Tag Archives: Forsyte Saga

Flowering Wilderness by John Galsworthy

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Flowering Wilderness  is the second last book of the last Forsyte trilogy (End of the Chapter), a nine book series which for years I thought ended with the death of Soames Forsyte, just as the TV dramatisation did – but it didn’t.

The year is 1930 and Dinny Cherrell (Cherwell) has fallen head over heals with Wilfred Desert, a fairly impoverished poet. He had been the best man at Dinny’s cousin’s (Michael Mont) wedding to Fleur Forsyte, and a few years after that he had caused ructions within that marriage which led to Wilfred leaving Britain for the Middle East. When he returns to London it seems that Wilfred is as besotted with Dinny as she is with him so all should be sweetness and light, but a rumour has reached London that while Wilfred was living in the Middle East he had been forced to renounce Christianity and become a Muslim – at the point of a gun!

Nowadays that would be a no brainer but back in 1930 among the upper classes it was an outrage – what sort of man wouldn’t be happy to have his brains blown out rather than abandon Christianity?  Not that Wilfred was any sort of believer anyway.

Dinny doesn’t care a hoot about it all, and she’s happy to get married and follow him back on his eastern wanderings, but her parents think very differently, and when Wilfred makes matters worse by writing to a newspaper admitting his ‘conversion’ it makes the whole situation impossible as far as Dinny’s family is concerned.

This is a great read, Galsworthy’s books are full of social history, often highlighting the hypocrisy of the law, and of those in society who think they are above everyone else. I suppose Galsworthy was the Dickens of his day, but I’m not a big fan of Dickens, controversially (no doubt) I think Galsworthy is a better writer.

I’m now half way through the last book in this series, Over the River, and I hope to be able to review that one soon too.

Maid in Waiting by John Galsworthy

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Maid in Waiting by John Galsworthy is the seventh book in the Forsyte Saga which should really be called the Forsyte Chronicles, and it continues with some of the characters from the previous book and features the Charwell family (pronounced Cherrell). They’re not nearly as well off as the Forsytes as they’ve mainly opted to become church minsters in slum districts, joined the army or become academics.

While Herbert Cherrell, an academic was on an expedition in Bolivia he had had to shoot a muleteer, he got into that position because he had taken to flogging the muleteers for continuing to ill-treat the mules despite his complaints about it. As you can imagine they didn’t take well to being flogged. There’s a possibility that he’ll be extradited to stand trial in Bolivia and at this danger to one of their own, his very clannish family is incensed and set out to pull strings – or in the case of the women to ‘vamp’ men they think might be able to help.

Meanwhile another of them, Diana, is in trouble. Her husband who has been in a private mental hospital for some years suddenly appears back home, claiming to be fine. But he had been violent to her in the past and she’s terrified of him. Again the family comes to her aid. Mental health is quite a theme, was it hereditary or did his experiences during World War 1 turn his mind?

I really enjoyed this one which is quite topical, humans never really change. The Cherrells, some of whom seem very decent, do however have a sense of entitlement and strangely a feeling that they are being held up to higher standards than others simply because of their connections. They see having friends and relatives in high places as a bit of a disadvantage!

It ended a bit abruptly for my liking and I hope that the next one in this trilogy which is called Flowering Wilderness, features Dinny Cherrell as I became quite fond of her, she’s the young mainstay of the family.

The Silver Spoon (The Forsyte Saga) by John Galsworthy

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The Silver Spoon by John Galsworthy is close to the end of the long Forsyte Saga series. In fact I thought I only had Swan Song to read now but I see that there are a few other books which involve Forsytes. It has taken me a good wee while to work my way through them all, despite the fact that I really loved the series. I sort of came to a standstill because I wanted to stumble across a nice old copy of The Silver Spoon as all my other books from the series are old ones, but I gave up and purchased an omnibus edition, not my favourites as they are so big and heavy, so awkward to read.

