Ford Madox Ford and the book ‘The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion’

For fans of the television program Downton Abbey (2010-2015), a look into the manners and moray’s of the Edwardian era of England that immediately precedes the fictional television program would be recognizable in this review. Like the recently reviewed book The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West, making sense of romantic chaos is the fare of the Ford Madox Ford book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion.

(Three images of Ford Madox Ford, whose 1915 book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is considered by many to be his best piece of fiction).

The story itself begins with American and unreliable narrator John Dowell and his wife Florence befriending Edward and Leonora Ashburnham. Tales of philandering, death, an an ostensibly appalling lack of involvement and awareness follow. Increasingly shocking thoughts about what our narrator really feels, his motivations in advocating for his wife and ostensibly his male counterpart in the marriage of the English Ashburnham couple, or the nature of what events really have taken place come to mind.

(Two covers for the Ford Madox Ford book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion. Many consider this book to be Ford‘s best piece of fiction).

One clear way to read The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is to ask whose passion are we as the audience intended to feel. Is the passion Edward’s, who is the soldier that is referenced by the book title? Is the passion Leonora’s, who we are led to feel as intently, brutally cruel in the flashbacks John allows us? Is there the protesting against the riches and society granted John through his marriage to Florence really the point? Have we been manipulated into seeing a passionate tale of John’s innocence, gullibility and lack of active involvement? Might John be something completely different than what he has told us from his own point of view?

(Two covers for the Ford Madox Ford book The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion. Many consider this book to be Ford‘s best piece of fiction).

A seriously focused read is and was required to catch the wretched things people were doing to each other in The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion. That intense sadness follows can be known for certain is clear. Further explorations of different flavors of sadness, when aiming to fill in what I surmise really was happening, sticks with me. This book almost begs me to reread it with the distance of time and the processing of my unconscious mind to see where I might feel the motives of the characters deeply. From this perspective, The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford earns 4.00-stars on a scale of one-to-five from us.

Matt – Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Rebecca West and the book ‘The Return of the Soldier’

A piece of fiction set in country estates near London England, The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West offers the story of a shell-shocked soldier from World War One the novel subtly explores questions of gender, class, identity and memory in the late 1910s of English society.

(Rebecca West wrote The Return of the Soldier after making a name for herself as a fighter for woman suffrage).

The Return of the Soldier recounts the return of the shell shocked Captain Chris Baldry from the trenches of the World War One. In being shell shocked, a term that we understand today as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, we see a story of Baldry from the perspective of his cousin Jenny. In grappling with the soldier’s mental trauma and its effects on the family, you get the novel The Return of the Soldier.

(Rebecca West wrote The Return of the Soldier after making a name for herself as a fighter for woman suffrage).

In discovering that Chris Baldry has lost the preceding fifteen years due to his service in France during World War One, narrator Jenny tells us that Chris’ wife Kitty Baldry had lost the couple’s infant son to death. With the complication of Chris having lost the memory of his service as well as the knowledge of the relationships, Chris remembers the romantic feelings of his younger self, which includes the flame his past self held for Margaret Grey. We as the audience are informed that Margaret isn’t in the upper class of society like Chris and Kitty, yet she is happy.

(Rebecca West wrote The Return of the Soldier after making a name for herself as a fighter for woman suffrage).

The revelation and ultimate fight for Chris’ memory, romantic feelings, and marriage begins upon Chris recounting his summer fling with Margaret at Monkey Island some 15-years past, and the fact that Chris had ended things with the inn-keeper’s daughter hastily and departed. Despite some efforts to expose Chris to the passage of time, the realities that the circumstances of life have brought in terms of lifestyle, and the fact that both Margaret, Kitty and Chris have moved onto new married lives, the old feelings persist because retrieving the missing memories haven’t been possible.

(Rebecca West wrote The Return of the Soldier after making a name for herself as a fighter for woman suffrage).

The story turns towards resolution when a psychoanalyst is consulted and Margaret, who had lost a child five years ago, suggests that her knowledge of having lost a child like the Baldries could be the avenue to bring Chris fully back. The inherent goodness of Margaret is revealed as Jenny and Kitty separate on how to interpret their feelings toward the woman. Chris confronts the reality of his lost child, and in doing so regains the memories he has lost while simultaneously, for a second time, acquiring the lost love of his life in Margaret. Kitty declares Chris’ cure, whereas Jenny silently considers the facts of the lost love, the lost child, that Chris would now need to return to war as a soldier, and, should he survive that, a less than emotionally full life with Kitty and Jenny.

(Rebecca West wrote The Return of the Soldier after making a name for herself as a fighter for woman suffrage).

The emotional appeal of The Return of the Soldier is in seeing feelings through the perspective of the main characters. While Chris Baldry isn’t exposed in his own internal world from his own perspective, the perspective is advocated externally through the different explicit views of Jenny, Kitty and Margaret. Chris is definitely an antagonist of sorts, ultimately being central to the full expression and point of the novel. The value of The Return of the Soldier comes from this perspective. I offer the book a rating of 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Wednesday, September 02, 2020