"I Have Come to Be Very Much A Cynic in These Matters; I Mean That it is Impossible to Believe in the Permanence of Man's Or Woman's Love"

And so The Good Soldier is completed. I always read everything that comes included with the books. And because many of these are the classics and come in some kind of series of re-published classic novels, they usually have introductions, author histories, endnotes, and all kinds of other stuff to enhance the overall understanding of the book. So I had read the introduction that accompanied The Good Soldier and had at least a good idea about what to expect or what made this book different from others published by his contemporaries. But now after having read the book, I must say that I've never read anything even remotely close to The Good Soldier.

As a quick background to what the book was about, the story is told from a narrator, John, about his times spent with his wife Florence, and another couple that they spent many years with abroad, Leonora and Edward Ashburnham. And while initially the narrator states that he was truly happy during the 9 years that these 2 couples spend together, he acknowledges that it was all false. That so many things happened during their time that he didn't know about that completely taints his understanding of each person, particularly Edward and his wife Florence, such that it has, in the end ruined his life.

The main thing about the book that threw it off from anything I've read before was simply, the narrator. So even while I say in the previous paragraph that his knowledge of everything that happened amongst his wife and friends "ruined his life", that is not really certain. In another breath the narrator will describe how he doesn't feel anything. How things came to pass and how he never really felt anything. And then he will rant about the horribleness of the entire situation and the tragedy of it all.

And the crux of the novel is understanding that the narrator is tremendously unreliable in his accounts of everything that occurred. I don't much care for reading between the lines or being uncertain about what is actually happening in a narrative...I generally feel that's a cop out in being honest about the truth of the story. Any movie or book that ends with "maybe it was all a dream" or "maybe it didn't really happen that way" I personally think it was the author/screenwriter being lazy. So knowing, when I started the book, that this is how the narrator was, I was a little concerned that the entire narrative was faulty and not to be believed, and that it would frustrate and irritate the crap out of me.

But it really wasn't how the book felt. For example, in the very first chapter, the author swears by the comfort and stability of his and his wife's time spent with the Ashburnhams (he uses the phrase "I swear" multiple times in this chapter when describing what he knew of them and of their time together). That they passed many wonderful years sharing the same interests and knowing each other so intimately and the narrator is so certain that it was all true. And then in the next breath, he rants about how it was all false and that it was all a "prison of screaming hysterics." And then in the next breath, he's back to swearing that it was all brilliant. And then in the next breath, he says that he knows nothing about anything (the phrase "I don't know" also appears a few times in this chapter too).

So while initially I thought that the author would tell the story in a way where you wouldn't know what was reality and what was false, in the end, the story was told pretty faithfully, but it seemed more like the narrator was unwilling to believe his own account of what happened, mostly because he may just not have wanted to accept it. Or because he was conflicted about what he thought he knew and what the truth turned out to be.

Another interesting facet of the book is that nothing is told in chronological order. The narrator recounts the tale in bits and pieces, in no linear fashion. And near the end of the novel, the narrator even acknowledges that he has done this, but as he explained very early on in the novel, he wanted to tell the story as though he was telling it to a sympathetic soul at the fireplace of a country cottage however the story came to him. So I must admit that even now, if you were to ask me the timeline of the overall events, I don't think I could explain them to you without having to draw out a timeline. And while it complicates things in my head, it doesn't necessarily seem to be that critical to understanding the whole of the story

Final verdict? I did really like the book, if only because it presented me with a completely different way of writing a novel. And I am beyond impressed with Ford Madox Ford's ability to do this. The novel is certainly a triumph and even he regarded it as the finest thing he had ever writer. Like I said, it's like nothing else I've ever read before, and while I attempted to explain what that means, I don't know if I adequately did that. So you should probably just read it yourself to figure it out.

And total random last minute trivia note about Ford Madox Ford: he was a writer in residence at Olivet College here in Michigan shortly before he died.

So on to the next one. I'm taking a quick break from the reading lists to pick up a more recent selection, The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obréht. Because I have Shakespeare up next, I need to mentally prepare myself for that (reading more of the older works takes much time and is much more tedious for me).

244 books left to go. Given the god-awful winter we've been having here, I'm hoping to get my grizzly bear on and hibernate until spring and maybe plow through some more reading. We'll see how that goes.

"Happiness is Not a Possession to be Prized, it is a Quality of Thought, a State of Mind."

We were finally able to rent Rebecca. It was actually on tv a few times during the holidays, and I had to resist the temptation to watch it without the mister as we had agreed to watch it together...he had already raved about the Hitchcock version.

And I just adored it. It very fairly depicted the book...a few minor things that were different, but no deal breakers (well, except maybe the ending...but I won't give it away for you). Probably changes that just made more sense in a film sense than for the book. Most of all, the film very successfully makes Rebecca ever-present in a dark, ominous way. Everyone loved her, admired her, wanted to be her. And although she's gone, she's everywhere, from her raincoat, to her handkerchiefs, to her handwriting, to what sauces she would choose for lunches with guests. Without doing a thing, she keeps the second Mrs. de Winter constantly feeling inadequate and measuring herself against Rebecca. The book certainly did a better job of providing insight into Mrs. de Winter and why she was so terrified with shyness and almost paralyzed in her new position as Mrs. de Winter, but the suspense was expertly done. But I liked that that the movie wasn't SO Hitchcock. So many of his movies have such a distinct style to them, and even though this one fit that milieu, it was definitely more subtle. And Manderley...ahhh, Manderley. Lovely to see it translated from my imagination to the screen. 

Overall, 2 thumbs way up. On the book and the movie. See it. Read it. Do it.