Product Description

In this second part of John Galworthy's trilogy of love, power, money and family feuding, a new generation has arrived to divide the Forsyte clan with society scandals and conflicting passions

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30192 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 864 pages

About the Author
Geoffrey Harvey is Senior Lecturer in English at Reading University. He is also the editor of Trollope's Mr Scarborough's Family, The Bertrams, and Marion Fay in World's Classics.

Customer Reviews

Fabulous family saga again, as good as Vols 1 and 2
Soames and Jolyon are long dead, Irene is out of the picture, Fleur and Michael are just bit parts, but Volume Three still stands up in comparison with the earlier parts of the saga. It may be even better.
A pattern has admittedly emerged by this stage. In each book, the relationships come together and fall apart, as the narrative of a court case with a moral dimension keeps things moving, but Galsworthy's marvellous sense of poise carries it all through without a hindrance.
These are not particularly happy marriages. Hearts broken do not get mended, and unstable minds do not become stable. Indeed, Galsworthy has quite a harsh picture of how the world works. But then, it is compellingly real.
And utterly modern. There aren't veiled references to Claire's marriage to a sadist. It is right out in the open. The focus on the individual's rights against societal convention and the way unhappiness ensues is beautifully drawn out, and you wonder if this was the chord that hit home with the audience that watched it all in the Sixties.
I will be interested to see if the 2002 adaptation causes the same sensation. Or has the world moved past all this?
I don't think so. If the actors are any good, the drama surely can't fail. These are wonderful characters: Dinny, Dornford, Uncle Adrian and Uncle Hilary. For what it is worth, I think Claire is one of the sexiest characters in literature. But that is by the by.
Brilliant stuff, to be enjoyed again and again.

Wonderful, indescribably absorbing
Great, enchanting, keeps you wanting more! All of Galsworthy's stories about the Forsyte Family are like this.
I read these books when I was about eighteen in 1962 and was taken back to them when the BBC did the first Forsyte Saga series with Eric Porter as Soames and Nyree Dawn Porter as Irene, in late 60's early 70's. This was an excellent adaptation - the later one, made in about 2002,is awful (see my review on this). Nyree Dawn Porter will always be Irene to me, as Eric Porter will always be Soames in the old TV version.
These stories are not 'dated' as you might expect, as the intrigue, love, passion and greed are there just as much as in any racey novel of today, albeit, perhaps not in so many words..., nevertheless it is so well written that you get the gist just the same.
The scope of these stories is immense, taking in the Forsytes, their many relations, friends and acquaintances, all living, breathing, fighting and loving in these wonderful books.

The later books go on long past Soames, Irene et al, but are still just a well written and absorbing.
Do read them, if you can - when I bought them in about 1964 they were in three volumes and are now available as seperate books and in an omnibus edition, I believe. They are well worth whatever you pay, believe me and I know you will love them as much as I do.

ONE OF THE FORGOTTEN GREATS
Upon the release of ML's 100 greatest English-lanuage novels of this century, it was to my great sadness to find "The Forsyte Saga" missing from the list. It seemed to confirm what I'd feared for the last several years: even critics have left this spectacular collection behind.

Perhaps it is the fact that of the book's length that frightens off so many readers: at 800+ pages it doesn't exactly make for easy beach reading. Keep in mind, however, that the book is comprised not only of three separate novels but also of connecting interludes.

If you want to read truly great literature of such a standard that earned John Galsworthy a Nobel Prize for Literature, you need look no further than "The Forsyte Saga."