The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Classics)

Author - Ford Madox Ford ... [Goo?] [Posters]
David Bradshaw ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Penguin Classics was reviewed on 11-Dec-2008.

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1) Paperback Book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. "This is the saddest story I have ever heard," the narrator observes in the opening line of Ford Madox Ford´s novel, The Good Soldier. Set on the eve of World War I, the 1915 novel tells the story of two incidents of adultery involving two seemingly perfect couples, Edward and Leonora Ashburnham and John and Florence Dowell. While John Dowell chronicles the account of the two troubled marriages, his narrative ultimately proves to be unreliable, which is exactly what makes The Good Soldier such a compelling experience in fiction.

Throughout the novel, Dowell grapples with the nature of truth of sexual betrayal. While Edward and Florence seek treatment for their heart ailments at a spa in Nauheim, Germany, it becomes apparent that theirs is a loveless marriage, characterized by Edward´s constant infidelities and Leonora´s attempts to control her husband (the "good soldier" of the novel). Dowell´s scheming wife Florence feigns a heart ailment only to pursue an affair with an American thug named Jimmy, making Dowell both a cuckold and a fool. (In addition, he appears to be the only character not having sex in the novel.) Unbeknownst to Dowell, Florence also had an affair with Edward for nine years, an affair with that leads her to commit suicide (by consuming prussic acid) when she discovers that Edward is falling in love with another character, a young ward named Nancy. (Edward appears to be Dowell´s polar opposite when it comes to sex in the novel. Among of his numerous conquests is a Spanish dancer named La Dolciquita.) Eventually, his affair with Nancy leads Edward also to commit suicide (by slitting his throat). In the end, no one gets the relationship they´re hoping for. Ultimately, The Good Soldier is a study in Dowell´s inability to understand himself and the people in his life, and his eventual realization of his own self-deception. In many ways, this is the finest novel I´ve ever read. It has been called "the novelist´s novel" because of its elegant writing and flawless structure. Highly recommended.

G. Merritt¤

2) Paperback Book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. The general reader may be put off this book because of its reputation as a masterpiece of literary modernism (a style now some eighty years old), the sort of book that is assigned to be read in college English courses as an example of non-linear story telling by an unreliable narrator. This is a pity because the chief reason for reading The Good Soldier, apart from the beauty of its language, is the inspiration and wisdom that is apparent on every page. It reminds one of What Maisie Knew, another appalling story of sexual intrigue told through the eyes of an innocent. In this case the innocent is the narrator, Dowell,a really amazing creation. How can such a pathetic fool have such fine insights into the human heart? Ford´s style is so beguiling that the reader never notices the incongruity.¤

3) Paperback Book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. This is, of course, a modern classic, which means that we´re far from the certainities of the classical XIXth. Century novel, as set by , e.g., Balzac or Zola, where an all-seeing narrator tells everything there is to know about both plot & characters;instead we have a completely beffuddled narrator trying to make head or tail of the events he has lived, therefore losing his sense of "order" - of a well-ordered, black on white bourgeois universe - in the process. Of course, some pioneers had already taken this path before, such as the Brazilian novelist Machado de Assis, whose "Dom Casmurro" has certain similarities ( as also a prevading feeling of doubt and confusion) in plot with "The Good Soldier". No wonder, however, that this novel was published in 1915, when all old bourgeois certainities were being actively put to rest.¤

4) Paperback Book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. Although this is a classic, I found it to be a hard read. I did not like any of the characters. I found the style intriguing, though convoluted. The narrator admits to telling the story in "a very rambling way." He explains, "One remembers points that one has forgotten and one explains them all the more minutely since one recognizes that one has forgotten to mention them in their proper places . . . ." It is a tale of irony, in which nobody gets what they want: "The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it; it is beyond me." It is beyond me, too. Nevertheless, I am glad that I read it.¤

5) Paperback Book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. Although formulaic in concept for early 20th century literature, this book´s style separates itself from its peers.

During pre World War I, we meet the British Edward and Leonora Ashburnham and American Florence and John Dowell. As though it was a Fitzgerald novel -- the American couple resides in luxury, in Europe, the woman is talkative but fragile, and there is something brewing among the comrades -- it is definately somethin different. Although the same plot could be used and written by Waugh, Forster or maybe Woolf, it definitely is not their novel.

