Finished The Good Soldier

I finished the book during my lunchroom supervision. Again, I think I am reading too fast for what I am writing here. The story becomes more complicated when one girl (she is very young and her name is Nancy) becomes attached to the Ashburnhams, and Edward falls in love with her. Mind you, this is the fourth woman he becomes attached with in the story. John Dowell, the narrator, is not the least upset at his wife's death; he is in fact happy about it. He has an interest in Nancy as well. In the end, Edward commits suicide, Leonore marries another man, Nancy goes insane and John is left to take care of her. There is, to be sure, a lack of sympathetic characters in this book, but it is so well written that it much more than enough makes up for it. I have to give Ford Madox Ford credit. All I knew about him was what Hemingway wrote about in "A Movable Feast," a book that should really be taken as fiction rather than biography. There Ford is presented as a sort of buffoon, a bumbling idiot who cares about "cutting people" (apparently looking the other way when he sees them) and having affairs with married women. Here's a little biography on Ford.

Like I said earlier, I think I am reading too fast for what I am writing. I want to write every day and it just occurred to me that it might be easier if I cut down on the pages I am trying to report. I would certainly do a much better job. And perhaps I should do all this writing as soon as I wake up in the morning (5:00 AM), and not take my lunch time to write but rather read. Oh, well. All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend "The Good Soldier" for its magnificent technique of storytelling and pace and honesty of language.

Ford Madox Ford and Book 2

Well, I am glad to admit that Ford is a genius of plot. No wonder Graham Greene called the novel "[o]ne of the fifteen or twenty greatest novels produced in English in our century." The revelation of Edward Ashburnham's affair with the narrator's wife, Florence, is brought in at a critical point. What happens next is a stroke of masterful genius, really. Edward is also having an affair with another woman at the same time he is keeping Florence. Florence sees them together and has a heart attack (remember she has a weak heart)... or did she? I was really surprised at the suggestion that Florence committed suicide. Leonore, Edward's wife, proposes this to the narrator who is unwilling to believe it at the time. Another twist in the suicide theory: While at the lobby of the hotel, John (the narrator) is approached by a man who supposedly knows Florence from before she married John. The theory is that when Florence returned to the hotel after seeing Edward with the other woman, she was pale and clutching her chest. At the same time, Bagshaw--the man talking to John--reveals that Florence had had an affair with a man before marrying John. Therefore, Florence (at least in John's estimation) had a heart attack due to seeing Bagshaw and John talking (apparently, she guessed at Bagshaw's intentions). Whatever reservations I had about Ford's technique have vanished. He's an excellent novelist. There's a particularly good description of this Bagshaw fellow that should be textbook for beginning writers: "Well, he was an unmistakable, with a military figure, rather exaggerated, with bulbous eyes that avoided your own, and a pallid complexion that suggested vices practised in secret, along with an uneasy desire for making acquaintance at whatever cost..." Brilliant description. I think I am reading a bit too fast for my writing; I am already 60 something pages away from finishing the book.

Final exams for the first semester of school are on Tuesday and Wednesday of this coming week. Lest I don't have time to write those days, I hope you understand.

The Good Soldier, post ii

Whatever problems I was having with "The Good Soldier" appear to have been my own inability to read between the lines. Finally, the novel is beginning to appear like a lineal plot. I got in the groove last night and finished "Book One."

The Ashburnhams and the Dowells are two couples who meet yearly at the fashionable German spa town of Nauheim. The plot really centers around Edward Ashburnham's infidelities to his wife. The narrator, John Dowell, and his wife Florence are Americans who visit Europe yearly seeking "cures" for Florence's weak heart. I am not particularly sure yet if the narrator is a reliable voice. Like the good British subject she is, Edward Ashburnham's wife, Leonore, puts up with quite a bit from her husband. Like I said, the action shifts from 1904 to 1915 rather quickly, and one is prone to get lost for lack of attention. There are interjections by the narrator that give away a certain amount of the story beforehand. For example, John Dowell touches very lightly on the fact that Florence and Edward have an affair. Perhaps this would have been better revealed later; that or else Ford has a genius twist in store for us at the end. That's the problem with this type of plot, one expects that to happen later in the book and if it doesn't, one becomes disillusioned by the story's lack of resolution or even climax. I plan on starting "Book Two" today.

The Good Soldier

I have my hands full with a difficult book. Ford writes exquisitely, but the constant metaphoric and simile elements make it a hard going on following the plot. Right now, the Ashburnhams just met the Dowells. The action shifts from 1904 to 1915 almost constantly, so one has to be concerned with the technique that Ford employs and this leaves little space for actual enjoyment of the rhythm and other nuances of language. I only read about 50 pages last night, but I wasn't feeling well after a tough day so I went to bed.

The administration at the school just approved a course I designed for next year. The course is "Popular Culture and Media Studies," and it is promising to make waves all around. The course will concentrate on viewing and listening to popular films, television programs, songs, etc., with a constant awareness of the intended message and audience in mind. This is all critical thinking. I just wrote an outline of what the 18 week semester would look like; now I have to design it day by day. Lots of work for this coming summer!

Change of Plans

I will be reading "The Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford instead of "Trimalchio." I promise I will get to the Fitzgerald masterpiece next.