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John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga collects together three novels and two interludes, all published between 1906 and 1921. Not far removed from their farming history, the members of an upper-middle-class British family are painfully aware of being "new money". As a "man of property", Soames Forsyte's abilities bring him material wealth, but they grant him no quarter in the happiness stakes.
This was the first of the three trilogies Galsworthy wrote about the eponymous family of successful upper middle class lawyers and businessmen, whom he uses to stand for a certain Victorian, English set of attitudes and values focused on the primacy of money, social position, respectability and security.
The lawyer Soames Forsyte has a central position in all three novels: he’s an almost-perfect embodiment of Forsyteism, his idea of himself as a Man of Property invariably trumping any distant echoes of aesthetic sense or human feeling that get through to him. In the first novel we see his despotic possession of his wife Irene fall apart when she falls for the distinctly un-Forsyteish architect Philip; in the second we find him being pushed into a position where his desire for a child forces him into the ultimate sacrifice of respectability, a passage through the divorce court; and in the third he is pushed towards another major sacrifice of reputation for the sake of his daughter.
Galsworthy writes with a Trollope-like irony towards his characters (and a very Trollope-like fascination with legal quirks), but it’s informed by a 20th-century scepticism about Victorian values, written in the aftermath of the humiliation of South Africa and (in the last book) the horrors of the Great War. And a certain sense of nostalgia, too: when Timothy Forsyte, last of the Victorian generation, is interred in Highgate Cemetery, it’s a bit like the death of Emperor Franz-Joseph. Oddly, he doesn’t have anything to say about the Women’s Suffrage movement, but he does stress how Victorian law and custom were used to oppress women, and puts in his own plea for a long-overdue reform of divorce laws. ( )
If you despise the upper middle class as I do, with their tiresome entitlement, you will know why I gave this work five stars. Despite its sexist-ness (see page 595), and racist-ness (re: what the characters say about the time of the Boer war), it's still a delicious read. ( )
John Galsworthy, „posledný viktoriánsky spisovateľ“, ako ho niekedy nazývajú, vytvoril románmi svojho forsytovského cyklu mohutnú stavbu, ktorá je skôr mauzóleom ako pomníkom odchádzajúcej epoche a ľuďom, čo ju vytvorili. Forsytovci, oná „prevažná väčšina“ anglického národa, poriadkumilovná, konzervatívna, majetná, stali sa osobitným pojmom — veď sú stelesnením typu, ktorý kedysi tvoril chrbticu jednej zo svetových veľmocí. A jednako ani tento rod, to živé stelesnenie stredostavovskej solidnosti, neunikol pred rušivou, všetko rúcajúcou silou Krásy, ktorú stretávame v pôvabnej Irene a jej tragickom ľúbostnom príbehu. „Forsytovská sága" je dosiaľ živým svedectvom rozprávačského majstrovstva a imaginatívnej sily tohto autora. ( )
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book I: the man of property: "...You will answer/ The slaves are ours...." ~ merchant of venice
book II: in chancery: "Two households both alike in dignity, [...] From ancient grudge break to new mutiny." ~ romeo and juliet
book III: to let: "From out the fatal loins of those two foes/ A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life." ~ romeo and juliet
interlude: indian summer of a forsyte: "And summer's lease hath all too short a date." ~ Shakespeare
Dedicatòria
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book I: the man of property: TO EDWARD GARNETT
indian summer of a forsyte: TO ANDRE CHEVRILLON
book II: in chancery: TO JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD
book III: to let: TO CHARLES SCRIBNER
To MY WIFE I DEDICATE THE FORSYTE SAGA IN ITS ENTIRETY, BELIEVING IT TO BE OF ALL MY WORK THE LEAST UNWORTHY OF ONE WITHOUT WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT, SYMPATHY AND CRITICISM I COULD NEVER HAVE BECOME EVEN SUCH A WRITER AS I AM
Primeres paraules
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Those privileged to be present at a family festival of the Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight—an upper middle-class family in full plumage.
