A fine ending to the sequence of nine novels which comprise "the Forsyte Chronicles". A pity that most of them are now out of print.

This novel's central plot is about Clare Corven's flight back to England from Ceylon, following her ill-treatment by her husband, Jerry. On the ship home, she meets Tony Croom, who falls in love with her. Clare's husband then sues for divorce and damages.

To give more away would spoil it for the reader, but it's one of the better novels in the Forsyte series, in which Galsworthy maintains a fine control of the narrative, even giving the reader a mini-mystery at the end. What shines through is Galsworthy's deep preception of life - for example, love is rarely reciprocated in equal strength and intensity; and love on its own is insufficient when people are seeking to build a relationship - compromises are often necessary.

Although Galsworthy does not have the sustained ascerbic wit of later writers such as Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell (who wrote about broadly similar classes), he has a more basic and obvious humanity, and a sympathy with the trials and tribulations of his characters. Galsworthy does not condemn human weakness and failure: Sir Lawrence Mont's refections on the differences between old and young people, his admissions to himself that he was once young and very like them, and that in many ways they are easier to get on with than he and his contemporaries were when they were young, is a beautifully written passage. A pity that more people, even now, do not reflect like this.

What is lacking in Galsworthy is fine descriptive prose (or at least it is true to say that it is more scarce in Galsworthy than in other authors). He has a direct, reporter-like style, and the reader has to rely on the words and actions of the characters to get a feel of the time and place. Yet for all that, I don't mind such a direct approach - it made me concentrate more on the nuances of what was being said. And I did feel a sense of regret that it was the last novel of the series.

This novel, when published in the 1920s, was a popular and critical success. It is considered of that literary school motivated by the First World War (Sassoon,Graves, Henry Williamson, etc.), though it contains no battle scenes.The title refers to a farm which gained its name through the Spanish occupation of the low countries during the counter-reformation. Its owner, Jerome Vanderlynden, and his daughter, Madeleine, inhabit the extreme north-east of France which is (was) as much Flemish as French and very close to the Western front. Madeleine, the central personage,might be a composite portrait of her that region's female: responsible, thrifty, direct, passionate, kind and maternal, yet with a certain hardness and even amorality. She wants to rejoin her lover, Georges, son of a local baron, and does so, but not before a tryst with the English Lieutenant Skene. She and Skene cohabit briefly during his leave.She later asks for and is sent money by him when, having found Georges, she begins to run short of funds. Georges, serving in the French army,dies, the war ends and, herself now proprieter of the Spanish Farm, she rejects Skene toward the close of the book. Their relationship, she knows,was created by war and terminated by peace. Hers is a well-drawn, credible portrait, the language in which she and others are described straightforward yet skilled. The Spanish Farm was the first of a trilogy, all of which are perhaps unfairly out of print or difficult to find.

According to the publisher, this book is a satire of monied English family at the turn of 1900's. Monied Soames Forsyte was "offered" a marriage by the beautiful (so much so that all Forsyte men fall for her at varying degree) Irene who had none. Well, Irene as rebellious as beautiful, might I add self centered as much, leaves Soames to be with her lover. Her lover happenes to be her niece's (by marriage)fiancee. He, Bosinney, ends up being killed by an accident so she comes back to Soames for a short period of time. She leaves her married life but she happened to meet up with a charmed uncle(by marriage) who settles a handsome inheritance. Now next is the uncle's son (old Jolyon and the son young Jolyon), who had committed himself an affair with the governess while married with a daughter, falls for Irene and so they become lovers....
How could have this went on -ever!- in anyone's life time, in England or anywhere else. This story demoralizes human society and makes people without sympathy and forgiveness. Least of all, the ending line is very dark, that a person wishing and wishing can never get: beauty and loving.
Did not enjoy the book, frustrated with the dvd/video, I will settle with "The Aristocrats."

I want to have this book and I dream to have it

Richard Shelton returns to England following a round-the-world trip. He is betrothed to Antonia Dennent, but for some reason best known to her parents is not allowed to see her for a further three months. At Dover, Shelton meets a Fleming, Louis Ferrand. The meeting, coinciding with his return from overseas, causes Shelton to take a fresh look at his country and its inhabitants.

The novel is really Galsworthy embarking on a critique of late Victorian/early Edwardian English society, especially its hypocrisy. As Shelton travels around, different parts of society are examined, from the Church of England, the upper middle classes, imperialists, Oxford, London, and so on. Galsworthy criticises via the various dialogues between his characters, Shelton acting as the critic par excellence, the others as defenders of the status quo.

Galsworthy seemed to be saying that the hypocrisy of the people was a veneer for a deeper lack of confidence, or a mask for the serious divisions within society as a whole.

As a piece of literature, this book is very uneven - the plot seems a bolt-on, a mere hook upon which Galsworthy could hang his need to explore the issues that were interesting him. The way to approach it, I think, is not as a great story but as an interesting period piece.

This is the seventh book in the Forsythe chronicles, and switches the scene to the Forsythes' cousins, the Charwells. The book seems very dated now, and is not of the same class as the three novels which make up the "Modern Comedy" trilogy. Nonetheless, Galsworthy's clear, direct almost news reporter-like style makes it an easy read. There's the usual story of the family's fight to avoid a scandal (reminiscent of the scandal Soames was concerned with throughout "A Modern Comedy"). What is of interest here is the role played by the females, who resort to using influence on the males who occupy all the positions of power, and the family's defence that it was unthinkable that an English gentlemen could be guilty of an offence, whereas the government is merely concerned with maintaining its relations with a foreign power. The resolution of this problem is swift and unsatisfactory given the importance of it to the plot of the novel as a whole, but it does reflect the (continuing?) effect of class networks and the use of influence/lobbying on governments. There are also interesting sub-plots concerning insanity (to which Galsworthy adopts a sympathetic stance) and to Social Darwinism, which Galsworthy rejects powerfully.

Different short novels 3 forsytians , two of them already in the Saga ( Indian sommer of an Forsyte; Silent wooing) One apocryph Forsyte Story in the style of those in "On Forsyte Change", short and ironic. Old Swithin Forsyte on his deathbed after reflecting a story (with the rest of his mind) he wnet through in his forties in Hungary. He had fallen in love with a young daughter of a poor revolutionary and does the strangest things.For Forsyte Fans a must! Hilaroious dialogues between James und Swithin the two almost deaf twins in 1890.

Apparently, this book was the first novel ever written by John Galsworthy, and it is the only work of his that I have ever read. I learned that he later rejected this book as unworthy for publishing, and I admit that I might have done the same, had I been the author. The story seems to be a cheap imitation of more successful romance novels, combining the ideas of great works like Jane Eyre and Sister Carrie. Truthfully, the only reason I even read the book was that I found the title intriguing. I never thought I would find a novel called by my own first name