “reliable narrator”; yet another to debating whether, in this novel, FMF has indeed “laid [his] one egg and might as well die.” All of which would make this the ideal novel for a Lit 301 college course, without in any way undermining its merits as captivating and accessible tale, quickly read but not quickly forgotten.
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explaining that when offered a chance to make revisions to the text, he decided not to change a word, as he realized the story was perfect the way it was. But d*** if the man doesn’t hit the ball exactly where he pointed. The art of this novel isn’t in the story, which is almost tauntingly simple: an upstanding, well-meaning British officer with a romantic nature that makes him a little bit too susceptible to falling in love ends up inadvertently ruining the lives of his wife (a Catholic who feels unable to divorce him), a good friend (whose wife he succumbs to), and at least two sweetly innocent but emotionally fragile ladies.
The art of the novel is a little bit in the characterizations, which are authentic and intricate in a way I associate with Graham Greene, the highest compliment I am capable of giving. With few exceptions, no one in this terribly sad tale is actually evil: indeed, you could make the case that most of them demonstrate the capacity for extreme nobility – Edward, the tale’s tragic swain, is a generous and compassionate landowner; Leonora, his wife, willingly sacrifices her own happiness to secure his; Dowell, the tale’s narrator, similarly sacrifices his needs to accommodate the requirements of his wife’s (supposedly) ill health; Nancy, Edward’s final, fatal femme fatale, is sweet and patient and good. Each, however, additionally possesses a flaw – one tragic, inevitable, Aristotelean little flaw – that ends up perverting their nobility into something corrupt and awful and … yes … terribly sad. As summarized by Dowell (our first person narrator), part-ways through the tale: “I call this the Saddest Story, rather than “The Ashburnham Tragedy,” just because … there is about it none of the elevation that accompanies tragedy; there is about it no nemesis, no destiny. Here were two noble people … drifting down life … causing miseries, hart-aches, agony of the mind and death. And they themselves steadily deteriorated. And why? For what purpose? To point what lesson? It is all a darkness.”
Mostly, however, the art of this novel is in FMF’s masterly and novel storytelling. The tale is effectively inverted - told from end to beginning - by a narrator who assumes the reader is already familiar with the ending. In this way, FMF crafts a tale that, instead of building towards tragedy, starts with the tragedy already established and then unfolds the details in a way so maddeningly careless that the effect can only have been achieved through the most deliberate and careful writing imaginable. Instead of waiting and watching for tragedy to unfurl – as happens in most novels – tragedy meets us on the first page and accompanies us all the way through our subsequent journey. Which isn’t to suggest this is a miserable or unpleasant read: on the contrary, I would argue that FMF’s wonderfully ingenious storytelling is what makes this “saddest story ever told” not only bearable, but hauntingly human.
No short review could ever hope to capture all the worthy intricacies of this work. The title alone deserves its own paragraph: FMF’s introduction raises more questions than it answers about whether “The Good Soldier” is a literal reference to Edward, or meant in a figurative sense as a reference to all folks in this tale of act the role of “good soldier,” selflessly (or selfishly?) sacrificing themselves for the perceived good of others. Another paragraph might be devoted to FMF’s perception of Catholicism, which takes a beating in this tale. Another might be devoted to an analysis of the actual reliability of FMF’s supposed “reliable narrator”; yet another to debating whether, in this novel, FMF has indeed “laid [his] one egg and might as well die.” All of which would make this the ideal novel for a Lit 301 college course, without in any way undermining its merits as captivating and accessible tale, quickly read but not quickly forgotten.
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LibraryThing member Crypto-Willobie
This is certainly one of the saddest stories I have ever heard. It's as if a slow-motion train wreck were described in exquisitely controlled prose. If you insist on having a conventional plot, a good "read", then this isn't for you. The narrator is sometimes described as 'unreliable' but it's more
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like he's wearing blinders that occasionally flip open and smack him in the face, stunning him. Imagine a Beethoven sonata composed entirely of slow movements in minor keys -- you listen entranced, but every so often the music gives way to a heart-rending shriek, an outburst of insane laughter, or a series of bitter choking aphorisms before subsiding again into music. It's not fun, but it's a fine work of art. Show Less
LibraryThing member flourishing
I've heard this book touted as a 'perfect' novel, and I have to say, I think that's true. It's taut, gripping, and endlessly fascinating - despite the fact that it relies on sexist underpinnings, it still seems to ring true. I loathe every character in it, and yet I feel enormous sympathy for them,
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because - aren't we all loathsome?In any case, heartily recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member thatotter
Dreadful. A long, boring non-story with muddled, plodding writing.