Citacions
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Nothing in the world is more sure to upset a Forsyte than the discovery that something on which he has stipulated to spend a certain sum has cost more. And this is reasonable, for upon the accuracy of his estimates the whole policy of his life is ordered. If he cannot rely on definite values of property, his compass is amiss; he is adrift upon bitter waters without a helm. (book I: the man of property: part II: chapter XIII: perfection of the house)
For all men of great age, even for all Forsytes, life has had bitter experiences. The passer-by, who sees them wrapped in cloaks of custom, wealth, and comfort, would never suspect that such black shadows had fallen on their roads. (book I: the man of property: part III: chapter VIII: bosinney's departure)
When a man is very old and quite out of the running, he loves to feel secure from the rivalries of youth, for he would still be first in the heart of beauty. (indian summer of a forsyte: I)
By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls. (indian summer of a forsyte: I)
Even grief sobbed itself out in time; only Time was good for sorrow--Time who saw the passing of each mood, each emotion in turn; Time the layer-to-rest. (indian summer of a forsyte: I)
"Love has no age, no limit, and no death." (indian summer of a forsyte: II)
I didn't care whether I lived or died. When you're like that, Fate ceases to want to kill you. (indian summer of a forsyte: II)
Faust in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years of youth. Morbid notion! No such bargain was possible, that was _real_ tragedy! No making oneself new again for love or life or anything. Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while you could, and leave something in your Will. (indian summer of a forsyte: III)
A marvellous cruelly strong thing was life when you were old and weak; it seemed to mock you with its multitude of forms and its beating vitality. (indian summer of a forsyte: V)
To be ashamed of his own father is perhaps the bitterest experience a young man can go through. (book II: in chancery: part I: chapter II: exit a man of the world)
"People who don't _live_ are wonderfully preserved." (book II: in chancery: part I: capter VIII: jolyon prosecutes trusteeship)
Passing into the picture gallery, as it was still called, he saw Irene standing over by the window. She came towards him saying: "I've been trespassing; I came up through the coppice and garden. I always used to come that way to see Uncle Jolyon." "You couldn't trespass here," replied Jolyon; "history makes that impossible. I was just thinking of you." Irene smiled. And it was as if something shone through; not mere spirituality--serener, completer, more alluring. "History!" she answered; "I once told Uncle Jolyon that love was for ever. Well, it isn't. Only aversion lasts." Jolyon stared at her. Had she got over Bosinney at last? "Yes!" he said, "aversion's deeper than love or hate because it's a natural product of the nerves, and we don't change _them._" "I came to tell you that Soames has been to see me. He said a thing that frightened me. He said: 'You are still my wife'!" "What!" ejaculated Jolyon. "You ought not to live alone." And he continued to stare at her, afflicted by the thought that where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral. (book II: in chancery: part I: chapter XIII: jolyon finds out where he is)
From where he sat he could see a cluster of apple-trees in blossom. Nothing in Nature moved him so much as fruit-trees in blossom; and his heart ached suddenly because he might never see them flower again. Spring! Decidedly no man ought to have to die while his heart was still young enough to love beauty! (book III: to let: part I: chapter III: at robin hill)
In a homeopathic age, when boy and girls were co-educated, and mixed-up in early life till sex was almost abolished, Jon was singularly old-fashioned. His modern school took boys only, and his holidays had been spent at Robin Hill with boy friends, or his parents alone. He had never, therefore, been inoculated against the germs of love by small doses of the poison. (book III: to let: part I: chapter III: at robin hill)
There are houses whose souls have passed into the limbo of Time, leaving their bodies in the limbo of London. (book III: to let: part I: chapter IV: the mausoleum)
"I love all kinds of beauty," went on Fleur, "when it's exciting. I don't like Greek things a bit." "What! Not Euripedes?" "Euripedes? Oh! no, I can't bear Greek plays; they're so long. I think beauty's always swift. I like to look at _one_ picture, for instance, and then run off. I can't bear a lot of things together. Look!" She held up her blossom in the moonlight. "That's better than all the orchard, I think." And, suddenly, with her other hand, she caught Jon's. "Of all the things in the world, don't you think caution's the most awful? Smell the moonlight!" She thrust the blossom against his face; Jon agreed giddily that of all things in the world caution was the worst, and bending over, kissed the hand which held his. "That's nice and old-fashioned," said Fleur calmly. "You're frightfully silent, Jon. Still I like silence when it's swift." (book III: to let: part I: chapter VII: fleur)
We've often talked about love being a spoil-sport; well, that's all tosh, it's the beginning of sport, and the sooner you feel it, my dear, the better for you. (book III: to let: part I: chapter VII: fleur)
One of the chief effects of love is that you see the air sort of inhabited, like seeing a face in the moon; and you feel--you feel dancey and soft at the same time, with a funny sensation--like a continual first sniff of orange-blossom--just above your stays.(book III: to let: part I: chapter VII: fleur)
