Scan barcode
A review by elenajohansen
In Chancery by John Galsworthy
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Another reviewer helpfully pointed out the large gap between the publication of the first book (1906) and this one (1920) which meant a war had happened, and immediately explained to me the slight but noticeable change in tone; this work has less satire and more melancholy, though it's not without its share of happiness and hope, signified by the blithely child-focused ending.
Could I have predicted a single thing about where Soames and Irene and the rest of the family would end up after the end of the first book? No, at least not beyond their marriage never being rejuvenated, which it wasn't. Everything that happened felt both surprising and natural--at times I would be tempted to call this fascinating in the same way soap operas are, even if you don't enjoy them, which I generally don't. But the (American, 1980s and '90s) soap operas I'm familiar with relied on unexpected and unsupported plot twists long before those came into fashion in cinema, and In Chancery doesn't rely on twists of that nature. Instead, small things like chance meetings are grown organically into large shifts in perspective and fortune.
I called the first book "sensitive" in its portrayal of a loveless marriage, and I stand by that, though I stopped short of calling it "feminist" or "modern" in its attitudes; clearly Galsworthy was highly aware of wives being the husband's property and did not agree with it, as it's the central conflict of the novel. Here, though, I feel like ground was lost, because Irene is less of a person in this book and more of an object. Even if the divorce freed her from Soames, her part of the tale was relayed entirely through Jolyon's perspective and is saturated with his reverence for her. First she is Soames' wife, even if an estranged one, then she is a creature to pity for her shabby, lonely state, and finally when she is "free" she immediately remarries and gains happiness in the form of a child. Trading a loveless marriage for a comfortable one, even if it's not precisely a love match, is certainly a step up by anyone's standards, but framing it all from the men's perspectives pares Irene's true agency down to her final, adamant refusal of Soames. We don't see her truly consent to the second marriage, and it's assumed that she wanted a child but we're never shown that beforehand.
So that's my modern assessment of and complaints about a 103-year-old book about an upper-middle-class British family. I still greatly enjoyed it anyway, even more than the first book, because it felt more focused, despite the same slow, reflective pace. We spent proportionately more time with a smaller cast of characters, enabling more development and greater emotional investment.
Could I have predicted a single thing about where Soames and Irene and the rest of the family would end up after the end of the first book? No, at least not beyond their marriage never being rejuvenated, which it wasn't. Everything that happened felt both surprising and natural--at times I would be tempted to call this fascinating in the same way soap operas are, even if you don't enjoy them, which I generally don't. But the (American, 1980s and '90s) soap operas I'm familiar with relied on unexpected and unsupported plot twists long before those came into fashion in cinema, and In Chancery doesn't rely on twists of that nature. Instead, small things like chance meetings are grown organically into large shifts in perspective and fortune.
I called the first book "sensitive" in its portrayal of a loveless marriage, and I stand by that, though I stopped short of calling it "feminist" or "modern" in its attitudes; clearly Galsworthy was highly aware of wives being the husband's property and did not agree with it, as it's the central conflict of the novel. Here, though, I feel like ground was lost, because Irene is less of a person in this book and more of an object. Even if the divorce freed her from Soames, her part of the tale was relayed entirely through Jolyon's perspective and is saturated with his reverence for her. First she is Soames' wife, even if an estranged one, then she is a creature to pity for her shabby, lonely state, and finally when she is "free" she immediately remarries and gains happiness in the form of a child. Trading a loveless marriage for a comfortable one, even if it's not precisely a love match, is certainly a step up by anyone's standards, but framing it all from the men's perspectives pares Irene's true agency down to her final, adamant refusal of Soames. We don't see her truly consent to the second marriage, and it's assumed that she wanted a child but we're never shown that beforehand.
So that's my modern assessment of and complaints about a 103-year-old book about an upper-middle-class British family. I still greatly enjoyed it anyway, even more than the first book, because it felt more focused, despite the same slow, reflective pace. We spent proportionately more time with a smaller cast of characters, enabling more development and greater emotional investment.