John Galsworthy's To Let (The Forsyte Saga 3)

"Soames Forsyte emerged from the Knightsbridge Hotel, where he was staying, in the afternoon of the 12th of May, 1920, with the intention of visiting a collection of pictures in a Gallery off Cork Street, and looking into the Future."

That's the opening of the third novel, To Let, of Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga. Twenty years--and World War I--have passed since the events of the second novel, and the Future is that much more present--and ominous. "The new generation mocked at anything solid and tenacious."

At least for Soames. Painting has moved beyond even the Impressionists and post-Impressionists, which were nothing but blurs and dots anyway. Taxes are going up and Labour could be elected on a platform of the confiscation of all property, at least as Soames sees it. And his beloved daughter Fleur is now nineteen, and looking for new males to conquer. Her father is no longer enough.

We remembered, or, if not, we're quickly reminded, there are two strands of the Forsyte family that don't get along at all: cousins Jolyon Forsyte and Soames Forsyte. Soames Forsyte is still absorbed in the idea of Irene, his first wife, who went on to marry Jolyon. Indeed there are two and only two women in Soames' life: his ex-wife Irene and his daughter Fleur. His second and current wife Annette exists on a distinctly lower plane.

Jolyon has a son, another Jolyon, called Jon, who's the same age as Fleur, and as that epigraph from Romeo and Juliet,

"From out the fatal loins of those two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life"

ought to make very clear, they're destined to meet and fall in love. Of course in Shakespeare, 'take their life' has a double meaning. Does it in To Let? Well, that would be telling.

Neither young Jon nor Fleur have any notion of the nature of the quarrel; at the beginning they barely know they even have these cousins. Various adults suggest they need to be told, but they aren't, and the lure of the forbidden only adds spice to the romance between these two eighteen-year-olds.

Unlike in Romeo and Juliet where the nature of the feud is largely unexplained--chalk it up to the sort of clannish political rivalry found in Renaissance towns--we know perfectly well why Soames and Irene can't bear the sight of each other. The drama is driven by how Future discovers the Past still exists and will impact its Present.

I thought this was very good, better than the second and as good as the first. (Well, a middle novel. What can you do?) Soames is rather a villain all the way through, uncertain to himself why, and certainly unable to articulate it. But I felt the second novel rather stacked the deck against him, while in the this one he was once again able to make his own mistakes.

Now I need to see the BBC mini-series version.

One other thing I wanted to note. I briefly alluded to it in my first post on the saga, and that's the prose. I mostly think it's pretty effective, but there are certainly some odd quirks in how he handles free indirect discourse:

"Where was Annette? With that chap, for all he knew--she was a young woman! Impressed with the queer charity of that thought, he entered the summerhouse and sat down. The fact was--and he admitted it--Fleur was so much to him that his wife was very little--very little; French--had never been much more than a mistress, and he was getting indifferent to that side of things! It was odd how, with all his ingrained care for moderation and secure investment, Soames ever put his emotional eggs into one basket. First Irene--now Fleur. He was dimly conscious of it, sitting there, conscious of its odd dangerousness. It had brought him to wreck and scandal once, but now--now it should save him! ... [skipped a spoilerish couple of sentences here] ... Fleur's future! 'I want fair sailing for her,' he thought. 'Nothing else matters at my time of life.' A lonely business--life! What you had you could never keep to yourself! As you warned one off, you let another in. One could make sure of nothing! He reached up and pulled a red rambler rose from a cluster which blocked the window. Flowers grew and dropped--Nature was a queer thing!"

There are eight (!) exclamation marks in that passage. A shocking thing! I was told by at least one writing teacher--advice I ignored--never to use them--ever. (Another said no dashes, and especially unpaired dashes. Oops.) It's pretty clear Galsworthy uses them to distinguish what are Soames' thoughts in free indirect discourse from the general flow of the paragraph. It's not the only thing he uses: repetition and dashes also function for that purpose: "very little--very little;" or "but now--now."

But the exclamation mark gives a certain breathlessness to Soames' thoughts. That may be OK in this passage. In the early part of the passage, we're told Soames' thoughts in something close to an authorial voice: "Impressed with the queer charity of that thought" or "he admitted it" or "dimly conscious." Later Soames' thoughts are actually quoted in words: "'I want fair sailing for her,' he thought." Also the use of exclamation marks builds up over its length so that most of them occur near the end of what I've quoted, at the moment of that rather symbolic rose. So well and good.

