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A review by alexisreading23
Parades End by Ford Madox, Ford
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
FMF considered The Good Soldier to be his masterpiece, although readers have long put forth the argument that Parades End should hold that title. Having read the former first, I can see how its short length and tighter (and tidier) plot help it make the impact that it does. However, while Parades End is certainly a quiet and unhurried tome of a book, its minute character studies created characters of a colour and vivacity that The Good Soldier can hardly hold a candle to. It’s astoundingly British in its portrait of reticence and repression, honour, duty, feeling.
The length of the novel as a combined quartet is intimidating to say the least, and the length did mean my attention abated at certain points, particularly in the introductory quarter and the third. I found the second quarter much more lively, and the description of warfare very engaging.
Coming to the final quarter of the novel, I felt slightly weary at the prospect of another few hundred pages when it seemed like fifty should suffice. I ate my words because these final few hundred tied together the entire novel for me.
The respective deep dives into the thoughts and feelings of the intriguing Christopher and the malicious Sylvia which dominated the earlier parts of the novel (which I enjoyed immensely), were replaced by lesser characters. I found these passages so wonderfully fascinating and expressive of an age and way of being. Mark and Christopher’s devotion to each other despite their final impasse felt like a sort of healing, a lifting of the curse of the Groby tree!
Reading the final few chapters, I had the sense that the novel was trying to put across a kind of profundity that it didn’t have a name for, that could only be felt and expressed in these minute encounters, Mark Jr and his resemblance to his father, the reappearance of Sylvia and her moments of compassion, Maria Leonie’s steadfast and peculiar ways, of course Mark and Christopher, the barely tolerated younger brother, the rescued sea birds…
The novel did not verbalise its profundity in such explicit terms, but I felt it all the same. Christopher Tierjens is surely one of the most intriguing and tangible protagonists I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
The length of the novel as a combined quartet is intimidating to say the least, and the length did mean my attention abated at certain points, particularly in the introductory quarter and the third. I found the second quarter much more lively, and the description of warfare very engaging.
Coming to the final quarter of the novel, I felt slightly weary at the prospect of another few hundred pages when it seemed like fifty should suffice. I ate my words because these final few hundred tied together the entire novel for me.
The respective deep dives into the thoughts and feelings of the intriguing Christopher and the malicious Sylvia which dominated the earlier parts of the novel (which I enjoyed immensely), were replaced by lesser characters. I found these passages so wonderfully fascinating and expressive of an age and way of being. Mark and Christopher’s devotion to each other despite their final impasse felt like a sort of healing, a lifting of the curse of the Groby tree!
Reading the final few chapters, I had the sense that the novel was trying to put across a kind of profundity that it didn’t have a name for, that could only be felt and expressed in these minute encounters, Mark Jr and his resemblance to his father, the reappearance of Sylvia and her moments of compassion, Maria Leonie’s steadfast and peculiar ways, of course Mark and Christopher, the barely tolerated younger brother, the rescued sea birds…
The novel did not verbalise its profundity in such explicit terms, but I felt it all the same. Christopher Tierjens is surely one of the most intriguing and tangible protagonists I have ever had the pleasure of reading.