Book Description

Book Description
The early twentieth century notoriously saw an unprecedented wave of experiment in the arts. So intense was this activity that one can without exaggeration speak of a will to experiment (to 'make it new'). Where did that will to experiment come from? Why did it so insistently take the forms it took? Looking specifically at Modernism in England, David Trotter seeks answers in the careers of three novelists writing in the first decades of the century: Ford Madox Ford, D. H. Lawrence, and Wyndham Lewis. The context he proposes for their work is that of contemporary understandings of the function and value of expertise, and of the dilemmas peculiar to those possessing it. There is a certain madness about the expert's pursuit of expertise, and about his or her disappointment if expertise fails to yield adequate social recognition. The early psychiatric literature identified this madness as paranoia, and the textbooks and case-histories find an uncanny echo in Modernist fiction. In the obstinacy of their will to experiment, Ford, Lawrence, and Lewis wrote about, and lived, paranoia. To understand that obstinacy in its professional and psychiatric contexts is to approach from a new and unexpected angle the preoccupations with gender and with the politics of culture which currently characterize the study of Modernism. The energies it shook loose in their writing are energies which, evading absorption into the 'postmodern', continue to shape Western society and culture to this day. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great writer
David Trotter is one of the most intellectually adventurous literary historians going. But if he wants to conceal that fact to the rest of the world, he should certainly continue to publish with Oxford at that price. ... Read more

Amazon.com
First published in 1915, Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldierbegins, 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 GutersonBook Description
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)

Ford Madox Ford wrote The Good Soldier, the book on which his reputation most surely rests, in deliberate emulation of the nineteenth-century French novels he so admired. In this way he was able to explore the theme of sexual betrayal and its poisonous after-effects with a psychological intimacy as yet unknown in the English novel. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (55)

A mystery
I have read this book three or four times.Fortunately I have a bad memory so books are fresh each time.This time what struck me most is that the reader and the narrator are both unwinding a story together.In the end the narrator gives up on understanding other people, or what they should do or expect. So, yes, it is modern; it's not just a PBS miniseries despite the luxury and glamor of prewar European health spas in which the characters spend their time together.

The principals are the narrator,John, his wife Florence,and another couple, Leonora and Edward.Edward is most obviously the 'good soldier' of the title - he has been a soldier - but it may well be John, who 'soldiers on' when everything unravels.The narrator is a difficult character.He's sexless, not interested either way.His wife, Florence, has a 'weak heart' meaning the couple can't have sex, and he doesn't look for it.He devotes himself to her care, just as he devotes himself to the saintly young woman who is driven mad at the end of the story.

For nine years John fails to notice what Florence, Leonora and Edward are up to.He believes in Florence's weak heart for even longer. The point of the dense narrator, I think, is that he provides more difficulty and more suspense as we only slowly find out that Florence is a selfish consumer of men, and Leonora, who seems kind and tolerant, is viciously cruel.

The weakness of the narrator, though, is that he is very on the edge believable as a character - could anyone, with nothing else to do, really miss nine years of the clues he stumbles over?

An Ironic Tale
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.

Narrative Extradonaire [30]
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 writtenby 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.

Lame.
This book is written by an annoying, weak man.The formal innovations are vaguley interesting, but in any case do not rescue the work from its primary deficit: you must sit there for several hours with the voice of a neurotic chatty little wimp who reminds one of a certain kind of homosexual man streaming through your mind, mostly in the form of digressions and non-sequitors.This is neither entertaining nor enlightening, and since it's the product of design it is actually a little infuriating.I too listen with good faith to the academic hierarchy present and past for recommendations, and I had in my version the hitherto utterly reliable Frank Kermode as Introducer; but damn, this book - its characters, its plots, its language, its taxing convolusions - is just annoying.Its only virtue is that reading it might raise awareness that vaguely condescending moralistic little works like this about unheroic, petty, neurotic, sordid, idle, superficially cosmopolitan people are a mistake to begin with, and - since we all have only 70 or 80 years on earth and aren't all compulsive aesthetes - time would be better spent elsewhere.There is nothing of the hard Sophoclean light here.