But Galsworthy uses exclamation marks to indicate everyone's interior consciousness in free indirect discourse! This isn't the only passage! So is everyone thinking breathlessly and excitedly? No--no, certainly not! Or, at least, not at all times! So, it's also a bit of a tick, one that I'm not sure Galsworthy has worked through and has entirely under his control. At the very least reading the Saga one needs to diminish in one's mind the significance of the exclamation mark.

Thoughts?

Posts on the three volumes of the Forsyte Saga collected here. But for me there are still more Forsytes to go, (A Modern Comedy, et al.) and I will most definitely be going...

John Galsworthy's In Chancery (#1920Club)

"Their hearts were full of feeling, but they could give it no expression--Forsytes that they were."

In Chancery (1920) is the second novel of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga. The Man of Property (1906) was the first; I read that recently as well.

In the new novel, Irene Forsyte is separated from her husband Soames Forsyte; she's retaken her maiden name, calling herself Mrs. Irene Heron, but they aren't divorced. 

Irene at 37 is just as beautiful as ever, but Soames, at 44, is feeling the winds of time at his back. He and Irene never had a child; he wants one, a son in particular. Should he, can he, reconcile with Irene? It's not too late. But he's also attracted by Annette, the daughter of the French proprietor of a restaurant he likes. Its Soames' dissatisfaction and yearning that sets the main thread in motion.

Jolyon Forsyte, Soames' cousin, is administering a fund the income of which goes to Irene. It was set up by Jolyon's father (the events happen in the interlude/short story "Indian Summer of a Forsyte") so Jolyon has occasion to see or at least correspond with Irene regularly as he pays out the income. Jolyon is now widowed for the second time.

At the same time Winifred Dartie, Soames' married sister is abandoned by her husband. After years of gambling and fast living, he's run off with a dancer to Buenos Aires. Should she accept the scandal and divorce him? Marriage, and property in marriage, is a theme in the new novel as well.

But also, between the composition of the two novels, World War I happened; significant years, and I thought this novel was much more political than the first. In the world of the saga about the same number of years have passed, but it's all still before the war: the events of The Man of Property take place in 1886; those of In Chancery in the years from 1899 to 1901. But the (Second) Boer War stands in the place of World War I, and thoughts about the Boer War, already ironic enough, become doubly ironic when the Great War is taken into account:

"His grandfather, [Nicholas Forsyte] of course, pooh-poohed the notion, too thoroughly educated in the feeling that no British war could be other than little and professional,..."

James Forsyte, Soames' father, is not so sanguine about the conflict. There are ironic comparisons between the acquisitiveness of the Forsytes and the imperial acquisitiveness of the British empire.

Or, in a lighter vein:

"And, sick with nervous anxiety, he [Soames] sent out for one of the 'new-fangled' motor cabs...The cab was passing villas now, going a great pace. 'Fifteen miles an hour now, I should think!' he mused; 'this'll take people out of town to live!'" 

The land speed record was already over 120 MPH in 1920. And one that's amusing for us, though not yet ironic in 1920:

"Never again would a queen reign so long!" [at the death of Victoria]

Not at least until the very next reigning queen...

So I thought this was a very good follow up in the series. In comparison to the first, it shows the same satirical wit overlaying a family drama with feeling and sadness. It adds a political layer, not surprising in a novel written in 1920; one had to either completely ignore the events of the world, as escape, or deal with them. I did think the portrayal of Soames was a bit less rounded in this one: in The Man of Property, one feels for Soames a certain amount of pity, though in the end he behaves badly. He behaves badly from the start in In Chancery, but I thought the deck was a bit stacked against him. For instance,

"...he had spent five hot weeks in Italy--looking into the Renaissance--not so much in it as he had been lead to expect--..."

In the first volume that sort of dig that would have been made about a generic Forsyte; here it's about Soames.

Also, seriously, what the world needs is a non-spoilerific Forsyte family tree.

On to the next interlude, and then volume, of The Forsyte Saga!

