Saturday 4th March

I can remember watching this as a TV series in the early Seventies, and of course I started to read the books.  There are actually 9 in total, grouped in three sets of three, I seem to recall the TV series only covered the first three.  I decided to start re-reading them recently on Kindle, and have read the first two  – ‘The man of property’ and ‘In Chancery’.  These are mostly about the first and second generation of Forsytes;  The arch Victorian brothers and sisters and their immediate offspring.  The main story is of Soames, whose wife Irene falls in love with an architect Bossiney.  It was notorious in the TV series as Soames forces himself on Irene and essentially ‘rapes’ her.  The amazing thing is that the author John Galsworthy is able to get into the mindset of almost all the main characters.  Even the obnoxious Soames, the man of property; there are times when you can really sympathise with his dilemma.

He also reflects brilliantly the changing morals and ideas between the high Victorian heyday of the 1880’s and the new Century, the death of Victoria and the uncertainties of the Boer War.  Galsworthy actually wrote these books in the war years and going on into the Twenties and Thirties.  I am really enjoying re-reading these novels, this saga of a great family slowly disintegrating and changing.  It make me realise what great writing is, and puts into perspective y own humble efforts.