She spoke of dogs, and the way people treated them. It was wicked to keep them on chains! She would like to flog people who did that. Jon was astonished to find her so humanitarian. (book III: to let: part I: chapter VIII: idyll on grass)
"It's their sense of property," he said, "which makes people chain things. The last generation thought of nothing but property; and that's why there was the War." (book III: to let: part I: chapter VIII: idyll on grass)
Ah! why on earth are we born young? Now, if only we were born old and grew younger year by year, we should understand how things happen, and drop all our cursed intolerance. (book III: to let: part I: chapter X: trio)
That "small" emotion, love, grows amazingly when threatened with extinction. (book III: to let: part I: chapter XI: duet)
A philosopher when he has all that he wants is different from a philosopher when he has not. (book III: to let: part II: chapter II: fathers and daughters)
Youth only recognizes Age by fits and starts. (book III: to let: part II: chapter III: meetings)
The War was bad for manners, sir--it was bad for manners. (book III: to let: part II: chapter III: meetings)
A Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of any situation. (book III: to let: part II: chapter VIII: the bit between the teeth)
You know, I believe each of us only has about one or two people who can see the best that's in us, and bring it out. (book III: to let: part II: chapter X: decision)
"The fixed idea," which has outrun more constables than any other form of human disorder, has never more speed and stamina than when it takes the avid guise of love. To hedges and ditches, and doors, to humans without ideas fixed or otherwise, to perambulators and the contents sucking their fixed ideas, even to the other sufferers from this fast malady--the fixed idea of love pays no attention. It runs with eyes turned inward to its own light, oblivious to all other stars. Those with the fixed ideas that human happiness depends on their art, on vivisecting dogs, on hating foreigners, on paying super-tax, on remaining Ministers, on making wheels go round, on preventing their neighbours from being divorced, on conscientious objection, Greek roots, Church dogma, paradox and superiority to everybody else, with other forms of ego-mania--all are unstable compared with him or her whose fixed idea is the possession of some her or him. (book III: to let: part III: chapter V: the fixed idea)
An unhappy marriage [...] can play such havoc with other lives besides one's own. (book III: to let: part III: chapter VI: desperate)
Admiration of beauty and longing for possession are not love. (book III: to let: part III: chapter VI: desperate)
After all was said and done there was something real about land, it didn't shift. Land, and good pictures! The values might fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they were always going up--worth holding on to, in a world where there was such a lot of unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, such a "Here to-day and gone tomorrow" spirit. (book III: to let: part III: chapter VII: embassy)
Fleur smiled bitterly. "Tell me, didn't [Irene] spoil your life too?" June looked up. "Nobody can spoil a life, my dear. That's nonsense. Things happen, but we bob up." (book III: to let: part III: chapter X: fleur's wedding)
As a family they had so guarded themselves from the expression of all unfashionable emotion that it was impossible to go up and give her daughter a good hug. (In Chancery)
Darreres paraules
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And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there--the melancholy craving in his heart--because the sun was like enchantment on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch leaves, and the wind's rustle was so gentle, and the yew-tree green so dark, and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky. He might wish and wish and never get it--the beauty and the loving in the world!
John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga collects together three novels and two interludes, all published between 1906 and 1921. Not far removed from their farming history, the members of an upper-middle-class British family are painfully aware of being "new money". As a "man of property", Soames Forsyte's abilities bring him material wealth, but they grant him no quarter in the happiness stakes.
)
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(4.15)
The Forsyte Saga
5
The lawyer Soames Forsyte has a central position in all three novels: he’s an almost-perfect embodiment of Forsyteism, his idea of himself as a Man of Property invariably trumping any distant echoes of aesthetic sense or human feeling that get through to him. In the first novel we see his despotic possession of his wife Irene fall apart when she falls for the distinctly un-Forsyteish architect Philip; in the second we find him being pushed into a position where his desire for a child forces him into the ultimate sacrifice of respectability, a passage through the divorce court; and in the third he is pushed towards another major sacrifice of reputation for the sake of his daughter.
Galsworthy writes with a Trollope-like irony towards his characters (and a very Trollope-like fascination with legal quirks), but it’s informed by a 20th-century scepticism about Victorian values, written in the aftermath of the humiliation of South Africa and (in the last book) the horrors of the Great War. And a certain sense of nostalgia, too: when Timothy Forsyte, last of the Victorian generation, is interred in Highgate Cemetery, it’s a bit like the death of Emperor Franz-Joseph. Oddly, he doesn’t have anything to say about the Women’s Suffrage movement, but he does stress how Victorian law and custom were used to oppress women, and puts in his own plea for a long-overdue reform of divorce laws. (