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Classic Literature.
Fiction.
John Galsworthy's magnificent trilogy of power and passion chronicles the wealthy Forsyte family. As the disintegrating values of the Victorian era progress to World War I and the political uncertainty of the 1930s, the family's material and emotional struggles are set within the dwindling status of the affluent middle-classes. Infused with warmth, compassion and engaging characters, the complete Chronicles are divided into three volumes, containing nine books and three interludes in total. Volume 2, A Modern Comedy, focuses on Soames's vivacious daughter, Fleur. Soames tries constantly to protect her but is baffled by the carefree attitudes in post-war London. In their elegant, fashionable house, Fleur and her husband Michael Mont host society gatherings, but her previous affair with Jon Forsyte leaves embers of a passion that are ready to ignite - with dreadful consequences. A Modern Comedy contains Book 1: The White Monkey, Interlude: A Silent Wooing, Book 2: The Silver Spoon, Interlude: Passers By and Book 3: Swan Song.… (más)
As John Galsworthy's followup trilogy to the marvelous "Forsyte Chronicles," "A Modern Comedy" was a fun way to catch up with the newer generation of the Forsyte family.
This second set up books (and two short stories) follows Soames' daughter Fleur, a spoiled woman who is used to getting what she wants in life, with the major exception of the love of her life.
I enjoyed the initial trilogy a bit more --I really missed the old Forsyte aunts and uncles popping in from time to time.Fleur and her husband are a little less interesting and Soames has mellowed a a bit. Still, I enjoyed it enough that I'll read the final trilogy at some point. ( )
Who knew there was so much to the Forsyte saga? In these three books Fleur Mont, daughter of Soames, takes centre stage. She is an egotistical and self-centred charmer, adored by her father and loved more than she deserves by her husband. Through these three books she learns again, much more painfully than before, that even beautiful clever women can't always get what they want. Galsworthy also gives us the condition of England after the War - a shell shocked near nihilism coming up against the realities of depression and poverty; gives us society spats and devious city slickers and ends with a death scene that moved me to tears. I actually found these three novels more fun than the Victorian trilogy on which Galsworthy's modern reputation rests..
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book I: the white monkey: "No retreat, no retreat; They must conquer or die Who have no retreat!" ~ Mr. Gay
book II: the silver spoon: "But O, the thorns we stand upon!" ~ Winter's Tale
book III: swan song: "We are such stuff/ As dreams are made on; and our little life/ Is rounded with a sleep." ~ The Tempest
Dedicatoria
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A MODERN COMEDY LIKE 'THE FORSYTE SAGA,' THAT FIRST PART OF THE FORSYTE CHRONICLES, IS DEDICATED TO HER WITHOUT WHOM I KNOW NOT WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN, MY WIFE
book I: the white monkey: TO MAX BEERBOHM
book II: the silver spoon: TO JOHN FORTESCUE
book III: swan song: TO F.N. DOUBLEDAY
Primeras palabras
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Coming down the steps of the 'Snooks' Club, so nicknamed by George Forsyte in the late 'eighties,' on that momentous mid-October afternoon of 1922, Sir Lawrence Mont, ninth Baronet, set his fine nose towards the east wind, and moved his thin legs with speed. Political by birth rather than by nature, he reviewed the revolution which had restored his Party to power with a detachment not devoid of humour.
Citas
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Poetry's only possible when you may be blown up at any moment, or when you live in Putney. (book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter I: promenade)
What good in thinking? Only one life, full of people, of things to do and have, of things wanted--a life only void of one thing, and that--well, if people had it, they never had it long! (book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter II: home)
he's never creative, even by mistake. (book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter II: home)
Desert never spoke of the war, it was not possible to learn from his own mouth an effect which he might have summed up thus: "I lived so long with horror and death; I saw men so in the raw; I put hope of anything out of my mind so utterly, that I can never more have the faintest respect for theories, promises, conventions, moralities, and principles. I have hated too much the men who wallowed in them in mud and blood. Illusion is off. No religion and no philosophy will satisfy me--words, all words. I have still my senses--no thanks to them; am still capable--I find--of passion; can still grit my teeth and grin; have still some feeling of trench loyalty, but whether real or just a complex, I don't know yet. I am dangerous, but not so dangerous as those who trade in words, principles, theories, and all manner of fanatical idiocy to be worked out in the blood and sweat of other men. The war's done one thing for me--converted life to comedy. Laugh at it--there's nothing else to do!" (book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter V: eve)
Dogs and poets distract young women. (book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter VII: "old mont" and "old forsyte")
She had, it seemed, rent little spiked holes in the garments of their self-esteem. (book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter IX: confusion)
"Well," said Michael, "as this isn't a Dostoievsky novel, I suppose there's no more to be said." (book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter IX: confusion)
