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    The Good Soldier
    The Good Soldier
    The Good Soldier
    Ebook264 pages5 hours

    The Good Soldier

    By Ford Madox Ford

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    About this ebook

    The Good Soldier is a 1915 novel by English novelist Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers, and his own seemingly perfect marriage and that of two American friends. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique that formed part of Ford's pioneering view of literary impressionism. Ford employs the device of the unreliable narrator to great effect as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads the reader to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life. The novel's original title was The Saddest Story, but after the onset of World War I, the publishers asked Ford for a new title. Ford suggested (sarcastically) The Good Soldier, and the name stuck. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Good Soldier 30th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2015, the BBC ranked The Good Soldier 13th on its list of the 100 greatest British novels. The Good Soldier is narrated by the character John Dowell, half of one of the couples whose dissolving relationships form the subject of the novel. Dowell tells the stories of those dissolutions as well as the deaths of three characters and the madness of a fourth, in a rambling, non-chronological fashion that leaves gaps for the reader to fill. The "plot" is not then the real story; the reader is asked to consider whether they believe Dowell and what part he truly played in how this "saddest story ever told" actually plays out.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSheba Blake Publishing
    Release dateMay 15, 2017
    ISBN9783961897643
    Author

    Ford Madox Ford

    Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) was an English novelist, poet, and editor. Born in Wimbledon, Ford was the son of Pre-Raphaelite artist Catherine Madox Brown and music critic Francis Hueffer. In 1894, he eloped with his girlfriend Elsie Martindale and eventually settled in Winchelsea, where they lived near Henry James and H. G. Wells. Ford left his wife and two daughters in 1909 for writer Isobel Violet Hunt, with whom he launched The English Review, an influential magazine that published such writers as Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Ezra Pound, and D. H. Lawrence. As Ford Madox Hueffer, he established himself with such novels as The Inheritors (1901) and Romance (1903), cowritten with Joseph Conrad, and The Fifth Queen (1906-1907), a trilogy of historical novels. During the Great War, however, he began using the penname Ford Madox Ford to avoid anti-German sentiment. The Good Soldier (1915), considered by many to be Ford’s masterpiece, earned him a reputation as a leading novelist of his generation and continues to be named among the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Recognized as a pioneering modernist for his poem “Antwerp” (1915) and his tetralogy Parade’s End (1924-1928), Ford was a friend of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Jean Rhys. Despite his reputation and influence as an artist and publisher who promoted the early work of some of the greatest English and American writers of his time, Ford has been largely overshadowed by his contemporaries, some of whom took to disparaging him as their own reputations took flight.

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    Reviews for The Good Soldier

