Tag: The Good Soldier

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

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“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” That is the striking opening sentence of The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford’s 1915 novel.

It is the story of the relationship between two wealthy couples who meet at a German spa town in the years before the first world war. Edward and Leonora Ashburnham are English; John and Florence Dowell are American visitors to Europe, the sort of characters we might expect to find in a Henry James novel. The health resort visits are necessary because Edward and Florence have heart conditions. At least, that is what appears to be happening, but nothing is quite as it seems in this world where the most important thing is keeping up appearances. 

It is a dark and ironic novel of adultery and betrayal; we know, from the beginning that it will end tragically. It is also one of the most fascinating novels I have ever read, a novel that reveals greater depths on every re-reading.

That is very much down to the way the story is told. The narrator is the husband of the American couple, but he does not tell his tale chronologically. He tries to piece together the complicated events by moving backwards and forwards in time. He lets slip crucial information to the reader in a seemingly casual way. “I have, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so that it may be difficult for anyone to find their path through what may be a sort of maze.”  

A major theme of the book is the impossibility of ever really knowing anyone else. As we read on we might think that Dowell is trying to explain himself to himself as much as trying to explain the actions and thoughts of the other characters to the reader. Just how reliable a narrator is he? He is often conveying to us, particularly in the later stages of the novel, what was told to him by others after the event – he was not actually there.

As we read on, we become aware that there is something of a mystery surrounding Dowell’s actions and the reasons behind them. Just why did he marry Florence in the first place and come to live in Europe? He has no occupation in both senses of that word. He is wealthy enough not to have to work, but has no particular interests to take up his time, and seems to drift through life. There is the occasional hint of something rather darker about his personality. Is he quite the innocent dupe that he wants us to believe him to be?

The overall effect is a bit like Henry James without the reserve. It’s not sexually explicit, yet it is quite clear when sex is being referred to. It’s quite striking that some of the characters have an innocence about physical matters that is hardly imaginable today.

The title was not Ford’s choice. He had originally intended to call it “The Saddest Story”, but his publisher considered that title unsuitable during the first world war. The new title focusses the reader’s attention, perhaps too much, on the character of Edward Ashburnham himself, “the good soldier”, distracting us from the fact that this is as much Dowell’s story as Ashburnham’s. By the end, even that opening sentence can be interpreted as slightly misleading.  

I will leave the last word to Dowell. “Why can’t people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it; it is beyond me.”

The Good Soldier: a good film

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I finally watched the DVD of The Good Soldier the other week. This is an adaptation of the 1915 novel by Ford Madox Ford, much admired for the unreliability of its narrator. My partner is not altogether a fan of the book, but she enjoyed this as much as I did. We both thought it was really excellent. Everything just seemed to come together to produce an adaptation that was faithful to the feel of the book.

It is quite rare that you have an ensemble piece like this where the actors playing the main characters are all perfect for their roles, but in this the four principals were all dead right. Jeremy Brett, Susan Fleetwood, Robin Ellis and Vickery Turner all seemed to be the characters from the book as I remember them.

The locations were dead right, too. I think they may have used the actual German spa town, Bad Nauheim, in which the early part of the book takes place. These parts of the film had the same sense of leisured ease, with nobody in too much of a hurry, that comes across in the film of Death in Venice.

The screenplay adaptation was a masterclass, really, in how to take quite a complex, literary novel and make it work on screen. It’s a long time since I read the book, but I think the major change was the flashback structure. We knew from the beginning that Ashburnham was going to be dead at the end, and this worked really well.

Scenes were repeated, as the both the audience and the character Dowell gained more knowledge about what had really been going on. The look on Dowell’s (Robin Ellis’) face when Leonora told him that Flora and Edward had been having an affair was quite something. These repetitions gave the film something of a Nicolas Roeg feel.

Jeremy Brett was magnificent as Ashburnham, perhaps the best thing he ever did on screen, even better than his Max de Winter. I always thought he was a bit wasted as Sherlock Holmes. I have the feeling that Susan Fleetwood was sometimes a bit hard to cast, because she seemed to radiate strength of personality all the time and that wasn’t always what was called for, but here it was exactly right.

Going back to the screenplay, it was of course by Julian Mitchell and quite the equal of Pinter’s scripts for the Losey films, I thought. The only thing I can say against this film is that it is in need of a good restoration and clean up; the print on the Network DVD is a bit faded. I suppose it is not well-known enough to get the full digital upgrade treatment, which is a great pity.

I was unaware that this film had been made until I found it on DVD. I had seen the text of a stage adaptation, so I assume that is derived from his screenplay. I can’t think how I managed to miss this. It was first broadcast in 1981, at around the time Granada were making some really good TV drama. It may be that I had not actually read the book at that point and therefore did not notice it in the schedule.

It is a great pity that it was not released in the cinema first, like the films that Channel 4 made later in the 1980s. I think that, if it had been, it would quite rightly be regarded as a classic today. It is not for nothing that Robin Ellis has devoted a whole section on his website to this film. And of course, the highest compliment I can pay is that it has made me want to read the book again. I read a fascinating piece online that suggested that John Dowell is not quite the innocent he portrays himself as. I shall have to read it once more to find out.