Over the River by John Galsworthy

In Over the River by John Galsworthy Dinny Cherwell’s younger sister comes home from India where she had been for all of the seventeen months of her marrriage to the much older Sir Jerry Corven. She has left her high ranking British army officer husband as she’s unable to put up with his cruelty and brutality any more, she’s been thoroughly humiliated by him.

On the voyage back Clare has begun a friendship with Tony Croom, a man nearer her own age. He has fallen in love with Clare, but it’s all very platonic as far as Clare is concerned.

When the dastardly husband arrives in London to make Clare go back to him in India he’s outraged that as far as he is concerned she’s already moved on in her life. If she doesn’t go back to him he will sue Tony Croom, naming him as co-respondent in the divorce case, despite the fact that there is no evidence of infidelity. It will ruin Tony’s life, especially as the husband intends to ask for £2,000 as ‘damages’ from Tony.

This was a really good read, it features Fleur Forsyte and Michael Mont as minor characters.

As usual Galsworthy was writing about the hypocrisy of society, it was almost impossible for ordinary people to get a divorce, but even for wealthy people it wasn’t straightforward, especially if only one of the spouses wanted a divorce.

I can clearly remember the shenanigans that people had to get up to even in the late 1970s, involving private detectives and chamber maids in divorce courts as ‘witnesses’ to infidelity – not that Clare and Tony got up to anything nefarious at all, it just looked it.

 

 

Flowering Wilderness by John Galsworthy

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.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2021 – the wrap-up.

I’ve completed six books in the Back to the Classics Challenge 2021 which is hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate.

1. A 19th century classic: any book first published from 1800 to 1899. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. This one is a cracker, a real page-turner.

3. A classic by a woman – The Corn King and the Spring Queen by Naomi Mitchison. I felt this one dragged, it is very long and wasn’t really a page-turner for me.

5. A classic by a BIPOC author; that is, a non-white author. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin. I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I thought I would, but I will try more by the author.

5. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. This one is a heart-breaking read, but I’m glad I read it.

7. New-to-you classic by a favorite author — a new book by an author whose works you have already read. A Maid in Waiting by John Galsworthy This seventh book in the Forsyte Chronicles was good, just two more books to go.

9. A children’s classic – Pinocchio by Carlo/Charles Collodi. I’m glad I caught up with this children’s classic at last.

Thank you Karen for hosting this challenge.

Maid in Waiting by John Galsworthy

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.

Bookshelf Travelling in Insane Times

I’ll be gathering all the Bookshelf Travelling in Insane Times blogposts here for the moment. Judith at Reader in the Wilderness has had too much going on in her life recently to be able to keep up with it, so I’m stepping in to help.

More Books

The bookshelf I’m featuring this week is home to some favourite authors. I loved The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy, it’s about a large and wealthy London based family, starting from Victorian times and following their lives and family feuds beyond World War 1. These books are available free from Project Gutenberg here.

I think I’ve read all of the books on this shelf apart from Veranilda by George Gissing. This book dates from 1904 and originally belonged to Jack’s Granny and has her name in it. M. Besford. I used to write my name in books but stopped doing that decades ago. I’m now wondering if I should at least write it in pencil, as I really like to see a name and date inside a book. What do you do – inscribe or leave blank and pristine? Have you read Veranilda or anything else by George Gissing.

I remember that I really enjoyed reading The Mulberry Empire by Philip Hensher – before I started blogging, but I’ve never read anything else by him. Have you?

A few of my Rumer Godden books are on this shelf, some are in a bookcase upstairs, possibly they wouldn’t fit on this shelf. Elizabeth Jane Howard and Penelope Lively are favourites too, then of course there’s Mrs Gaskell. I’ve been meaning to visit Elizabeth Gaskell’s house for years. I see that it has opened up again but I might leave it until next year.

If you’re taking part in Bookshelf Travelling this week I’ll add a link to you, if I miss your post please send me a link.

A Son of the Rock (Jack)

Staircase Wit

Stainless Steel Droppings

Swan Song by John Galsworthy

In Swan Song which seems to be the last book in the Forsyte Saga (although a few more books were written which feature some Forsytes I think) it’s 1926, a time of political upheaval, the miners are on strike and there is of course THE General Strike.