    4/5

    46 ratings28 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Thisis a vry carefully constructed book, with more subltilty of character deliniation than I've seen in a long time
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      In the beginning this book impresses you with its prose as it lulls you into "the saddest story I have ever heard." The prose at the end of the book is equally good. But what comes in between, well...it speaks of a time and place and perhaps way of life that doesn't exist any more, at least not for those of us who don't immerse ourselves in novels set in the same milieu. Ford's tale of infidelity, jealousy, control, heart disease, insanity, etc. etc. is told out of sequence by its unlikable, untrustworthy narrator, who is know to contradict himself. About 2/3 of the way through, it occurred to me that this was really a very black comedy about a bunch of people who pretty much deserve what they get, and after finishing the book, I'll stick to that point of view. Apparently it is at least somewhat valid based on the Introduction in this Everyman edition. This is a book that will stick with me in some ways, and reading it was mostly a pleasure. But it isn't a great novel.
    • 3/5
      Kind of like watching acid eat into a nice painting- slow, sometimes pleasurably excruciating (look! it's spreading to her eyes!), sometimes just dull. I admit I read this because I felt that I ought to, which isn't usually the best basis for reading a book. Sometimes it works out well, of course, but not so much with this. The third quarter was amazing, and made it worth while, but the first third in particular was a bit of a drag. Like Conrad writing a James novel, except instead of slightly unreliable, anachronistic narrative, it's completely unreliable and there's zero 'progression' of any kind. It reminded me a bit of Catch 22 in that way, except not funny. I suspect this would be great fun to study, too... but for night-time edification I'll stick to Conrad writing Conrad novels and James writing James.
    • 4/5
      Published in 1915. It details the interactions of (basically) two couples. I found it often "how on earth could anyone behave in this way" but it was engrossing and gave a picture of life in a time that I have not read about very much before. I can see how the author came to the end provided (a surprise one given the preceding text) but I am pretty sure the way I felt about it and the way he felt about it (given the title) are quite different. I thought it was well worth reading.
    • 4/5
      A very deep well written novel. A book that sentences have to be read a couple of times to get the full meaning.
    • 5/5
      The Good Soldier has one of the most famous opening sentences, and the rest of the book lives up to it."This is the saddest story I have ever heard." A tale of passion, miscommunication, good intentions, desperation. Two couples' lives become inextricably entwined in the late 1890s. The writing is restrained, narrated as it is by the deceived husband. He has an utterly believable voice as he drifts back and forth in time, trying to make sense of what has happened. Highly recommended if you're a fan of British literature.
    • 4/5
      Reading classic literature is always full of surprises. I did not know that Ford Madox Ford was considered an impressionist. He seems to have moved beyond the more formal yet (then) modern prose of Henry James to capture the nature of English manners while obviously displaying Edwardian characteristics. Yet his prose was exactly like a conversation - I found the so-called illogical flow of the plot to be exactly like listening to someone tell their story as one would over a cup of tea or coffee. This novel is not too taxing and is definitely worth reflecting upon.
    • 5/5
      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 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.
    • 3/5
      I'm so conflicted on what I really think of this book. It was a struggle to get through and at times I wanted to throw it against the wall, but in the end I powered through and felt satisfied with its conclusion. This to me balances out to "average"!
    • 3/5
      Forgettable. Absolutely and woefully forgettable.
    • 5/5
      Let the author and you trust each other, each to his job. Don't worry if at the start you ask, "Who is speaking here?" By the end, after all hope is gone and your heart is broken, you'll know.
    • 4/5
      Reread this for a book group, which had a very lively discussion about the unlikability of the characters and the confusing character of the narrator and style of narration. The narrator is so passive he almost defines the term. And he is recalling events in an almost stream of consciousness manner, with constant time shifts as more and more is revealed. Or is it? His lack of insight is what drives the narrative as the reader is forced to construct what really happens from inferences and surmises, mostly revealed through other characters' comments as the narrator recalls and reports them. A fascinating look at early experimentation in narratorial technique by one of the outstanding authors of the time, a man who knew all the major writers and encouraged them in their (better known) work. He was especially close to Joseph Conrad, and the similarities in style are fascinating.
    • 4/5
      "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." - nice first line. A wealthy American spends time in Europe with his ill wife, and they befriend the Ashburnhams, a couple of similar age who appear to be more or less perfect. They aren't of course, nothing and nobody in the book is. What they actually are is never quite clear - the book is full of uncertainty and the reader is never quite sure how the book's events come about, or how accurate the picture being given of the various characters is (is the narrator really wealthy or even American? Is his wife really ill?). This is really good, it reminded of Conrad in its approach and psychological intricacy, and it turns out that Ford and Conrad were friends, so that's doubtless no coincidence.
    • 3/5
      A classic novel dealing with the dissection of three marriages. But the narrator himself is revealed as unreliable, so where is the reader left by the tales? In addition Ford writes this novel in a series of flashbacks, which aids the general air of revelation, and dissonance. It is good to read, though finally not so much entertaining as engrossing.
    • 3/5
      Very Edwardian Eng Lit
    • 4/5
      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. What you believe of a character may turn out not to be true.
    • 4/5
      December's bookclub selection - a story about two couples and the disaster that arises when one one of the men has an affair with the other man's wife. What made this book such a great read was that it was told by the cuckholded husband as a flashback - the perfect unreliable narrator. His moods and emotions change over the course of the story and my emotions followed. It was an interesting book to discuss - different people felt that different characters were at fault and everyone was pretty flawed. I read this at the same time as listening to Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence. Both books are set in that same time period - turn of the century. Interesting to see how society's rules (divorce was scandalous - affairs were ok) dictacted people's lives.
    • 1/5
      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 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?
    • 5/5
      Difficult, wordy, old-fashioned language and moral quandries, but ultimately a very satisfying book. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      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, because - aren't we all loathsome?In any case, heartily recommended.
    • 5/5
      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 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.
    • 1/5
      Dreadful. A long, boring non-story with muddled, plodding writing.
    • 1/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      Chronic, angst, chronic cardiopulmonary disease, chronic longings, chronic nastiness. Give me Dostoyevsky any day. . Crazy (poor) people are much more interesting than eccentric (rich) people.
    • 2/5
      The characters were interesting, but not even Frank Muller's beautiful audio performance could hold my interest with the meandering monologue that apparently makes up the entirety of this story. I gave up trying about 50 minutes in.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      all i ever hear about this book is that it's a fantastic example of an unreliable narrator (which is true). they don't tell you how this is the most heartbreaking and hilarious novel ever written. and so decadent! a must-read.

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    The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford

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