For another #1920Club review of In Chancery, see Ruthiella's here. Thanks to Kaggsy and Simon for hosting!

The Man of Property ("...a palpitating tale of passion...")

"We are, of course, all of us slaves of property, and I admit that it's a question of degree, but what I call a 'Forsyte' is a man who is decidedly more than less a slave of property."

Hubert, surrounded by Forsytes, and looking particularly Forsytean.

The Man of Property (1906) is the first novel of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga. While virtually every Forsyte in this novel crowded with Forsytes could be considered a man of property, the man of property is Soames Forsyte. 

But we first meet the Forsytes gathered at an open house to announce June Forsyte's engagement. There are ten Forsytes in the elder generation, six male and four female, but in this novel the two most important of the elder generation are Jolyon (old Jolyon) Forsyte, June's grandfather, and James Forsyte, Soames' father. June is to be engaged to Phillip Bosinney, a modern, possibly up-and-coming architect who has no money. But Jolyon is fond of his granddaughter and she will have money someday. He's all the more fond because he's estranged from his son, his only child, who ran off with June's governess when June was a small child. But we're early given clues that the strong-willed June may be more interested in Bosinney than he in her.

Couples not in love is a recurring theme in the novel, and Soames' wife Irene is not in love with him as well; he doesn't know what to do about it, nor does he really understand why; but he undertakes to build a house--a property--in the country and hires Bosinney to design and build it. It seems like such a good idea: he and Irene will have a place to get away to, maybe fix their marriage, and June's young man will make some money, making him a better prospect, and more acceptable to the family.

Seems like such a good idea. Oh, well.

The novel is often written as if it were a satire of the philistines of a haute bourgeois society and as such it's frequently funny:

[The Forsyte philosophy:] "...one could reckon on having love, like measles, once in due season, and getting over it comfortably for all time."

"As every Forsyte knows, rubbish that sells is not rubbish at all--far from it."

 [A Forsyte thinking about Titian:] "There are things, he feels--there are things here which--well, which are things."

"...that fellow Wagner had ruined everything..." 

"The core of it all is property...And yet I imagine all these people are followers of One who never owned anything."

But while the novel does satirize the Forsytes as a group, it has an underlying sadness to it that touches upon each Forsyte as an individual. The men in particular, but also the women, are inarticulate, ostensibly only caring about the value of a pound, and who has the most of them, but there's a yearning we see even if they can't express it.

Old Jolyon, probably the most likeable Forsyte, can't bear to be estranged from his son though society demands it; he manages an opening to young Jolyon; his reasons are selfish--he's about to lose the company of June--but also tender. James, the least expressive of them all, sees that his son Soames' marriage is a mess but can't do anything about it, or even say much; and Soames behaves horrifically and knows he behaves horrifically but can't think what else to do.

The powerful ending leaves most everything the way it started, except for Bosinney and June, but badly broken.

However, if you're a person who worries about the overuse of exclamation marks, you may want to steer clear.

I thought it was very good.

Which frankly surprised me a little bit. Galsworthy's reputation is a bit better than it was, I guess; I think the BBC mini-series (which I haven't seen) helped, but his reputation took some hits from authors I like and take seriously. Virginia Woolf pans him in passing in her essay 'Modern Fiction' (1919, found in The Common Reader) preferring Conrad and Hardy and Joyce; Orwell also contrasts Galsworthy unfavorably with Joyce in his 1942 essay 'The Rediscovery of Europe.' And in his 'In Defense of the Novel' of 1936, Orwell writes of The Man of Property, well, I can't resist quoting, for he calls it:

"A palpitating tale of passion, a terrific soul-shattering masterpiece, an unforgettable epic which will last as long as the English language,..."

Wow. But since it's Orwell you might guess he doesn't quite mean that; the full quote is:

"But on a scale of values that makes The Way of an Eagle a good book, The Constant Nymph is a superb book, and The Man of Property is--what? A palpitating tale of passion, a terrific soul-shattering masterpiece, an unforgettable epic which will last as long as the English language,..."

Clearly Orwell thinks The Man of Property is the best of those three novels, but it is rather damning with much too extravagant praise.

I expect to read the two remaining volumes--In Chancery and To Let--of The Forsyte Saga soon.