The White Monkey

The White Monkey

by
John Galsworthy

published	February 28th 2004 by Fredonia Books (NL)
binding	Paperback
isbn	1410105040 (isbn13: 9781410105042)
ebook
pages	340
description	The White Monkey is fourth in the Forsyte series of novels. The nine novels which make up The Forsyte Chronicles -- one of the most popular and en...more [close] The White Monkey is fourth in the Forsyte series of novels. The nine novels which make up The Forsyte Chronicles -- one of the most popular and enduring works of 20th century literature -- chronicle the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle class Forsyte family between 1886 and 1920. Galsworthy's masterly narrative examines not only their fortunes but also the wider developments within society, particularly the changing position of women. The author has drawn a fascinating and accurately detailed picture of the British propertied class Often incorrectly called The Forsyte Saga - the nine novel sequence properly known as The Forsyte Chronicles contains three trilogies - of which the first trilogy is The Forsyte Saga (The Man of Property - In Chancery - To Let). The second trilogy, A Modern Comedy (The White Monkey - The Silver Spoon - Swan Song) is followed by the third and concluding trilogy, End of the Chapter (Maid in Waiting - Flowering Wilderness - One More River). [close]
date added	06-01-07 edit book

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other reviews (showing 1-13 of 10)

David rated it:

(review of isbn 034502611X)

03/08/08

bookshelves: read-in-2008

Read in March, 2008

Well, it's hard to sustain the same level of brilliance across multiple novels and, much as I remembered, Volume 4 is where Galsworthy begins to falter. The White Monkey is inferior to the three volumes that precede it on several counts. At the most fundamental level, the plot is wafer-thin: very little of consequence happens in this book, to any of the characters. Also, the Forsytes no longer occupy the central role that they played in the initial trilogy - of his generation, only Soam...more Well, it's hard to sustain the same level of brilliance across multiple novels and, much as I remembered, Volume 4 is where Galsworthy begins to falter. The White Monkey is inferior to the three volumes that precede it on several counts. At the most fundamental level, the plot is wafer-thin: very little of consequence happens in this book, to any of the characters. Also, the Forsytes no longer occupy the central role that they played in the initial trilogy - of his generation, only Soames and Winifred maintain much of a presence, Jon and Irene are an ocean and a continent away, so that this book shifts its focus to concentrate more or less exclusively on Soames's daughter, Fleur. Problem is that the new characters - Fleur's husband, Michael Mont, and his family, his war buddy, the poet Wilfrid Desert, the artists and writers who populate Fleur's salon never rise above the level of cardboard cutout figures, dragged on stage in an obvious effort by Galsworthy to cover all his bases. There is a ridiculously clunky subplot involving a worker, Bicket, who is let go from Michael Mont's firm, and his wife, which might as well be sequestered off in its own optional section, with the label "travails of the working class".

So, a lot of quivering and soul-searching by Fleur as she reluctantly comes to the conclusion that she's not going to be able to manage to juggle husband and passionate admirer (Desert) successfully; further soul-searching about whether or not to have a child, all carried out in the presence of some kind of hideous lapdog, Ting-a-Ling. It's never a good sign when the Chinese lapdog is one of the more memorable characters in a book.

With an odd 15-page coda ("A Silent Wooing") to fill us in on Jon's progress. He's living in North Carolina now! He meets an American girl! They get married! Neither seems to have a discernible personality! If there's not a payoff in Book 6 for wading through all this boring stuff, I'll be really pissed off.

The book's title? Refers to a painting which Galsworthy uses as a symbol with which to bludgeon the reader.

Let's hope things improve in Volume 5, though I seem to remember that he doesn't actually regain his original form until the sixth book....less

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Carrie rated it:

(review of isbn 0140026770)

05/06/08

bookshelves: classics

Read in April, 2005

In the first book of the second trilogy in the Forsyte Chronicles, Galsworthy gives us Soames in the autumn of his life enduring the Jazz Age. His daughter is now married, flitting about, ‘collecting’ interesting people and filling her home with everything but babies. Life seems to have taken on an unreality after the Great War and the younger generation seems determined not to take anything too seriously. That is unless you are of the lower classes. In The White Monkey the reader is int...more

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Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 0755340884)

02/25/08

Read in February, 2008

Loved the first three volumes of this Saga (BBC TV production with Damian Lewis as Soames Forstye was also fantastic). The White Monkey lacked the passion of the first three - much more mellowed, settled and accepting. Yeh, not sure whether to move onto the next book ......

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