Irene has become involved with Soames’ more
liberal minded cousin Jolyon... who is already the black sheep of the family because
he fathered 2 children on Helene, the family governess and left the Forsyte clan
to live with and marry her. He also
became a painter…
Jolyon is older than Irene, and
her real love was for Philip Bosinny but she grows fond of him and they marry
when she is free. She and Jolyon have
one son, Jolyon (called Jon). As an
adult, he falls in love with Soames’ daughter Fleur.
Fleur has something of her father’s possessive domineering nature and
she is very keen to marry Jon, but his parents are unhappy about the idea, because
of Soames’ rape of Irene...
Jon loves his parents and finally (after his father has died of a heart
attack), feels that he has to give Fleur up.
She marries Michael Mont, who is from an upper class landed gentry
family. However her marriage is a
difficult one as she does not love him the way she loved Jon.
She and Michael have a child; a son called Kit... and Fleur tries to
find a role that satisfies her... It is the 1920s and she tries out various things
such as “MP’s wife” (Michael goes into politics), charity work and patroness of
the arts. However she is never sure what
she wants to do with her life. She and
Michael get along until 1926 when the General Strike comes about. Jon Forsyte returns to England with his
American wife and he and Fleur have a brief affair. However he again rejects
her. Soames, who has always loved her
best, has her to stay and in her wretched mood, she fails to extinguish a cigarette. The house burns down and Soames is badly
burned. Fleur is devastated when he
dies, but resolves to return to her marriage and make the best of it.
Galsworthy’s novels were extremely popular, albeit he was a
conservative stylist, and not an elegant prose writer.
He used his work to promulgate issues and reforms, such as prison
reform and reform of the justice system. He was concerned about poverty – but did not
have any radical solutions to offer. However
he was a generous man who tries to use his writing influence to help people. His portrait of the middle class property obsessed
emotionally constrained class of “Forsytes” was at times a harshly critical one.
He was seen as a recorder of that Victorian stuffiness
and self-interest. However, he was born
into that class and found it hard to completely shake off their conservatism. He didn’t want to upset his parents by having
Ada get a divorce and marry him… but in 1905 they were finally able to wed. Their marriage was happy but childless.
In the early part of the saga, Soames is seen as the villain, wanting to own
Irene, refusing her a divorce, raping her when she refused him sex and did not
love him. The more free spirited Jolyon
is the hero, although he has his faults, such as having broken up his marriage,
and having to leave his elder daughter.
However as Galsworthy grew older, he softened towards Soames and saw
him as pitiable. He was lonely man...
who was devoted to his daughter and willing to make sacrifices to make her
happy.
Galsworthy continued with his writing and his reform work throughout
his life. He was criticised by more
radical thinkers and by modernist writers… but his work was popular for a long
time. He died in 1933 of a stroke.
In 1967, the BBC made a 26 part serial of the Forsyte Saga, one of the last
big works in black and white. It had an excellent
portrayal of Soames by Eric Porter and Susan Hampshire played the butterfly
Fleur…. In the days of only 2 channels,
it was immensely popular, and was a talking point with most people. However, Galsworthy seems to be little read
now…
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