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A review by manwithanagenda
Parades End by Ford, Ford Madox
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Five months...a little misleading since with the exception of the 'No More Parades', which took me ages to get into, and then afterwards took a big fat pause for three to four months (all of that waiting, waiting waiting), 'Parade's End' was a smooth read for such a dense novel.
Through the pompously upright Christopher Tietjens, his, uh, complicated wife Sylvia, suffragette Valentine Wannop and many other characters, 'Parade's End' covers the Great War. The causes, the battles and the rest of what one would expect from a war novel take a backseat to the preoccupations of the characters. It's not unusual to find Tietjens debating whether or not to send a letter to a woman he almost asked to sleep with while bombs whistle in.
Madox's prose is a marvel. Full of dry humor and cringey scenes on top of the drama of Society Crumbling. He also illustrates how people got on, which is harder to do. Sure, I haven't read any since senior English in high school, but I can't remember even Joyce getting stream-of-conciousness so exact. Especially with Sylvia. You find yourself counting the minutes with her in a hotel parlor. The problem is that I found myself picking apart the writing to see how he pulled off an effect rather than enjoying it. A second go-around might fix that problem, but for now its a glad-I-read-it, nothing else.
The BBC series is an unexpected bonus which I'll have to catch when it re-airs.
A quip on the individual novels:
'Some Do Not....'
'No More Parades'
'A Man Could Stand Up'
'The Last Post'
Through the pompously upright Christopher Tietjens, his, uh, complicated wife Sylvia, suffragette Valentine Wannop and many other characters, 'Parade's End' covers the Great War. The causes, the battles and the rest of what one would expect from a war novel take a backseat to the preoccupations of the characters. It's not unusual to find Tietjens debating whether or not to send a letter to a woman he almost asked to sleep with while bombs whistle in.
Madox's prose is a marvel. Full of dry humor and cringey scenes on top of the drama of Society Crumbling. He also illustrates how people got on, which is harder to do. Sure, I haven't read any since senior English in high school, but I can't remember even Joyce getting stream-of-conciousness so exact. Especially with Sylvia. You find yourself counting the minutes with her in a hotel parlor. The problem is that I found myself picking apart the writing to see how he pulled off an effect rather than enjoying it. A second go-around might fix that problem, but for now its a glad-I-read-it, nothing else.
The BBC series is an unexpected bonus which I'll have to catch when it re-airs.
A quip on the individual novels:
'Some Do Not....'
'No More Parades'
'A Man Could Stand Up'
'The Last Post'