The Good Soldier: Introduction by Alan Judd and Max Saunders Hardcover – Big Book, 15 October 1991

Is THE GOOD SOLDIER really a classic novel?Ford was a very prolific writer, I don't know how many books he wrote, though I think it was a number greater than 50, and a large number of them were novels. He also collaborated with Joseph Conrad on several novels, all of which are minor works in the Conradian oeuvre.Ford's often praised for the Tietjens trilogy/tetraology (depends on whether you accept Graham Greene's argument about THE LAST POST), but if anyone finds it less than tedious except in part he's a more dogged reader than I. The same holds for THE FIFTH QUEEN, an historical novel that is virtually unreadable.Assuming THE GOOD SOLDIER is a masterpiece, this makes Ford a one-book wonder when it comes to fiction. (Yes, I haven't attempted any of his novels except those I've mentioned so far, but Tietjens and the Queen suggest they wouldn't be good reads either in literary or other terms.)THE GOOD SOLDIER is a good read, no question. Keeping the narrative straight takes some work, but Ford's skill at manipulating it is, mutatis mutandis, almost the equal of Conrad's in NOSTROMO or THE SECRET AGENT. Did some of Conrad's gift rub off on Ford or vice-versa?The major problem with SOLDIER is that it's overpraised. Ruth Rendell, who wrote some of the most literate psychological thrillers of the last 50 years, once claimed that she had reread SOLDIER countless times and would continue to do so.This seems excessive to me. A reread or two at long intervals makes sense, but SOLDIER doesn't deserve the repeated rereadings that Ford recommended--and justifiably so--of Flaubert's L'EDUCATION SENTIMENTAL (which he claims to have read about 13-14 times [don't remember the exact number].)Ford's literary criticism and his other books about books are worth dipping into. His memoir of Conrad is interesting, though given Ford's reputation as a mythomaniac, it's probably not entirely trustworthy.So ... I'd say read THE GOOD SOLDIER and be both enlightened and entertained, but don't expect a major novel by a major novelist.

good

Le concept du narrateur ominiscient est remis en cause dans ce roman où tout est en trompe l'oeil, l'intrigue étant divulguée assez rapidement mais de façon fragmentée. Au final, ce good soldier était-il aussi good dans sa vie personnelle qu'il l'aurait été dans sa vie professionnelle ?

I was disappointed. I can see why one might think it was clever: the unreliable narrator, the writing carefully done so it comes across as somebody talking to you; the overlapping, duplicative and differently remembered events, the narrator correcting himself, saying he's not sure, etc. But, the narrator is clearly such a boring, useless person it was hard to enjoy "listening" to him.Some things were implausible. Three of the main adult characters, including a married couple, are supposed to have been unaware of how babies are made. This was even after two or three years of marriage. This is nonsense. In the early part of the twentieth century most people lived a lot closer to the land and agriculture than we do now, they would have been well aware of where babies come from. Also, the upper classes knew about horse breeding. One of the characters who is depicted as not knowing where babies come from owns estates on which farming takes place. Even in a Catholic boarding school for girls, it only takes one girl to know for all the girls to know. One of these 'innocents' is a soldier; that's simply ridiculous.People becoming suicidal over love affairs while plausible in general is not convincing in this case because the affairs described do not seem passionate enough to generate such depth of feeling or the kind of loss that might drive a person to kill him or herself.I did not enjoy the book much, but I had no trouble finishing it. I just failed to find it as brilliant as some commentators, including people I really admire, did. You might like it. Interestingly, Ford and Conrad were good friends and influenced each other's writing a lot; but whereas I adore Conrad, I was not excited by this book.If you read the Penguin Classic version, the introduction gives away the plot so you might want to read it after you've read the book.

This has been on my reading bucket list since it first showed up on a recommended list distributed in a British lit survey course I took in college. It continued to show up, like "Best of the 20th Century" lists. Now I've found out why. From its great opening line that sounds a tad Russian--"This is the saddest story I have ever heard"--to its last revelation of many revelations of character and the human condition--it is always in top artistic form.It predates The Great Gatsby by a decade and I'm guessing Fitzgerald read it. The first person narrative structure begins similarly, one man, the American John Dowell, discounting himself as a major player as he promises to tell the story of a bigger player, the British Captain Edward Asburnham, the "good soldier" of the title. Like Gatsby, the circles in which they move are largely affluent, and marriage conventions are flouted. But there the similarities begin to disappear. FMF's characters are more self-deceived than self-made, and there are the cultural contrasts of American vs. European character and protestant vs. Catholic tossed in for good measure. John Dowell proves to be a difficult narrator: though he suggests that it is the understandable problem of ordering memory that he builds the story hesitantly and thus sometimes doubles back to fill in more facts, the tangled story telling may be due as much to his own reluctance to deal with certain truths until he is finally ready. He may not be as much of a bystander as he initially suggests, or as innocent.To say more would spoil the plot. This is an absorbing read, and relatively short. It is also worth reading as a model of modern literary art. It is well informed by the recent arrival of psychology, it strains against the rigidity of Victorian and Edwardian social codes, it smashes Aristotle's rules about plot progression. How the story is told is as important as the story. Energy electrifies it and that makes it a pleasure to read despite the fact that it deals considerably with pathetic human weaknesses.The critical introduction is reliable as most Penguin classic supplementary essays are, and is best read afterward since there are spoilers. Helpful notes do not intrude on the text but are discretely listed at the end.