Does Galsworthy Sell Out?

 John Galsworthy’s novels are sometimes known collectively as The Forsyte Saga. But properly, the title only applies the first three of the stories about the Forsytes and their descendants. Galsworthy wrote a trilogy of trilogies; the second he entitled A Modern Comedy, and the third, End of the Chapter. The mad plan for my third decade of planned reading includes reading one of the installments in this grand series each year for the first nine years. So, this being year 4 in the plan, I just started the second set of three: A Modern Comedy. And since I had passed to a new act in the drama, I looked up some information just to get some context, see when books 4 to 6 were written, and garner some spoilers on what generation I might read about these next three years.

I was sorry to find in multiple places that critics thought the quality of the books declines at this point. I didn’t agree; after a slow first few chapters, I enjoyed book 4, The White Monkey, as much as or more than any of the preceding offerings. I was especially surprised to find that the critics’ problem centered on the character of Soames Forsyte. It seems that the consensus – did my feeble research really uncover widespread, well recognized consensus? I wouldn’t count on it – that the consensus is that Soames changes from being loathsome to inciting our sympathy, and it appears that they condemn Galsworthy for giving up his critique of the rich and turning conservative. And, as my tenth-grade English teacher taught me to do, I have three paragraph-long responses.

First, I didn’t read the first three books as critical of the rich per se. It seems clear to me that what Galsworthy opposes is not wealth but a certain relationship to beauty. For a Forsyte, all beautiful things are nothing more than commodities. Whether the beauty in question is found in a painting, a literary movement, an author, a wife, or a daughter, the Forsytes can only see the practical side of it. Soames has some legitimate critical skills when it comes to artworks; he recognizes a beautiful painting when he sees it. But he isn’t attracted to the beauty itself; he only sees an investment, never understanding that the price only goes up if somewhere along the line someone actually likes the picture. Authors are prizes to be collected and shown off at dinner parties. A Forsyte isn’t attracted to a beautiful woman as a woman, only to her beauty as an achievement and mark of success. It’s a fascinating, tragic, and sadly common trait, and I’ve known Forsytes who weren’t particularly rich. So I reject the premise that Galsworthy abandoned his critique of wealth, because I find my stubbornly logical mind can’t think that a man can abandon a position he has never held.

Second, doesn’t finding the sympathetic in Soames just make the character more human and the author more humane? Yes, Soames became more sympathetic in The White Monkey. But I saw that as a strength, not a weakness. And I mean a strength in the art of the book, not just a strength in Soames. Isn’t Othello better as it is, with the Moor’s tragic regrets at the end, than it would be if he just killed his wife and then got hauled off in a rage? And it’s not like Soames Forsyte is suddenly a good guy. But he is a deeper and more interesting character now. I have to add that Galsworthy’s decisions challenge to me to search for the human depth in the Forsytes I know, an exercise that would be good for me.

Finally, how can any book that tells the story of the Bickets be conservative? If Galsworthy is sympathetic to Soames, he’s absolutely in love with the Bickets, and the Bickets are anything but rich. Mr Bicket works in the distribution room of a publishing house and steals books in order to help pay for his sick wife’s care. (Brilliant! The purloined volumes of poetry have only monetary value for Bicket, yet how much his attitude differs from that of a Forsyte!) He’s caught and loses his job, but he can’t bear to tell his wife that he was fired and does his best to assure her that selling balloons on a street corner actually represents an improvement in their condition. But Mrs Bicket has a secret herself. After she recovers, she makes some money by posing for a painter in, well, in a way that she doesn’t wish to admit to her husband. I won’t say more about the plot details of this story that reminded me so much of “The Gift of the Magi” except to say that its climax includes the line, “Never mind, as long as you’re fond of me.” But, again, how can Galsworthy be accused of hard-hearted conservatism when he so movingly reveals the plight of this couple destitute in everything but love?

And, by the way, are Dr. Johnson and Kipling bad writers just because they’re conservative?

In any case, that’s what I think about the idea that Galsworthy sells out around book 4. Of course, I’m not trained in literary criticism. I’m just a guy who reads to learn as well as to be entertained and who finds that John Galsworthy, in the manner of a prophet, made his world better by pointing out its faults.