Man of Property: The Forsyte Saga # 1

Man of Property: The Forsyte Saga (Wordsworth Classics) - J. Galsworthy

Soames Forsyte, the most successful scion of a family that is upper middle class respectability, is proud of his accomplishments, but longs to have a family to continue his legacy. His most prized possession is his beautiful wife Irene. 'The Man of Property' finds Irene begin an affair with the architect designing the country house her husband wishes to isolate her within. The novel isn't very long, but it builds the Forsyte family to mythical proportions. Their rituals, the relationships of the eldest generation with each other and with their children. Galsworthy was talking of a vanishing world here, but the dynamics ring true, with a tight focus upon one character's moral actions.

The bleak finale to this novel, which left readers hanging for almost fifteen years, leaves little room to consider Soames as anything other than a monster, but Galsworthy is sympathetic to the man and later novels would find him trying to redeem his main character. Soames desires beautiful things for their material value and serves his family out of a sense of duty more than affection, but there are hidden depths to his personality, and love, too, but its difficult for a reader to recognize those qualities, or forgive him.

It's likely I'll always think first of television when I think about 'The Forsyte Saga', the adaptions being so iconic. The 2002 mini-series did justice to Galsworthy's story and the period, I don't think it succeeded in capturing Soames' character. I was glad to have the sequel on hand!

'The Forsyte Saga'

Next: 'In Chancery'