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jlkenneth 's review for:
The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion
by Ford Madox Ford
This is Ford's take on literary impressionism, and the result is a brilliant exploration of characterization and an absolute must-read for anyone interested in narratology. Considered by many to be the first modernist novel, The Good Soldier acts as a bridge of sorts between the realism of writers like Henry James and the later brilliance of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner.
The Good Soldier is essentially what would happen if Jane Austen's parlour-room drama were met by the most duplicitous characters and a narrator who has a lot on the line by recording this story for us. Seriously, this takes the idea of an "unreliable narrator" and explodes it. John Dowell opens his narrative with the statement "This is the saddest story I have ever heard" - a bit of an odd sentiment considering he's relaying the story of his own life. This begins a lengthy process of Dowell trying to make himself as invisible, as much of a non-character as possible. The beauty and the frustration is that we never have another character's perspective, meaning we never know how much Dowell changes, exaggerates, or spins the narrative to his own advantage.
The novel's real trick is in making you realize, this is actually how every narrator works. After Ford, there is no objective narrative; every narrator chooses one focalization at the expense of another. The Good Soldier exposes the myth of objectivity with such simplicity (it's a little on the nose at times), and yet manages to be a complex and intriguing novel at the same time. This book not only is excellent in itself, the act of reading The Good Soldier teaches us how to read fiction as a whole. Truly one I'll be thinking about for years to come.
The Good Soldier is essentially what would happen if Jane Austen's parlour-room drama were met by the most duplicitous characters and a narrator who has a lot on the line by recording this story for us. Seriously, this takes the idea of an "unreliable narrator" and explodes it. John Dowell opens his narrative with the statement "This is the saddest story I have ever heard" - a bit of an odd sentiment considering he's relaying the story of his own life. This begins a lengthy process of Dowell trying to make himself as invisible, as much of a non-character as possible. The beauty and the frustration is that we never have another character's perspective, meaning we never know how much Dowell changes, exaggerates, or spins the narrative to his own advantage.
The novel's real trick is in making you realize, this is actually how every narrator works. After Ford, there is no objective narrative; every narrator chooses one focalization at the expense of another. The Good Soldier exposes the myth of objectivity with such simplicity (it's a little on the nose at times), and yet manages to be a complex and intriguing novel at the same time. This book not only is excellent in itself, the act of reading The Good Soldier teaches us how to read fiction as a whole. Truly one I'll be thinking about for years to come.