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5.0 out of 5 stars
First instalment of a great saga, Sep 12 2002
This is the first volume in the 9 volume sweeping family saga, and it sets the high watermark. In many ways I think it is the best, most especially the final chapter, when one era segues into the next, as generational change occurs.It is probably a particular type of reader who enjoys fiction which examines the drawing room manners and social mores of upper middle class England (the professional class, as opposed to manufacturing/merchant class or aristocracy). I love it, especially when it is delivered with an archly raised eyebrow which questions the assumptions and mores, the hypocrisies of the time. All the better if it can lead you to question the same characteristics of your own time. That is achieved in Galsworthy, in much the same way as Trollope achieved in his Barchester Chronicles in an earlier era. The writing is not without humour, mostly of an ironic kind. The older generation Forsytes, steadfast in their belief in themselves find it almost inconceivable when one amongst their number has the termerity to die! Anyone who thrives on a diet of Trollope, Thackeray, Austen, and anyone who has enjoyed Ian McEwan's more contemporary novel, Atonement should enjoy this. Lovers of the British TV 'costume drama' - think The Cazalets, Love In A Cold Climate, The Way We Live Now - for example, should likewise consider reading Galsworthy.
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