LibraryThing member flourishing
I've heard this book touted as a 'perfect' novel, and I have to say, I think that's true. It's taut, gripping, and endlessly fascinating - despite the fact that it relies on sexist underpinnings, it still seems to ring true. I loathe every character in it, and yet I feel enormous sympathy for them,
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because - aren't we all loathsome?In any case, heartily recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member LynnB
The Good Soldier is less about what the text says than about what it doesn't.
John Dowell is the narrator of this story of two couples (John and Florence Dowell; and Edward and Leonora Ashenburner). He is, allegedly, unaware of the affair between his wife and Edward until after her death, when he
The writing is superb and kept me interested in spite of little direct action and almost no dialogue. This is the kind of book that could be read several times, and each time will bring new insights into John's character, and through those insights, to the "truth" of what really happened.
John Dowell is the narrator of this story of two couples (John and Florence Dowell; and Edward and Leonora Ashenburner). He is, allegedly, unaware of the affair between his wife and Edward until after her death, when he
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relates the story to the reader. How a man could be 1/4 of a close circle of people and remain unaware of their activities stretches credibility; hence, we must come to view John Dowell as an unreliable narrator.The writing is superb and kept me interested in spite of little direct action and almost no dialogue. This is the kind of book that could be read several times, and each time will bring new insights into John's character, and through those insights, to the "truth" of what really happened.
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LibraryThing member jimmaclachlan
Thinking this was another book ruined for me by being required reading in school, I had another go at it as an adult. Yuck. Boring.
LibraryThing member ffortsa
A great book, better each time I read it. and the classic example of the unreliable narrator.
LibraryThing member MinaIsham
-- I'm not turning the pgs. of this library book quickly. It requires concentration & includes an introduction. Book is about two married couples & (in)fidelity. --
LibraryThing member trifenajo
I have read it three times and it affects me as much on each reading. It all seems so clunky and obvious now but to set cynicism aside, it is an elegant, sad and tightly wrought story of impending disaster. So much for the troubled times during which it was written.
LibraryThing member Schmerguls
Thisis a vry carefully constructed book, with more subltilty of character deliniation than I've seen in a long time
LibraryThing member AnnieHidalgo
Ford Madox Ford reportedly told someone in a letter that someone else had called this "the finest French novel ever written in English". I could see that - it is a little like Flaubert, or Zola. I think it also has a touch of the gothic about it - madness and suicide feature prominently and
It is also told in parts, from the end-ish, to the beginning, to somewhere in the middle, to the end again, but hopping around between them as the spirit moves - the premise being that the narrator is writing as though he's telling you this late in the evening, as you sit by the fireside. And he's figuring out what happened to him as he goes along, himself.
Honestly, while I liked the plot, and it gave me a lot of food for thought, I'm not sure I agreed with the narrator, or thought his objectives were worthy. He thinks it's too bad that he never did marry a pretty girl who loved him, and settled down to a nice, quiet life, yet he persisted in sticking with this crowd of people who obviously didn't love him, and never did try to seek what he would deem real happiness elsewhere.
He admitted that silent manipulation, particularly by Florence (his wife) and Leonora (his friend's wife), had doomed many of the other characters, yet allowed himself and the others to be blindly manipulated, though in all fairness, he may not have known he was being manipulated at the time. But by the end of the book, he is STILL being manipulated, and still accepting it as its lot. Then again, one of the book's premises seems to be that he is only a person, and sometimes people do allow that.
He had nothing but contempt for his wife, partially because she messed around on him (very understandable), but also because she would've told 'everyone' about it. While of course that is 'gauche', and would've hurt people, particularly him, you could certainly argue that, had she done that, it would've been the more honorable choice, compared to what ensued.
Or, to put the plot another way - the protagonist from the Jeeves novels marries Emma Bovary, who falls in love with a fairly nice, if inconstant lord of the manor (generous to his tenants, and all too generous with his affections, mostly because he gets so little affection at home). Their lives are all quietly ruined by his scheming wife, who has the personality of a minor character in a Jane Austen plot (think Charlotte in Pride and Prejudice, who marries the clergyman - only a Charlotte with utter control over the lives of everyone around her).
Ford originally wanted to call this book "The Saddest Story". It would've fit.
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everything is told as though no one had acted of their own volition so much as played out their parts, long since set for them by the heavy hand of fate. See, the fact that I want to write sentences like that after I've read it shows you what a touch of the gothic it has.It is also told in parts, from the end-ish, to the beginning, to somewhere in the middle, to the end again, but hopping around between them as the spirit moves - the premise being that the narrator is writing as though he's telling you this late in the evening, as you sit by the fireside. And he's figuring out what happened to him as he goes along, himself.
Honestly, while I liked the plot, and it gave me a lot of food for thought, I'm not sure I agreed with the narrator, or thought his objectives were worthy. He thinks it's too bad that he never did marry a pretty girl who loved him, and settled down to a nice, quiet life, yet he persisted in sticking with this crowd of people who obviously didn't love him, and never did try to seek what he would deem real happiness elsewhere.
