PARADE'S END by FORD MADOX FORD (4 novels: Some Do Not..., No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up-, The Last Post) (1924-1928)

Second reading



This 4-part series, known collectively as Parade's End, is highly regarded among literary critics, especially those who are British. It is set in England and on the Western Front, before, during, and immediately after World War I. It is told through the interior monologues of its various characters, particularly through the consciousness of Christopher Tietjens, a member of England's upper class.

As the first novel begins, Christopher's wife Sylvia has decided to return to him after having run away with another man. He does not believe that a real gentleman should divorce a wife and bring public scandal upon the family, so he takes her back, although not resuming sexual relations. While she has been gone, however, he has met a young lady from a well-born but impoverished family to whom he is powerfully attracted. As war looms, Sylvia spitefully tries to harm her husband's reputation, because, we are led to believe, she actually loves him and just wants to get his attention or some sort of reaction. The title of the novel, Some Do Not..., gives the reader the clue that Christopher and the girl he loves will refrain from acting on their feelings.

The subsequent novels take place during and immediately after the war. Sylvia continues to torment Christopher, even while he is stationed in France. His stint in the trenches later on is reported only through his thoughts, so it is not a very specific account of events. The last novel takes place after the war, and strangely enough, does not include his thoughts but those of others about him.

This is a very, very English story, with the "hero" being so "stiff-upper-lip" as to seem almost emotionless. Christopher tries to cling to the code of the ideal gentleman, but gradually finds that the old ways are no longer practicable. At one point he muses, "Gentlemen don't earn money. They exist." By the end of the series, however, he makes a living by selling antique furniture to rich Americans. The "parade" has ended. The old England has disappeared.

Perhaps the upper-class English do behave in the way these characters do, or perhaps they did back in the 1920s, but I have never known anyone who acted even remotely as these act. The major characters, in their stream-of-consciousness monologues, all seem deranged. Although the scholarly introduction to my edition assures me that Ford was highly influential and celebrated for his introduction of modernism, I found this novel series to be unrealistic (to my experience, at least) and even boring. I would not have devoted myself to these 900 pages if I had anything better to do.