All this last year he had almost enjoyed life. Having somewhere to come and sit and receive a certain sympathy once at least a week, as in old days at Timothy's, was of incalculable advantage to his spirit. In going from home Fleur had taken most of his heart with her; but Soames had found it almost an advantage to visit his heart once a week rather than to have it always about. (book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter X: passing of a sportsman)
How could you believe in anything when everything was going round so fast? When you couldn't count your chickens--they ran about so?(book I: the white monkey: part I: chapter XII: figures and facts)
An irritable longing to say to somebody "I told you so" possessed him. He would have to wait, however, till he found somebody to say it to. (book I: the white monkey: part II: chapter I: the mark falls)
"Well, I notice that any one at all out of proportion, or whose nose is on one side, or whose eyes jut out, or even have a special shining look, always believes in the soul; people who are in proportion, and have no prominent physical features, don't seem to be really interested." (book I: the white monkey: part II: chapter III: michael walks and talks)
When they're still, a monkey's eyes are the human tragedy incarnate. (book I: the white monkey: part II: chapter IV: fleur's body)
The world was full of wonderful secrets which everybody kept to themselves without captions or close-ups to give them away! (book I: the white monkey: part II: chapter IX: sleuth)
"I should be glad to think that men really believed in humanity, and all that, but you know they don't--they believe in novelty and getting their own way. With rare exceptions they're still monkeys, especially the scientific variety; and when you put gunpowder and a lighted match into the paws of monkeys, they blow themselves up to see the fun. Monkeys are only safe when deprived of means to be otherwise." (book I: the white monkey: part II: chapter XI: cocked hat)
who would have children for the mere pleasure of seeing them blown up, poisoned, starved to death? A few fanatics would hold on, the rest of the world go barren. (book I: the white monkey: part II: chapter XI: cocked hat)
"There's no connection in life between reward and your deserts. If the war hasn't taught you that, nothing will." (book I: the white monkey: part III: chapter VIII: levanted)
"Only the people who really know one matter." "Nobody knows one," said Fleur, sullenly. "The fonder they are, the less they know, and the less it matters what they think."(book II: the silver spoon: part I: chapter VII: sounds in the night)
For so old a man of the world Soames was singularly unaware how in that desirable sphere, called Society, every one is slandered daily, and no bones broken; slanderers and slandered dining and playing cards together with the utmost good feeling and the intention of reslandering each other the moment they are round the corner. (book II: the silver spoon: part II: chapter V: progress of the case)
"By Jove! how fast things move, except in politics, and fog." (book II: the silver spoon: part II: chapter VII: contrasts)
In his early boyhood Soames had been given to circuses. He had outgrown it; "Circuses" were now to him little short of an abomination. Jubilees and Pageants, that recurrent decimal, the Lord Mayor, Earl's Court, Olympia, Wembley--he disliked them all. He could not stand a lot of people with their mouths open. Dressing up was to him a symptom of weak-mindedness, and the collective excitement of a crowd an extravagence which offended his reticent individualism. Though not deeply versed in history, he had an idea, too, that nations who went in for "circuses" were decadent. Queen Victoria's funeral, indeed, had impressed him--there had been a feeling in the air that day; but ever since, things had gone from bad to worse. They made everything into a "circus" now! A man couldn't commit a murder without the whole paper-reading population--himself included--looking over each other's shoulders; and as to these football-matches and rodeos--they interfered with the traffic and the normal course of conversation; people were so crazy about them! Of course, "circuses" had their use. THey kept the people quiet. Violence by proxy, for instance, was obviously a political principle of some value. It was difficult to gape and shed blood at the same time; the more people stood in rows by day to see other people being hurt, the less trouble would they take to hurt others themselves, and the sounder Soames could sleep by night. Still, sensation-hunting had become a disease, in his opinion, and no one was being inoculated for it, so far as he could see! (book I: the silver spoon: part III: chapter I: "circuses")
Life was a cigarette to be inhaled and thrown away, a dance to be danced out. (book II: the silver spoon: part III: chapter VII: "fed up")
Strange! You had, it seemed, only just one season of real heat. Everything else that happened to you was in a way tepid, and perhaps it was as well, or the boiler would burst. (interlude: passers by:III)
That the most pregnant function of human life is the meal, will be admitted by all who take part in these recurrent crises. The impossibility of getting down from table renders it the most formidable of human activities among people civilized to the point of swallowing not only their food but their feelings. (book III: swan song: part I: chapter X: after lunch)
There are natures in which discovery of what threatens happiness perverts to prejudice all judnment of the disturbing object. (book III: swan song: part I: chapter XII: private feelings)
