Struggled with the style and gave up.

Released on Sunday, March 14, 2004 at Sweetwaters on Washington at Ashey in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA.

I found this book in a back corner of Sweetwaters, on a low bookcase where flyers are kept. Libros49's four other releases were still all there. On the lowest shelf of the bookcase were also three other free-looking paperbacks. I had not thought before of a cafe's ability to keep spare books for people to read. It's a great idea! They should do it more! Libros, I encourage you to go back and talk to the people in Sweetwaters to ask them if they'd like to be an official Crossing Zone. I have seen other BookCrossers write about 'introducing' their books to salesclerks when they intend to leave them in stores, to make sure they do not get put in a lost-and-found drawer, and to make new recruits!

This story, as well, I have heard of from the television. This edition of the books has pictures from the new PBS series on the cover. I really don't know anything more about it than that it's about repressed British upperclass, but it sounds potentially promising. Rather amazingly intricate family tree, though!

This is such a fun book! I love the style: it is pitch-perfect social satire. Old Jolyon is such a dear old man. I was captivated by this book around page 25, when he spent at least a full page lamenting his lost youth through lamenting the decline of cigar quality. It approached being at once both sublime and ridiculous.

For all that, I am making my way through Forsyte only slowly. I have at least half a dozen other books to read. Thus far, I have only finished one book that I have caught through BookCrossing!

I like the distance that this book imposes on its characters. It is written in third-person omniscient, constantly from one person's point of view, but because the author sees the joke of what he is writing--the pettiness of his characters' concerns--he writes it in such a way as to make the reader feel one level removed. You are not thinking the characters' throughts with them, you are merely observing their inmost thoughts.

Just for the sake of getting ahead of ourselves, my mom and I got the new PBS series out of the library, but we gave up after two episodes. We hold out hope for the old PBS series, now on hold for us at said library. Too much focus on Irene in the series. She is one of the less likable characters, and one of the less well-drawn ones. Galsworthy points out in his introduction that he never writes from her perspective: she, the personification of tragic beauty, is always seen from without, from those who want to capture her or understand her. It is better so, for one simply grows annoyed with her choices when one knows too much about them.

I am into the second third of the Saga now, "In Chancery," and more and more involved all the time. It is now the major book I am reading--many of the others I earlier mentioned I have finished. I want to finish this book. I want to pass it on. I have a friend much enamored of British upper-class social satire, whom I am also trying to get interested in BookCrossing, to whom I think I will give this book. I'll have to make her promise to read it, though! She always has twenty or so books out from the library, and she seems to favor her own choices over the choices I make for her (How could she! ;-) )

Be that as it may, I really like this soap opera social satire. The things that happen to them ... it's just fun to be shocked by Galsworthy's plotting. Mom and I are watching the old BBC series, which is much, much more likable than the new PBS one, and it's interesting to see the differences. The TV show makes me realize how insular Galsworthy is about his world. Surprisingly, he fleshes out many of the characters far less than the adaptation does. Galsworthy spends his time gossiping about just one or two (admittedly extended) events per year, while the TV show does attempt to keep up with three or four characters' plotlines. This book is all about gossip: maybe that's what exasperated Libros49.

I am also fascinated by the thought of people with so much money they do nothing but spoil their children with it. Winifred and Dartie, George, young Jolyon, and who knows how many other of the countless young Forsytes, have no trade as far as we can tell. They spend their days doing who-knows-what, living off the income of their fathers' money. What's their use? What's their source of self-respect? I don't know. Maybe it is enough for them just to live, they can be their own reasons. But who are they?

I haven't even finished college yet, and I already feel a bit of a parasite for still living at home. I feel I won't be able to repay as I somehow should. Of course that is not expected ... my parents are glad to help me on my way, and still it feels wrong in some small part of me.

Done! Done! At least, I'll be done later today. I am in the last chapter.

However, I found out yesterday that, albeit it is the end of the Saga this is not the end of the Forsyte tales! There is at least one more book about them, Swan Song. I have seen this book, I had the opportunity to pick it up, at the Traveler Restaurant (more info on them at this journal), but I already had this copy of the Saga then and I figured that since it was a Forsyte novel, I had it already. Now I'll need to trek down to the library ... some other time. There are so many books left to read!

I have two friends to whom I want to pass on these Forsyte tales. I think I know which one will appreciate it more, but as I said before it might take her a long time to work down to it on her TBR pile.

*****

So, about To Let, the third book in the Saga. It was wonderful to read. Although I still feel the greatest sympathy for the middle generation of Forsytes, (Jo, Soames, Winifred, Irene), Galsworthy wrote wonderfully about Fleur and Jon. Such a sense of beauty he gave them, so much poetry in their souls and so much flight! Fleur comes across much better in prose than on TV, I have discovered: in the continuing BBC miniseries, she seems as much a flibbertygibbet as June at her age.

I like the philosophies debated in To Let, as well. The '20s truly were a time of change, weren't they? There was a sense of death and birth in the society, as far as I've gathered. It could have been fascinating ... I'd like to post several excerpts that caught me later today, but right now I'm stealing time at work and do not have the book available!

*****

One quote I do remember clearly: "That was like her, she had no foresight," said of Irene. It confirmed my suspicion that "Forsyte" is a pun--for is Irene not the character said again and again to be the nemesis of the 'Forsyte' way of life? They are all about security and hedging bets, she is the one who lives by such edicts as "I should love" (equally as simple as theirs but perhaps nowhere near so easy).

I like Galsworthy's scrupulousness with regards to point of view. He writes in third person limited, varying from character to character, and you are never in doubt as to whose head you are in. The tone varies, so does the power of observation and deduction. He knew these people. He knew them well.

He knew life, too. The ending of To Let is absolutely fantastic in its ambiguity, mixed blessings, affirmation and disappointment. This is a great set of books. I can appreciate the Nobel Prize Galsworthy got for them.

I'll post again when I have comments on Swan Song, and any other Forsyte books that may be out there. I find it rather unfair that this edition does not have the whole story after all!

Jinnayah

Caught this yesterday. Thank you bunches for sending it to me! I'll probably read this over Christmas break.