The good soldier
I know that I will outrage alot of people with this review but here goes... This is one of only 2 books that I have ever read that I truly REGRET devoting the time to , but once I start a book I always finish.I don't know what else to say except that it was painful for me to finish this.I just don't get it.The main character was quite annoying to me and the story was SO SLOW and predictable I really just wanted it to end. I would not recommend this book for fun and if it is required reading for you I am sorry. ... Read more

Book Description
Now back in print, Ford's highly acclaimed portrait of Henry VIII's controversial fifth Queen

This masterful performance of historical fiction centers on Katharine Howard--clever, beautiful, and outspoken--who catches the jaded eye of Henry VIII and becomes his fifth Queen. Corruption and fear pervade the King's court, and the dimly lit corridors vibrate with the intrigues of unscrupulous courtiers hungry for power. Soon Katharine is locked in a vicious battle with Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Privy Seal, as she fights for political and religious change.

Ford saw the past as an integral part of the present experience and understanding, and his sharply etched vision of the court of Henry VIII--first published in 1908--echoes aspects of Edwardian England as it explores the pervading influence of power, lies, fear, and anxiety on people's lives.

"The Fifth Queen is a magnificent bravura piece." --Graham Greene

"The best historical romance of this century." --The Times Literary Supplement

"A noble conception--the swan song of historical romance." --Joseph Conrad ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

wise - not wanton
I'm a Henry VIII nut.I have quite a few books on him - from the recent historical fiction ones to old library tomes almost too dry to read.And I love historical fiction about England, particularly when the - what's the word I'm looking for? it's eluding me at the moment - their speech is true to form.

This is not quick reading, and yet it seemed like the book was finished in nothing flat. It does for Katherine Howard's reputation what Sharon Kay Penman did for Richard III's and the twins in the tower (the antithesis of shakespear's play.)Who's to say what the truth is?Because history potrays Richard as a power hungry, murdering rogue (except for a sect of people these days who are out to clear his name), and Katherine (except in this book) has always been said to be a wanton and promiscuous woman.

In The Fifth Queen, however, her character is wise and virtuous; but that Henry would have her as his wife, she'd have gone to a nunnery by choice. She believes strongly in the Catholic God and sees it as her mission to return Henry to Rome and to Catholocism and to persuade his daughter to reconcile with him.

But she's too innocent and good-hearted for those at court, who are always thinking of themselves and what's to their best advantage.As restoration of the Catholic faith would re-instate to the church lands and riches previously taken, those who are Lutheran would be left without what they gained when Henry became head of church and state.So Katherine must be dispensed with by whatever means possible.

Thus Ford's quite rational and lucid explanation for history's version of her background.

It's no secret that Henry was "not such a one who {could} stay the wind," as she puts it, and indeed, throughout my readings, that seems the essence of him: big and powerful on the outside, small and unsure on the inside; a man who has the power to get what he wants when he wants it, but best walk softly because he may change his mind tomorrow.Mercurial at best.I wonder if he'd be on prozac these days?

He's under the impression he's saved her and now they'll be together, but he's missed the irony of what he's put forth and arranged.Her speech in the final pages of the book is moving and borne of a wisdom you'd be hard pressed to find today, especially in one so young.

On an entirely different note, she was apparently beautiful.But have you ever noticed the paintings from that era?Check out the paintings of her - and his other wives by various artists.There doesn't seem much difference in the attractiveness of Anne of Cleves, Catherine of Aragon, Katherine Howard and Anne Boleyn, for instance.And Hans Holbein, who did quite a number of portraits of royal family members, was supposed to be the finest painter - and easy to belive that.His portrait of her is far superior to any of the others (not the miniature that is apparently actually Jane Seymour's sister), and Cromwell and Moore practically jump off the canvas.I dunno.The "beautiful" woman all look rather unattractive, if you ask me.

What Katherine's tragedy was really all about......
I saw Ford's THE FIFTH QUEEN recommended on a history discussion board. I must say that I am close to agreeing with the assessment that it isthe best historical romance of the twentieth century. It is certainly one of the best. Ford contends that what Katherine's death was really all about is that as a Catholic, she was trying to get Henry VIII to reconcile with the Church of Rome. Shewas close to succeeding and the reformers did not want that to happen. Her male friends were tortured until they admitted to dilly-dallying with her before marriage and after her marriage. Getting other people to agree with the testimony of the tortured men was no difficult feat. And so Katherine was condemned as a slut and whore.

Ford alludes to the fact that while Katherine may have been violated in some was as a young girl, it is also clear that Henry was aware that she had a Past and he did not care. Ford's Katherine is about 18 years old but Alison Weir says she may actually have been only fifteen. Ford portrays her as witty and bright, which makes sense since Henry was not attracted to stupid women; he enjoyed the repartee with a lively, witty damsel, especially over theological matters. Katherine had the charm of her cousin Anne Boleyn, with a great deal more sweetness; she also had the magnificent red-gold hair of the Plantagenets. Henry was repeatedly drawn to women with such hair, such as all three of his Katherines.