Unlike Waugh, unlike Fitzgerald or unlike all of the others, this book is light, very light, on dialogue. Instead, it is mostly a narrative by Mr. Dowell about the descent of his wife, of his best friend Edward and his love of life, Nancy Rufford.

Because it is a recantation of events, there are passages which repeat what was just previously read, but somehow the style (disjointed in a manner which narrative story telling would have to be) works. Oh, and how it works majestically as it passes in and out of time and through and around events so that the picture is delivered to you like a focus of a camera lens. This is not a temporal chronological recitation of what happened. The author circles us in and out of what he calls "the Saddest Story. . . because there was no current to draw things along to a swift and inevitable end." And in this sad story, "There is not even a villain in the story . . ." Reeling in and out of the sadness, it is an abstract-like collage, much like what his contemporary artists would depict with paint. This story surreally depicts Ashburnham´s demise. And, the demise of those about him.

True to its form, it starts sad and ends sadder. Split into four parts, three parts end with tragic deaths (two in suicide and one perceived to be a suicide) and one ends with the acknowledgment of a failed marriage. Do not expect even one laugh from this novel.

I have not read anything by a living author which mirrors the style of this book. For that reason alone, I would recommend this novel. And, it is a classic - through and through.

I would also recommend getting a copy of Knopf´s Everyman´s Library edition with the edifying and insightful introduction by Alan Judd and Max Saunders. Much of Ford´s life resembles one of the characters. If you get the Knopf edition, you will know why, and a lot more.¤

6) Paperback Book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. The Dowells, a wealthy American couple, have been close friends with the Ashburnhams for years. Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier, seems to be the perfect English gentleman, and Leonora his perfect wife, but beneath the surface their marriage seethes with unhappiness and deception. Our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Edward is provided by John Dowell, the husband he deceives. Gradually Dowell unfolds a devastating story, in which everyone´s honesty is in doubt. This extraordinary novel of passion and betrayal is a masterpiece of narrative skill and emotional depth.¤

7) Paperback Book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics. First published in 1915, Ford Madox Ford´s The Good Soldier begins, famously and ominously, "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." The book then proceeds to confute this pronouncement at every turn, exposing a world less sad than pathetic, and more shot through with hypocrisy and deceit than its incredulous narrator, John Dowell, cares to imagine. Somewhat forgotten as a classic, The Good Soldier has been called everything from the consummate novelist´s novel to one of the greatest English works of the century. And although its narrative hook--the philandering of an otherwise noble man--no longer shocks, its unerring cadences and doleful inevitabilities proclaim an enduring appeal.

Ford´s novel revolves around two couples: Edward Ashburnham--the title´s soldier--and his capable if off-putting wife, Leonora; and long-transplanted Americans John and Florence Dowell. The foursome´s ostensible amiability, on display as they pass parts of a dozen pre-World War I summers together in Germany, conceals the fissures in each marriage. John is miserably mismatched with the garrulous, cuckolding Florence; and Edward, dashing and sentimental, can´t refrain from falling in love with women whose charms exceed Leonora´s. Predictably, Edward and Florence conduct their affair, an indiscretion only John seems not to notice. After the deaths of the two lovers, and after Leonora explains much of the truth to John, he recounts the events of their four lives with an extended inflection of outrage. From his retrospective perch, his recollections simmer with a bitter skepticism even as he expresses amazement at how much he overlooked.

Dowell´s resigned narration is flawlessly conversational--haphazard, sprawling, lusting for sympathy. He exudes self-preservation even as he alternately condemns and lionizes Edward: "If I had had the courage and the virility and possibly also the physique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what he did." Stunningly, Edward´s adultery comes to seem not merely excusable, but almost sublime. "Perhaps he could not bear to see a woman and not give her the comfort of his physical attractions," John surmises. Ford´s novel deserves its reputation if for no other reason than the elegance with which it divulges hidden lives. --Ben Guterson¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 8-Jan-2009, 01414418449780141441849, 420-440-440-080-270-990-C4B-8

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