He admitted that silent manipulation, particularly by Florence (his wife) and Leonora (his friend's wife), had doomed many of the other characters, yet allowed himself and the others to be blindly manipulated, though in all fairness, he may not have known he was being manipulated at the time. But by the end of the book, he is STILL being manipulated, and still accepting it as its lot. Then again, one of the book's premises seems to be that he is only a person, and sometimes people do allow that.
He had nothing but contempt for his wife, partially because she messed around on him (very understandable), but also because she would've told 'everyone' about it. While of course that is 'gauche', and would've hurt people, particularly him, you could certainly argue that, had she done that, it would've been the more honorable choice, compared to what ensued.
Or, to put the plot another way - the protagonist from the Jeeves novels marries Emma Bovary, who falls in love with a fairly nice, if inconstant lord of the manor (generous to his tenants, and all too generous with his affections, mostly because he gets so little affection at home). Their lives are all quietly ruined by his scheming wife, who has the personality of a minor character in a Jane Austen plot (think Charlotte in Pride and Prejudice, who marries the clergyman - only a Charlotte with utter control over the lives of everyone around her).
Ford originally wanted to call this book "The Saddest Story". It would've fit.
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LibraryThing member jmcdbooks
Rated: A-
Ford masterfully weaves a sordid narrative tale of intrigue of passion in the empty lives of the rich. This book was one that kept calling me back to fill in more of the blanks in the sad story. Great handling of the various points of view from the leading characters.
Ford masterfully weaves a sordid narrative tale of intrigue of passion in the empty lives of the rich. This book was one that kept calling me back to fill in more of the blanks in the sad story. Great handling of the various points of view from the leading characters.
LibraryThing member wendyrey
Two rich couples travel together in Europe, they have secret affairs, practice marital deception on a grand scale and two end up dead in strange circumstanes.
Clever witty and fun.
Clever witty and fun.
LibraryThing member craso
In 20th Century British literature it always stuns me how the characters react so stoicly when it seems more natural to act emotionally. No one is willing to talk about their feelings. This always leads to tragedy. That is why Ford Madox Ford almost named this book "The Saddest Story." Yet it isn't
The novel is narrated by John Dowell the husaband of Florence. They are a rich American couple who live in Europe and go to a spa every year because Florence has a "heart." There they meet Edward and Leonora Ashburnham, a rich British couple who come to the spa for Edward's "heart." Edward is the "good soldier" who seems honnest and respectable. They start a friendship because Dowell is bored with being Florence's nursemaid and Leonora wants to use Florence to get Edward's mind of a young woman who is the real reason he is at the spa. Florence and Edward, again the only people in this novel that the narrator describes as having a "heart" start an affair and then everything goes down hill from there, or maybe that wasn't the beginning.
Florence and Edward are characterized as having heart conditions when really they are two passionate people who married for convience. Their spouses, especially Leonora, are rather cold and unfeeling. Florence isn't the kindest person in the world to poor Dowell, but he is a dim-wit. At the beginning of the novel he describes the tale he is about to tell as the saddest story he has ever heard. What does he mean "heard"? He was living with these people when all the events occurred. This is where we come back to the stoic British. These two couples are portrayed as "good people" and good people never show emotion in public. They put masks on and pretend that they lead happy lives, because they are rich and hob-nob in high society.
Dowell is not a reliable narrator. He tells the story in the first person, but he is relating the saga as it was told to him. He wants to state the tale as if he were sitting with the reader next a roaring fire on a cold night. The narrative starts out jumbled and gets clearer as it becomes clearer in Dowell's mind. He comes to realizations and adds his own thoughts as the story progresses.
I recommend this novel because of the intriguing way it is written. The use of an unreliable narrator makes it well worth reading. It is also an excellent example of late 19th Century and early 20th Century literature with it's portrayal of members of high society caring more about how they are percieved by others than about how they treat others. It reminded me very much of Edith Warton and Henry James.
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a tale that will make you weep. Infact, I don't feel sorry for any of the characters, because everything that happened they brought upon themselves.The novel is narrated by John Dowell the husaband of Florence. They are a rich American couple who live in Europe and go to a spa every year because Florence has a "heart." There they meet Edward and Leonora Ashburnham, a rich British couple who come to the spa for Edward's "heart." Edward is the "good soldier" who seems honnest and respectable. They start a friendship because Dowell is bored with being Florence's nursemaid and Leonora wants to use Florence to get Edward's mind of a young woman who is the real reason he is at the spa. Florence and Edward, again the only people in this novel that the narrator describes as having a "heart" start an affair and then everything goes down hill from there, or maybe that wasn't the beginning.