Ford brings Katherine to life as no one else - engaging, impulsive, and valiant. This coincides with what Alison Weir writes about her efforts to help imprisoned Catholics, especially her husband's cousin Bl. Margaret Pole. She is loving to her much older husband, to whom she was genuinely attracted, in Ford's novel. As her tragedy unfolds, she is ready to immolate herself for what she sees as a higher cause. Henry's heartbreak when he sees he must lose her is captured by Ford in a very moving manner. Henry does not believe the charges of adultery (Katherine was never found guilty of breaking her marriage vows) and wants to annull his marriage to her so that she can live as his mistress. Katherine must choose between dishonor in life or dishonor in death.

There seem to be few if any portraits of the fifth queen; what portraits still exist are dubious. Those who destroyed her also tried to destroy all evidence that she had lived, even as the altars of the old religion were being broken and defaced. However, the real Katherine lives in Ford's amazing trilogy, which is as vivid a work of art as any painting.

Intrigue and romance in the court of Henry VIII
Intrigue and romance in the court of Henry VIII
Katherine Howard, armed only with education, wit and honesty, becomes the Fifth Queen, Henry VIII's fifth wife in this amazing historical trilogy. The plot-ridden court comes to vivid life as everyone high and low maneuvers for advantage. Everyone except Katherine Howard, whose unwillingness to scheme will make her queen and defenseless at the same moment. Even knowing the general story this is a fascinating and occasionally shocking novel, with a stunning ending...

A New Spin on an Old Queen!
Fans of Tudor history will enjoy this meaty volume which delivers a very different take on the life of Queen Katherine Howard...she is hardly the hysterical and promiscuous girl so often depicted.Especially interesting characterizations of "Bloody" Mary Tudor and Henry VIII, as well.Strictly for fans of the subject, however, or otherwise tedious reading.

A Parable
Ford Madox Ford's "The Fifth Queen" - actually a collection of three separate novels - is a fictionalized account of the fifth wife of England's Henry VIII, Katharine Howard.As A.S. Byatt explains in herIntroduction, "This figure bears little relation to what we have aboutthe real Katharine . . ." and thus the reader should be conscious thatFord's Katharine - a young, pretty, pious woman who yearns for a return toCatholicism after Henry's split with Rome - is strictly fictional.Thatsaid, the only real failure of this work is that Katharine is the leastappealing, least interesting character; we first meet her as a dispossessedingenue seeking entrance to Henry's court around the time of hisdisasterous fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves, and it is this descriptionwhich will follow her throughout the book.Even as she becomes Queen, itis almost by accident, surviving the machinations of Cromwell, Lord PrivySeal and the recklessness of her devoted cousin Culpepper.She is Queen bydefault.She constantly protests that all she seeks is a Catholic England- the "old ways" - and yet throughout she resigns herself toletting events happen to her, as if she cannot control the consequences ofher own life.Indeed, her final speech to Henry where she confesses to anadultery which did not occur, becomes her last fatal act of passivity, forwhich she pays with her life.She cannot see that there are those who wishto help her and that her naive, narcissistic piety does not have to be herruin.What holds these novels together is the rich supporting cast: theaforementioned Cromwell, who has his own sovereign Protestant image ofEngland, free from the entanglements of Rome.There is the broodingPrincess Mary, Henry's daughter by his first wife, who knows how to carry agrudge for her mother's divorce, the super-spy Throckmorton, the lecherousMagister Udal and more.Ford uses Katharine to show that the blindcommitment to an ideal - any ideal - will only result in failure, that thisworld is more than ideas and faiths, but of people who are imperfect,people who will fail.It is a world five hundred years in the past, but itis also our own. ... Read more

Book Description

The latest volume in the Conrad: Eastern and Western Perspectives series, the thirteen essays inInter-Relations offer fresh, contemporary perspectives on the literary relationships between Joseph Conrad, Henry James, and Ford Madox Ford, particularly their methodological approaches and how these approaches influenced the artistic growth of Joseph Conrad. The essays address a broad spectrum of themes, from language and narrative technique to impressionism and issues of gender; from techniques of autobiography to those of psychology and creative personality; and from fact vs. fiction studies to those concerned with the contact/clash of cultures, motifs of suicide and death, and the city in literature.