Anyway to the book. The Silver Spoon of the title refers to the one which Fleur Forsyte was born with in her mouth – as the saying goes. The First World War is over and the survivors aren’t having an easy time of it – unless they’re rich, plus ca change! Fleur is the only child of Soames Forsyte and has been spoiled rotten by him. She freely admits that she must get whatever she wants and with a personality like that it’s quite amazing that Fleur comes across as likeable as she does. She’s a calculating character but she knows it and good manners often save her from being ghastly.

Fleur’s husband Michael Mont has become a Member of Parliament, Fleur is perfect as a politician’s wife, in fact the whole thing was her idea and she’s making a career for herself as a political hostess building up a ‘salon’ and collecting the right sort of people.

This book is mainly concerned with a court case which comes about entirely because Soames overheard one of Fleur’s guests slagging Fleur off at a party. Being old-fashioned he demands an apology and the whole thing snowballs.

Poor Michael Mont whom Fleur has married on the rebound due to not being able to get the man she wanted, has realised that although Fleur is outwardly gorgeous she really has no soul and is completely self-centred.

The Forsyte Saga is really a sort of soap, like most family series I suppose and there’s plenty in the way of scandal and dysfunctional family members to entertain the reader.

I watched the first BBC dramatisation of the books when it was first shown on TV way back in 1967, looking back I think I was too young to have been watching it but my parents never quibbled. One particular episode scandalised the nation, or at least the tabloid newspapers! But I loved it even although it was in black and white and when I read the books it’s those old actors that I imagine as playing the parts. So Fleur is the lovely Susan Hampshire, now better known by younger generations for her part in Monarch of the Glen, still looking beautiful in spite of her age, and Soames is Eric Porter.

I have that series on DVD as well as the more modern adaptation and I still enjoy the black and white ones, I don’t think that period dramas really date. Although having said that I did see a version of a Jane Austen book from the early 1970s fairly recently and I could hardly believe how wooden the acting seemed. I can’t even remember which book it was, I must have blocked it out as it was so bad!

Anyway, if a nice long series of books involving one family down the generations is your sort of thing then you’ll probably enjoy this series which follows the Forsytes as they live through a fast changing society, set mainly in London.

BBC Forsyte Saga (again)

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I’ve been having a bit of a Forsyte-fest since I was given the original BBC set from 1967 for Mothering Sunday. I’ve watched all 26 episodes and although it seemed a bit dated at first, it wasn’t long before I forgot that it was in black and white and I got engrossed in the whole thing.

As I mentioned before, some of the love scenes in the earlier episodes are an absolute scream, but they did become more natural looking as time went on. Maybe the actors had started to do a bit more than acting with each other by that time.

I still think that the casting was better than the recent ITV version. Nyree Dawn Porter was so much better as Irene than Gina McKee was, although Nyree didn’t get the distinctive walk of Irene either. You would think it would be an easy thing for an actress to master – a sexy bum waggling walk, which Galsworthy described her as having.

For the most part, the ageing make-up was well done too. Although for some reason the character of June’s face looked dirtier as she got older.

Susan Hampshire will always be Fleur to me, I think she was just perfect for the part and her husband was played by the actor Nicholas Pennell, who I think did a good job. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen him in anything else, but apparently he was in The Saint, which I never watched. At some point he moved to Canada and acted in a Shakespearian company there. Maybe the parts just didn’t come up for him in Britain. Sadly he died when he was only 56.

So all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my present. It was an absolute bargain, bought from The Guardian website for £19.99.

The Forsyte Saga was hugely popular when it was first broadcast in Britain. Pubs closed early (in England – Scottish pubs were shut on Sundays way back then; only hotels could sell drink and then only to “bona fide travellers”) and churches rescheduled their evening services.

It was subsequently released in Australia and America where it was just as popular and it became the first serial sold by the BBC to the Soviet Union. More than 160 million viewers around the world watched the serial.