From the Lists: #57 Parade’s End

From the Lists: #57 Parade’s End  by Ford Madox Ford (1924 -1928)

As I work my way through the 100 best novels, I seem to be stuck in the war section.  This entry however goes back a little farther in time - all that way back to World War I -- well sort of.  The war is really more of a backdrop for British characters behaving badly rather than the main driver of the action. For the most part, the reader only learns about the main character, Christopher Tietjens, through the thoughts and actions of orbiting characters with whom he has contact. Consisting of four parts, this work was published between 1924 and 1928, and is an excellent representative of the modernist movement of the time as exemplified by T. S. Elliot, Emile Zola, Virginia Wolfe, and James Joyce.  

Synopsis:

Tietjens is the last Tory, Victorian gentleman in Edwardian England.  As the youngest son of landed, titled, north country gentry, he is educated, brilliant, a little dumpy, and employed in government service before the start of the war.  By all accounts he is the perfect example of his class.  He is unconcerned with earning money and has no ambition other the satisfaction he receives from doing his job well and living up to the moral requirements of his class.  As the ideal gentleman, you would think that he would be loved and respected, but as it turns out, he is a magnet for ingratitude and scorn. 

The first three parts of Parade’s End focus on the tribulations piled upon this paragon of virtue.  His coldly beautiful, high society wife has left him for a fling with another man and Tietjens allows her to return when the affair has run its course. His best friend has borrowed more money than he can ever hope to repay to fund an affair with a minister’s wife. His manager is intimidated by Tietjen’s brilliance and only wants to move him out of the Statistics department because Tietjens refuses to “fudge” the statistics he is responsible for gathering and analyzing. Since Tietjens refuses to lower himself into the mud to defend himself, he becomes the center of a swirling gossip storm concerning his marriage, finances, and loyalty to the  British government.  

This mischaracterization follows Tietjens through the first three sections of the novel – before the start of the war, his first deployment to a troop transfer station, and his final deployment to the front line trenches just prior to the Armistice. And while Tietjens does not rise above his tormentors and wreak a terrible vengeance upon them as would happen in a modern novel, he does survive his ordeals to return to Britain and his true unrequited love, Valentine Wannop.

I really enjoyed the style of the later sections of this novel. When Tietjens returns to England, the story is picked up from Valentine’s  thoughts and observations based on more misleading gossip and half-truths as she ponders her future as the possible mistress and/or care-giver to a possibly shell-shocked war veteran. The final section is simply a day at the farm purchased by Tietjens following the war, where he lives out of wedlock with Valentine , his invalid brother, and his brother’s wife. This entire section is told from the perspective of the farm hands as well as other ancillary characters from the first three sections of the novel, including Tietjens’ vindictive wife, Sylvia. The character of Christopher Tietjens is only actually present in the narrative in the final two pages, but the observations related by those who live near him are sufficient to provide solace to the reader as to the state of Tietjens’ life and his chances for a “happily ever after” ending. This style of storytelling is modernist to the core and quite satisfying in the end.

From a reader’s perspective, I was often frustrated by Tietjen’s passivity in the face of repeated attacks from those he loved and helped most.  If there was ever a Christ-like martyr in modernist literature, this character embodies the archetype perfectly.  And yet, even though he suffered in silence and never fought back, as would be expected in today’s literature, he eventually came to live the life of his dreams.

Recommendation: This is a tough one.  I am a big fan of the modernist school of literature, which focuses on the art and style of writing rather than the creation of a well-constructed plot with a clearly delineated beginning, middle, and end. With that said, I thought this was an excellent example of the style as it was being perfected during the 1920’s. From the perspective of story, there is not much here – mostly just people misjudging, miscommunicating, and behaving badly towards the nicest person they know. My father once told me that the more you do for someone, the more they will resent you.  And, in the world of Parade’s End, this outlook proves to be true.