Original Publication Date:
1927
Genre:
British, English, classic
Topics:
The Lost Generation, morality, wealth
Review by : Liz Inskip-Paulk (www.ravingreader.wordpress.com)
This title has been on my TBR list for ages, and as I happen
to be going through a phase of reading early 20th century books,
this rose to the surface of the TBR pile. This is the story of two couples who
get mixed up in each other’s affairs, all from the perspective of one of the
husbands who happens to be an unreliable narrator (or is he?).
This is not a book to daydream through – it jumps across
countries, it goes back and forth with time, and it discusses each of the
characters in turn, so, as a reader, you’ll need to keep your wits about you in
keeping everything straight. (Or I did, at least.) In fact, I would probably
suggest that this would be a book to be read in great big swathes of time so
you can dive into the story and experience the narrative as one continuous
stream. Overall, it’s rather a bleak and sad read, but it’s still very good.
Not every book has to be a happy read.
This reminded me of Fitzgerald’s writing (i.e. The Great
Gatsby) in that it spotlights an opulent over-the-top and superficial lifestyle
but with barebones morality – money can buy you lots of things, but it can’t
buy you happiness. There is also a similar ennui that pervades the story –
there are people having affairs with each other, but they’re not acknowledged
or addressed in any way – only a vague sense, a hint of things gone awry and no
energy is spent to change things…
This was published in 1915, so it’s set before the Great War
(WWI) and before the Jazz Age (which might have been an American thing anyway).
Ford (or Madox Ford?) founded several literary magazines, one of which was when
he was in Paris in the 1920’s and hanging out with James Joyce, Hemingway,
Gertrude Stein and others of that “Lost Generation” group.
His writing in this book reminded me of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but this was written and published years before, so I wonder who influenced whom in writing style. (If indeed, they did.) I know that Ford collaborated with Joseph Conrad, but not sure about others. They must have been familiar with each other’s writing though, so if one goes by chronological reasoning, Ford must have influenced Hemingway.
Ford was smack in the middle of the Modernist period (info
of which can be found here from Wiki) and I was reading about this creative “movement”
(good word for it as it was constantly changing and reflected the huge
transformations going on in the world), I was struck by how inter-linked the
worlds of painting, sculpture, literary and music are.
The early 20th
century was a huge time of cultural unrest for many places – the uneasy
acceptance of more machinery-based industry, a time of change and possibility,
but also of disruption and unbalance, of questioning culture and the things
about you… Having just read Forster, Fitzgerald, Madox Ford and others,
learning about this time period helped to change it in my head from being a
flat one-dimensional time to one of depth. It’s hard to explain, but it’s
similar to the difference you see between normal TV and high-res.
Download The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford at Project Gutenberg|Librivox|
