The Forsyte Saga (Wordsworth Classics) [Paperback]

Family secrets, dirty little problems, and a dash of adultery, scandal and forbidden love. Soap opera? Well, sort of -- it's Nobel Prize Winner John Galsworthy's sprawling family epic "The Forsyte Saga." While it has a distinctly soapy flavor, "Saga" retains its dignity and look at turn-of-the-century mores and society.

The Forsyte family is determinedly regal and hard-nosed, almost to the point of a fault. One staid family member, Soames Forsyte, becomes obsessed with the beautiful but poor Irene, and finally gets her to marry him -- on condition that if their marriage doesn't work, she walks. Well, their marriage doesn't work. Soames is frustrated that Irene shuts him out of her life and her bed -- even more so when he learns that she is in love with sexy, arty architect Bosinney, who is building them a new house.

Soames rapes Irene and ruins Bosinney. His marriage falls into ruins, and Bosinney is killed in a car accident. So Irene leaves permanently, living in an apartment by herself. Then Soames announces that he wants to marry a pretty French girl, Annette, and Irene weds Soames' cousin. But the problems of the older generation get inherited by the younger one -- Soames's daughter falls madly in love with Irene's son, but their parents' secret pasts doom their love.

Three novels ("A Man of Property," "In Chancery," and "To Let"), connected with two short stories ("Indian Summer of a Forsyte" and "Awakening") -- it's a pretty big story, sprawling over three generations and four decades. It's a bit soapy, with all the scandal and family weirdness, but the dignified writing keeps it from seeming sordid.

It's a credit to Galsworthy that he can communicate so much without ever getting into his characters' heads. He displays emotion in undemonstrative people like Irene through little mannerisms and twitches. At the same time, he can give us heartrending looks into aging patriarch Old Jolyon's lonely mind. His writing is very nineteenth century, dignified and with plenty of furniture/clothing details. It's pretty dense, but all right once you get used to it.

Galsworthy was a solid supporter of women's rights, and you can see in Irene and Soames' relationship -- Soames, who sees his wife as another piece of property, and the determined Irene who only wants her own happiness, but can't afford to live on her own. Their respective kids Jon and Fleur are nice but kind of boring beside their darker, more intense parents.

For a look at the social shifts that helped define the twentieth century, take a look at the "Forsyte Saga." Or if you just want to soak in a tale of family woe, love, hate and dark secrets, "Saga" still works.

For some reason or other this book sat unopened and unread on my shelf for years, but now that I have finally come around to reading it I sincerely regret not having done so before. Although it is not set in the early middle ages or some mythological period I think Galsworthy entitled his book by rights a saga because of its breadth and scope.

Although there are dozens of other characters involved, both members of the Forsyte family and others, the story centers on just a few Forsytes: Soames Forsyte, his wife Irene, his cousin Jolyon and their respective children. Soames is the paragon of the Forsyte family, the very embodiment of all they (and their class) cherish and uphold: the pursuit of ever more property and - above all - respectability. Soames is, as Galsworthy describes him at a certain pojnt, 'the very embodiment of the possesive instinct', born and bred to feel superior to every other human being. But there is a black sheep in the family: Jolyon Forsyte, after the death of his first wife, has married an impoverished lady out of love (for crying out loud!). And Soames after a while too discovers a very disturbing fact: one cannot 'own' people as houses, furniture or paintings. His wife Irene, although she is materially well provided for, realizes she has made a grave mistake in marrying Soames and beforelong she feels miserable in her marriage. Whereas she lets herself be governed by her heart (and comes to recognize she cannot love Soames), he is nothing but 'mind' and simply cannot grasp why Irene is unhappy, let alone why she would want to leave him.

Irene ultimately falls in love with a young but penniless architect who, unaware that she has decided to elope with him, commits suicide. Irene cannot reconcile herself with Soames after this, and goes to live alone causing a rift in the family that will never heal. The 'feud' (as some come to call it) will years later come to a disastrous ending when Soames daughter (by his second wife) falls in love with the son of Irene and Jolyon (who have meanwhile married).

What makes this so wonderful a book is to my mind first and foremost the extremely detailed way in which Galsworthy traces and describes the feelings of his characters. Though most of them personify completely different types of people and attitudes to life, none of them are cardboard-characters. Although for instance Soames will ultimately prove unable to change (his 2nd marriage is as much a failure as his first, and he clearly has not learned from past mistakes), he keeps on baffling himself by the feelings he still has for Irene even years after their separation. As a truly 'omniscient narrator' Galsworthy has and grants us insight into the workings of his characters' minds, and the book abounds with fascinating 'interior monologues': Soames trying to come to grips with the feelings he undeniably keeps having for Irene, Jolyon's grave doubts and soul-searching about how (if at all) he should react when his son falls in love with Soames' daughter, ...

All in all this is a gripping account of a family's trials and tribulations, and there is no doubt with whom Galsworthy's sympathy lies. In the Forsytes he has depicted a truly horrible family, unable to feel (let alone show their feelings). Though it may be situated in an era long gone by and the manner in which we deal with these matters utterly different, to me it was without a doubt as relevant today as it was when it was written. Love is as confounding a matter today as it was then, is it not?

I read the first 100 pages of this novel with a certain degree of scepticism - there seemed to be too many characters, all of whom were too similar, and an overly critical narrator. However as the tale continues and gathers speed Galsworthy manages to withdraw his critical additions and the novel improves considerably for this. I would thoroughly recommend persevering with this - by the end I could not put it down.