Florence and Edward are characterized as having heart conditions when really they are two passionate people who married for convience. Their spouses, especially Leonora, are rather cold and unfeeling. Florence isn't the kindest person in the world to poor Dowell, but he is a dim-wit. At the beginning of the novel he describes the tale he is about to tell as the saddest story he has ever heard. What does he mean "heard"? He was living with these people when all the events occurred. This is where we come back to the stoic British. These two couples are portrayed as "good people" and good people never show emotion in public. They put masks on and pretend that they lead happy lives, because they are rich and hob-nob in high society.
Dowell is not a reliable narrator. He tells the story in the first person, but he is relating the saga as it was told to him. He wants to state the tale as if he were sitting with the reader next a roaring fire on a cold night. The narrative starts out jumbled and gets clearer as it becomes clearer in Dowell's mind. He comes to realizations and adds his own thoughts as the story progresses.
I recommend this novel because of the intriguing way it is written. The use of an unreliable narrator makes it well worth reading. It is also an excellent example of late 19th Century and early 20th Century literature with it's portrayal of members of high society caring more about how they are percieved by others than about how they treat others. It reminded me very much of Edith Warton and Henry James.
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LibraryThing member Eyejaybee
Ford Madox Ford originally intended to call this beautiful but tragic novella "The Saddest Story", based upon the opening sentence, "This is the saddest story I have ever heard"> His publisher objected, suggesting that such a title would have a disastrous impact upon sales. Ford was not convinced,
"The Saddest Story" might have spelt disaster on the booksellers' shelves but it would certainly have satisfied those who lean towards the "It does what it says on the tin" approach to titles. It is an immensely sad story - the tale of two self-destructive couple touring Europe in the early years of the twentieth century.
However, it is also a beautifully written story, to such an extent that one suffers all the pain of the narrator as he recounts his tragic story.
Ford was a master of literary criticism and brought all his stylistic knowledge to bear here giving a series of different literary devices (flashback, impressionism, florid conjecture). It is a short book but infinitely rewarding .. yet also heartbreaking.
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responding angrily that the publisher should do whatever he thought fit, adding that one might as well just call it "The Good Soldier". "The Saddest Story" might have spelt disaster on the booksellers' shelves but it would certainly have satisfied those who lean towards the "It does what it says on the tin" approach to titles. It is an immensely sad story - the tale of two self-destructive couple touring Europe in the early years of the twentieth century.
However, it is also a beautifully written story, to such an extent that one suffers all the pain of the narrator as he recounts his tragic story.
Ford was a master of literary criticism and brought all his stylistic knowledge to bear here giving a series of different literary devices (flashback, impressionism, florid conjecture). It is a short book but infinitely rewarding .. yet also heartbreaking.
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LibraryThing member abirdman
Difficult, wordy, old-fashioned language and moral quandries, but ultimately a very satisfying book. Highly recommended.
LibraryThing member Pauntley
This is a tale of infidelity, frustration and disappointment with a famous opening sentence: 'This is the saddest story I have ever heard'. There are many ways to read The Good Soldier. I read it for the first time cold, with very little idea about what I was in for. There are annotated editions
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with a plot synopsis, cast of characters and summaries of recurring themes or motifs but my electronic version was bare of any explanatory Introduction or annotation. Reading it this way was an exploratory process for the narrator, whose first and second names are only revealed incidentally, well into the novel, is unreliable, ignorant much of the time about what's going on and strangely artless. The chronology is fractured. On first reading the novel resembles a random patchwork quilt or William Burroughs cut up. My Kindle copy of the first version I read is heavily annotated with baffled or occasionally derisory comments. It would have been quite possible, of course, to begin with one of the annotated versions and commence reading with knowledge of what to expect. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't. The Good Soldier is a book to be read several or more times and something significant in my appreciation of the book would have been lost if I had been better prepared for that first encounter. The narrator may be strangely artless in the way he frames his narrative, but Ford Madox Ford is very far from artless. The Good Soldier is ranked by some critics among the most important 20th century novels, in company with Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury, &c. It is certainly possible to disagree with that ranking. One difference is immediately apparent: the prose of The Good Soldier - the surface of the novel - is generally undistinguished. This is a tale told by a blandly imperceptive man whose mind mostly moves in cliches. He is, of course, Ford's creature and the art of the novel lies in the author's deployment of his unreliable narrator, with all his inadequacies of perception and expressiveness, over the shifting terrain of his 'saddest story'. Show Less
LibraryThing member FKarr
still powerful, but personal experience seems to make clearer the hypocrisy and deceit of the narrator
Subjects
Awards
Language
Original publication date
1915
Physical description
228 p.; 7.78 inches
ISBN
none