I suppose The General Strike was a battle between the upper classes and the working classes. Jon Forsyte, the man who broke Fleur’s heart is now married and has returned from America, he’s helping to keep the trains running. Fleur isn’t at all bothered that they are both now married and of course as she says herself, she must get what she wants. Soames is worried about her as he knows that she is just like him.

So the country is in a mess and those men who survived the trenches are now being treated like scum by the bosses. Michael Mont, Fleur’s husband, is still a Member of Parliament, and he is now trying to gather a group of influential men together to help to improve living conditions in the slums of London, where if you bang a nail into the wall, things crawl out.

Meanwhile Soames is thinking about the future, and how long he might have to live. The Forsytes are a long-lived lot but he feels the need to track down his ancestors, just as many people do nowadays. He has always been intrigued by the fact that his family had come from poor yeoman stock who within a few generations had amassed fortunes in business after moving to London.

These books were so popular in their day because they feature everything that we’re familiar with – families and the odd dodgy relative that most of us have if we dig deep enough, a political background which doesn’t really ever change – we’re always in a mess, a glimpse into the lives of the wealthy – and they often aren’t any happier than the rest of us, and other people’s immorality! I was sad to get to the end of it.

If you want to read the books you can do so online here.

The Silver Spoon (The Forsyte Saga) by John Galsworthy

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)

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.

Book buying

I’m supposed to be using the library instead of buying books nowadays as we will probably be down-sizing at some point in the nearish future, due to the fact that we don’t want to be rattling around in a big family house when the family has flown the nest.

Unfortunately, we recently discovered a great second-hand bookshop which is only about a two mile walk away from our house. It’s just impossible to resist, and as my husband said – there are worse vices to have.

So, in the last week I have bought:

Vanity Fair by Willliam Thackeray – I’m blaming Jane GS for this one.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – We only had a paperback.
Swan Song by John Galsworthy – I had to complete my set.
The Novels of Thomas Love Peacock – Only had a few before.
Basil by Wilkie Collins – I’m blaming The Classics Circuit.
Miss or Mrs? by Wilkie Collins – DITTO.
Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer – DITTO.
The Battles of the Somme by Martin Marix Evans – I’m blaming
Gabrillo Princip for that one.

One of my grandfathers was at the Somme and we’ve been to visit one of the preserved battlefields where the Canadians had been in the front line.

Well worth a visit if you get the chance.

The removal men complained enough when we moved here, about the number of heavy boxes of books which we had. We’ve had more than 20 book buying years here since then. I suppose we should get rid of a lot of them – in fact I have given a lot to charity over the years. Often I’ve regretted getting rid of a particular book and wonder why on earth I parted with it.

I suppose there are worse problems to have, but I can hear that book shop shouting to me. Well, I forgot to buy their copy of Anna Karenina.

BBC’s The Forsyte Saga

My husband bought me The Forsyte Saga boxed set on 7 DVDs for Mother’s Day. Well, he’s not a bad lad and of course it was really cheap from The Guardian. (£19.99)

I’m really shocked that this was first screened in 1967, so I was only 8 years old. I remember that I loved it and certain parts of it have always stuck in my memory. I think it was actually on quite late at night, I’m sure that it wasn’t meant to be viewed by 8 year olds but as I was the youngest in my family by quite a long way, my bed time tended to be forgotten about. Lucky me.

It was a BAFTA and Emmy award winning series but of course it is in black and white which doesn’t really bother me, I love watching vintage films which are often in black and white too.

So I’ve been having a great time watching it again whilst my husband was out at a football match, and I’m already on episode 5. As you would expect after all this time it is a bit dated but that hasn’t spoiled my enjoyment. Some of the acting is really good but some is quite bad. The love scenes are terrible, really hammy so they are an absolute SCREAM. I think it was all a bit too much for the BBC to cope with in 1967. I certainly remember that it was talked of in the newspapers and thought to be not quite ‘nice’ and a bit risque.

I think that the cast was well chosen, apart from John Bennet who plays the part of Philip Bosinney. His acting is fine – apart from the hilarious love scenes – but he is just too old for the part, he looks older than Soames a lot of the time.

For some reason I have never liked the actor Kenneth More who plays the part of young Jolyon, but again he doesn’t spoil it for me.

As an 8 year old, I remember being a fan of Soames and I still think that he was very badly treated by Irene. Eric Porter was perfect as Soames.

So my Mother’s Day present has been a great success and I can’t wait to watch the rest of it.