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Rating: 
Summary: Truly a classic -- time-tested, and well worn
Review: First book in The Forsyte Saga, the first trilogy about Galsworthy's family, the Forsytes. I have always known that this is a classic; i can remember Mum & Dad watching "The Forsyte Saga" on BBC, when i was under ten. I've thought about reading it at various times since then, when i 've seen parts of the Sage in various libraries, but have never taken the plunge. What a fool i was. This book is wonderful. It is not fast-paced; there is not a lot of action; there aren't thrills and spill for the average modern reader raised on television and motion pictures. What it does have, however, is a delicately portrayed family of characters, nice (in the older sense) irony, gentle interplay between people, and a carefully told story of the disintegration of an engagement, and the loss of a marriage. Very definitely written about the late Victorian Age (it takes place in 1884), some of the people's attitudes are radically (literally, other-rooted) different from the prevailing views of the Western world today. Soames' musings about marriage, the duty of his wife, and his exercise of his rights with her, would not stand today; fascinating they are, though, as a view into our great grandparents' world. Roll on the next two books of the trilogy.
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