Sunday, October 7, 2012

The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford

The BBC's version of 'Parade's End' has made me feel that my licence fee was well spent this year. It's not just the quality of the adaptation (bearing in mind that I haven't read the books yet, I thought it was excellent bar the last 15 minutes or so when to much got crammed in and wrapped up) but that here was something new to me that has all the signs of being a watershed moment.

Based on an inability to finish anything by Joyce, or enjoy much of what Virginia Woolf wrote ('Orlando' is the exception) I've generally held anything labelled as Modernist with the deepest suspicion. I know I've picked up copies of 'The Good Soldier' in the past, and just as quickly put it down because of that one word. This time I was lucky, I fully intended to buy a copy when one came through the letter box courtesy of Oxford University Press, had I bought a copy it would probably have taken an age to get round to reading it, but as it fell into my hands as I was leaving for the train station and a longish journey I started straight away.

This is such a good book. It lures you in with the promise of gossip and scandal, and then absolutely delivers which is a suitable reward for having to think about it all as well. The story is narrated by John Dowell, he is reflecting on events that happened over nearly a decade of his life, and he takes some months to do it which allows for subtle shifts in his account as recollections are sifted over and re examined in light of what he has learnt. The back blurb on my copy describes Dowell as the archetypical unreliable narrator which I suppose is technically accurate but fails to convey how human that makes him. He declares that he's going to write his 'saddest story' as if talking to a sympathetic listener over the fire of an evening, as he progresses there is a sense of the tale getting away from him, which is of course how we tell our own stories; starting with little lies of omission and attempts to gloss over less flattering episodes, eventually, and despite what we intend, it all more or less comes out. 

So it is with Dowell, for nine years he and his wife Florence have spent the summer in Nauheim taking the waters on account of Florence's weak heart, for almost as long they have been friendly with the Ashburnham's - Edward and Leonora. Edward also had a 'heart'. To Dowell the friendship seemed to be just as it was on the surface, but after his wife's death he is forced to realise that she had been having an affair with Edward for some time, that Edward and Leonora only speak in company, and that Leonora was complicit in her husbands affairs.

Reading this my sympathies veered with Dowell's; the Edward he is angry with when the revelation of his affair with Florence is fresh seems a weak fool, but as his anger cools Edward is revealed to be a far more chivalrous and decent soul. So it is with Florence who degenerates from fragile and cherished wife into a manipulative whore. Leonora is as strong as her husband seems weak although she too finally loses Dowell's sympathy after he becomes jealous of her preference for another man. As for Dowell himself - how does one feel about a man who allows himself to be so effectively emasculated, and would have you believe he has been so blind to what's going on around him?

This is a book I'll need to read again. The narrative skips back and forth across the years dropping spoilers by the score and full of inconsistencies. This edition comes with a handy chronology that attempts to unravel events but even so a single reading could only scratch the surface of what Ford has done with this book. There are  lot of books I want to read a second, third, fourth time, there are some I feel I ought to read again, but very few like this one where I need and want to read it, not for it's escapist qualities but because it's I feel it's a rare and perfect thing that I am far from done with.    

12 comments:

  1. What serendipity! I am just about to start reading this for our book group this month. I'm really looking forward to it.

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    1. I loved it Annabel, and so many questions - it should be such a good book to discuss.

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  2. I always find the Unreliable Narrator hard to get on with, and was quite unhappy with this book, so much so that I'm unkeen to give it another go. It was read on Cornflower's book group some time ago, and I was utterly delighted to find that I was Not Alone......

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  3. Unreliable narrator isn't a term I'm very comfortable with, like Modernism I think it's the kind of thing that can put you off, and really - what narrator is reliable? I will go and investigate on Cornflower to see what others thought and why.

    I like spoilers so a book with a non linear narrative that gives away the end almost before it's begun will generally appeal to me, I also found Leonora a particularly satisfactory character (if not always likeable). If I had a niggle at all it would be the high body count - but knowing you didn't like it just makes me want to go back and read it more so I can work out why.

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  4. I am so happy that you enjoyed this wonderful novel. If you have looked at the Cornflower discussion you will see that I praised it to the skies and was roundly contradicted by a large number of other readers. I adore unreliable narrators and books that make you think, which apparently is not the case with many of the Cornflower commentators. I have got a copy of Parade's End, as I loved the TV adaptation, and you've reminded me it's time to make a start on it. Thanks!

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    1. I really did enjoy it Harriet. The Cornflower discussion surprised me - I hadn't expected opinion to be so polarised. I quite understand the people who just wanted to give the characters a good shake and tell them to get on with it, I've actually sworn at the book I'm currently reading I find it so frustrating, I struggle with the idea of Ford as a bad story teller though. Perhaps that's because like you I quite enjoy an unreliable narrator - especially one as fascinating as Dowell, I was amused, and could easily be convinced, by the theory that he's a murderer. I wondered if he too was in love with Edward? So many questions, and such a good book!

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  5. One "d." Madox. ;-)

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    1. Oh dear, how very embarrassing. Thank you for the nudge - I have gone back and thoroughly corrected (I hope) now.

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    2. Me again, and I was happy to be able to help a fellow D'OH-speller. I make similar mistakes all the time. My biggest boo-book was writing Fullbright in a Fulbright application. Sigh.

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    3. Oops, I meant boo-boo. See?

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    4. It seems I am a fan of adding two letters where one would do. I get so paranoid about it but it doesn't seem to stop me at all. Sigh.

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  6. I read The Good Soldier several years ago for an online reading group and absolutely loved it. My sister-in-law gave me the audio book version for my birthday this year and I spent many happy hours enjoying its wily craftiness again. I'm completely with you - all first person narrators are unreliable, in that they get to tell the story they way they want to. What would the fun be, if they didn't?

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