The Forsyte Saga

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 show more 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. show less

I've been reading this 1000 page novel made up of three novels and 2 short interludes all month and I think I'm going to miss it now that its over. This book follows several generations of the Forsyte family, an upper middle class family in England the end of the 19th cent and through WWI. The Forsytes and their characteristics become a metaphor for the whole upper middle class society.

The book revolves around the miserable marriage of Soames Forsyte to Irene. Soames treats Irene as his property, and with marriage laws being what they are at the time, in essence she is his property. Soames is possibly the most despicable character I've met in literature. Irene falls in love with a young architect and ends up escaping Soames. In the show more next book, Soames is back, wanting a child and needing Irene to comply or divorce him. She ends up falling in love with a different Forsyte and marrying him. In the third book, the children of Soames and Irene's subsequent marriages of course fall in love.

The plot seems soap opera-esque, but it's all so tastefully and artfully done, that it definitely reads like literature. Irene is a main character, but she's so passive that the story just happens around her. But there are strong women characters, like June and Holly, so the book doesn't fall into the annoying trap of no female characters. Soames is despicable, but so fleshed out through the book that he's understandable and therefore even more disgusting. I didn't love the last of the three parts because I found the relationship between the youngest Forsyte generation to be kind of annoying, but I was happy with the ending.

Overall, I loved the experience of reading this epic novel. show less

The last book of 2017 is the one and only book of the year that reaches the lofty heights of the 90%+ rating needed to enter Arukiyomi’s Hall of Fame. And deservedly so. This study of a Victorian family was one of the best portraits of generations that I have ever set eyes on.

From start to finish, the writing is excellent. At times, it is utterly sublime. I don’t think I will ever forget the passage at the end of The Indian Summer of a Forsyte. If you are looking for writing that will move you to tears with its beauty, try that out.

But the writing is so much more than that. Galsworthy has given us a quintessential study of the Victorian age as the sun begins to set on empire and the values that formed it. The characters of each show more generation are vividly brought to life, and through them, you live in another age.

At the pinnacle of Galsworthy’s achievement sits the character of Soames Forsyte. Rarely have I felt so many different emotions for a character over the course of a novel. He is at once repellent and yet also so very human I couldn’t help avoid the realisation that he was, at least in some aspects, every one of us.

One of the most memorable things about this book is that my wife and I read it to each other over the course of more than a year. We lived the saga together and shared our thoughts. This was a perfect book to read along with someone else because there’s just so much to reflect on and enjoy.

And while Galsworthy writes beautiful descriptions and detailed characters, he also makes sure you are satisfied for plot. As Soames dominates much of the proceedings, there are plenty of others who populate the novel whose sub-plots keep you occupied.

This is a majesterial novel which perfectly captures the spirit of the age it focusses on and does so in the most engaging way possible. show less

(28) I read these three novels and two short stories all at once. They really don't seem to be novels in and of themselves and read rather like one long book. Very enjoyable. I adore Victorian and turn of the century novels and this was no exception. Victorian in terms of setting but written in a more modernist fashion with multiple POV's and a lot of stream of consciousness narrative. Excellent characters. Understated but poignant drama as opposed to melodrama like many Victorian pieces.

I would say the main protagonist is Soames Forsyte - a member of the moneyed bourgeois of the time as opposed to the nobility say featured in 'Downton Abbey,' The Forsyte clan is essentially parodied as being obsessed with possessions and unfortunately show more for Soames his beautiful wife Irene is the one possession he has that he can't seem to hold on to properly. The tensions that ensue between these two make up the heart of the novel with repercussions that effect both Soames parents' generation as well as the next. I can't wait to see the Masterpiece theater production of these novels and hope they do as masterful a job with Soames as Galsworthy did in print. His character is just so . . . unlikable . . . despite us as the reader being so intimate with his thoughts and emotions.

There are times when the novel is just so long that it rambles -- I found parts focused on June Forsyte and Uncle Swithin a bit tiresome and I was a wee bit disappointed with the ending. But all and all it is a biting, affecting, absorbing story that engulfed me for several weeks. I would highly recommend for lovers of English literature. Despite being a definite wrist bending door-stopper, it has been one of my favorite books so far this year. show less

Drat. I see I lost the slip of paper where I write page numbers and the little notes for the book report. There are a few numbers scrawled on the inside back cover; page 785 has cricket, 808 the fixed idea, and there's a giant dog-ear folded from the bottom of the page. That would be a chapter I want to read again. I put off finishing it too. The book was left untouched at page 830 for an entire month. Didn't want to finish it. I had been through too much with them, especially the unloveable Soames, and the houses; Robin Hill and Timothy's.

"His heart made a faint demonstration within him while he stood in full south sunlight on the newly whitened doorstep of that little house where four Forsytes had once lived, and now but one dwelt on show more like a winter fly; the house into which Soames had come and out of which he had gone times without number, divested of, or burdened with, fardels of family gossip; the house of the 'old people' of another century, another age."

That house.

The passage of time is strong in this book and Galsworthy's precision and wit so timeless, I can recognize in Soame's misgivings about motor cars my own dizzy suspicions about cellphones. Whether it's the 19th or 20th century that's turning, things only seem to go faster. This is not going back on the shelf. I'm tucking this dogeared beast under the bedside table so I can reread all my favourite parts. show less

Four and a half stars. Actually three books in one, this is a wonderfully poignant tale spanning the years from Victorian 1865 to the "modern" 1920. Galworthy develops his characters beautifully; they are so like real people, the reader becomes immersed in their lives, applauding their strengths and lamenting their fatal flaws. These characters evoke strong opinions! A story of life moving on - the fading away of the older generation and their "simple" ways to the disintegration of class distinction and a new world where those caught between the generations mourn the loss of that past. The final book was not as appealing to me as the earlier two (hence the loss of 1/2 star), probably because I identified with mourning the loss of the show more past and the new, modern world just marked the end of an era of which I am reluctant to let go. Read it! You'll not be sorry. show less

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.