How fast things seemed coming back to the normal! Extraordinary difficult to upset anything so vast, intricate, and elastic as a nation's life. The 'bus swung along around countless vehicles and pedestrian myriads, and Michael realized how firm were those two elements of stability in the modern state, the common need for eating, drinking, and getting about; and the fact that so many people could drive cars. "Revolution?" he thought: "There never was a time when it had less chance. Machinery's dead agin it." Machinery belonged to the settled state of things, and every day saw its reinforcement. The unskilled multitude and the Communistic visionaries, their leaders, only had a chance now where machinery and means of communication were still undeveloped, as in Russia. Brains, ability, and technical skill were by nature on the side of capital and individual enterprize, and were gaining ever more power. (book III: swan song: part I: chapter XII: private feelings)
Since in the coppice at Robin Hill Fleur had said "Jon!" in so strange a voice, he had known queer moments. There was that in him which sat apart and made a song about them both, and that in him which said: Get to work and drop all these silly feelings! He was, in fact, confused. The past, it seemed, did not die, as he had thought, but lived on beside the present, and sometimes, perhaps, became the future. Did one live for what one had not got? There was a wrinkling in his soul, and feverish droughts crept about within him. The whole thing was on his conscience--for if Jon had anything, he had a conscience. (book III: swan song: part II: chapter I: son of sleeping dove)
"They're off!" Thank goodness--the racket had ceased! Funny change from din to hush. The whole thing funny--a lot of grown-up children! Somebody called out shrilly at the top of his voice--there was a laugh--then noise began swelling from the stand; heads were craning round him. "The favourite wins!" "Not he!" More noise; thudding--a flashing past of colour! And Soames thought: "Well, that's over!" Perhaps everything was like that really. A hush--a din--a flashing past--a hush! All like a race, a spectacle--only you couldn't see it! A venture and a paying-up! And beneath his new hat he passed his hand down over one flat cheek, and then the other. A paying-up! He didn't care who paid up, so long as it wasn't Fleur! But there it was--some debts could not be paid by proxy! What on earth was Nature about when she made the human heart! (book III: swan song: part II: chapter II: soames goes racing)
People have got so far away from the obvious that the obvious startles them, and nothing else does. (book III: swan song: part III: chapter III: possessing the soul)
Últimas palabras
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The sky was starry, and with the first touch of cold, a slight mist was rising, filming the black water so that it scarcely seemed to move. Now and then in the stillness he sould hear the drone of a distant car, and somewhere a little beast squeaking. Starlight, and the odour of bushes and the earth, the hoot of an owl, bats flitting, and those tall poplar shapes, darker than the darkness--what better setting for his mood just then!// An ironical world, his father had said! Yes, queerly ironical, with shape melting into shape, mood into mood, sound into sound, and nothing fixed anywhere, unless it were that starlight, and the instinct within all living things which said: "Go on!"// A drift of music came down the river. There would be a party at some house. They were dancing probably, as he had seen the gnats dancing that afternoon! And then something out of the night seemed to catch him by the throat. God! It was beautiful, amazing! Breathing, in this darkness, as many billion shapes as there were stars above, all living, and all different! What a world! The Eternal Mood at work! And if you died, like that old boy, and lay forever beneath a crab-apple tree--well, it was the Mood resting a moment in your still shape--no! not even resting, moving on in the mysterious rhythm that one called Life. Who could arrest the mooving Mood--who wanted to? And if some pale possessor like that poor old chap, tried and succeeded for a moment, the stars twinkled just a little more when he was gone. To have and to hold! As though you could!// And Michael drew in his breath. A sound of singing came down the water to him, trailing, distant, high, and sweet. It was as if a swan had sung!
Classic Literature.
Fiction.
John Galsworthy's magnificent trilogy of power and passion chronicles the wealthy Forsyte family. As the disintegrating values of the Victorian era progress to World War I and the political uncertainty of the 1930s, the family's material and emotional struggles are set within the dwindling status of the affluent middle-classes. Infused with warmth, compassion and engaging characters, the complete Chronicles are divided into three volumes, containing nine books and three interludes in total. Volume 2, A Modern Comedy, focuses on Soames's vivacious daughter, Fleur. Soames tries constantly to protect her but is baffled by the carefree attitudes in post-war London. In their elegant, fashionable house, Fleur and her husband Michael Mont host society gatherings, but her previous affair with Jon Forsyte leaves embers of a passion that are ready to ignite - with dreadful consequences. A Modern Comedy contains Book 1: The White Monkey, Interlude: A Silent Wooing, Book 2: The Silver Spoon, Interlude: Passers By and Book 3: Swan Song.
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(4.16)
1
This second set up books (and two short stories) follows Soames' daughter Fleur, a spoiled woman who is used to getting what she wants in life, with the major exception of the love of her life.
I enjoyed the initial trilogy a bit more --I really missed the old Forsyte aunts and uncles popping in from time to time.Fleur and her husband are a little less interesting and Soames has mellowed a a bit. Still, I enjoyed it enough that I'll read the final trilogy at some point. (