Parade's End - Part One - Some Do Not

Parade's End #1

by Ford Madox Ford

This early work by Ford Madox Ford was originally published in 1924 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. This is part one of Ford's hugely successful Parade's End tetralogy that has now been adapted into a BBC television drama.

Follows the story of Christopher Tietjens, "the last English Tory," after the firstWorld War.. he is forced to choose between allegiance to an outmoded code of honor and personal survival in a corrupt age.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, War, British Literature, Literature, World War I

458 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1924

About the author

Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.

Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924–1928) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906–1908). The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read".

Reviews

[AiK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Аннотация обещала роман в духе любимых мной Ремарка и Олдингтона, но кроме времени действия сходства мало. Сюжет сильно уж замедлен, почти никакого действия не происходит. Все крутится вокруг отношений Кристофера Титженса с женой Сильвией, родившей ему ребенка от некоего Дрейка, и юной суфражисткой Валентайн. Роман отличает сочувствующее отношение к женскому движению и проблемам эпохи, в частности избирательного права для женщин.
Возвращаясь к теме отношений, Сильвия не только по сути обманом женила Титжента на себе, она ещё и изменила ему, укатив за границу с другим мужчиной. Титженс по этому поводу почти не проявил эмоций и согласился поехать за ней, когда ей надоело. Он считает, что "Такие беды – воля Божья. Джентльмен должен с ними смириться. " Он встречает Валентайн - девушку, которой неведомы снобизм и условности. Родом из аристократов, но обедневших, она без стеснения идёт в услужение. Она целомудренна и, одновременно, готова жить с мужчиной до брака. В те времена это было вызовом. Войны как таковой, в виде военных действий, по крайней мере в первом томе, нет. Автора больше интересует, как общество реагирует на войну. Например, отец Тидженса не перенес смерти троих своих детей, известие о смерти которых пришло в один день.

[Nick Imrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most astonishing thing is how different people were in this country just 100 years ago. I so often had the feeling that there was a great deal of context and subtext that I was utterly missing, when vast sums of meaning are conveyed in a mere, 'Oh, darling...'
I probably shouldn't have read this book as a way to pull myself out of a reading funk. It's pretty tough to go from absolutely no attention span to stream of consciousness!

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This must be one of the novels, if not the only novel, that one reads for the centenary of the Great War. Ford is an erudite social anthropologist, describing every detail of a highly evolved social structure in the process of simultaneously portraying its implosion. So that it would be a challenge to assign it to most undergraduate classes today, I think; they would protest that they don’t have a clue what anyone is talking about. What nonsense is Tietjiens going on about? – they didn’t sign up to learn a dead language.

But they should. Ford is astounding, working on so many levels in every scene. A brilliant example: the early set piece in the country club where the general tells off the two ‘City men’ for coarse talk and then proceeds himself to talk of how a gentleman handles an affair, but of course in the only acceptable upper class manner. In between these items, Ford, at the keyboard, plays a four-part conversational fugue -- so perfect.

There follows a midnight cart ride through the countryside where we come to know the two main characters in their hearts and souls, and we understand why they will become soul mates. This conversation, which tellingly takes place in the dark, shines in contrast to the obscured upper class language of Tietjen’s wife and best friend, and others from the worlds of (Catholic) church, army, White Hall, intellectual salons, landed gentry, etc.

Mostly, though, Ford gives the reader the heart and guts of men and women before and during wartime, caught in social conventions that lead them to do both noble and despicable things. Ford wrings one’s heart without sentimentality, and forces understanding for those who cause pain through their own hurt and frustration. He takes your breath away with his art.

This first book in the tetralogy Parade’s End does not reach the battlefront, but the war is never far away. Nor is Ford’s contempt for men and women who treat the war as another political exercise, or an opportunity for profiteering, and who are willing to wink at ethnical niceties. One very interesting point is Ford’s treatment of women’s influence on political affairs and war policy. This echoes the same issue in another book I read recently, The General by C. S. Forester. Well-educated, well-to-do women with no chance at a career and a will to power lead to trouble.

One of the most interesting questions, for me, is how Ford feels about the politics of his characters. Tietjens is a Tory—Does Ford admire his party? All of Ford’s other men of the ruling class are oblivious, stuffed shirts or hypocritical cads. Is Ford saying that Tories have fine ideals and England depends on people actually living up to them, as Tietjens does? Or is he saying that the Tories wave a flag with Tietjens’ ideals on it to perpetuate the class structure as an admirable, chivalrous and benevolent institution that everyone ought to be thankful for—but in fact in fact the Tories are only out for themselves, manipulating war policy as profiteers and ensuring safe postings for their sons?

The politics of the other characters are not held up as a better alternative; see Valentine’s brother’s communism and Sylvia’s vague German sympathies. Ford has no simplistic answers, and I look forward to seeing how he develops this aspect of the work over the next three parts of Parade’s End. Carcanet publishes what looks to be a marvelous, fully edited and commented edition of all four volumes, but I’m going to read the novels cold the first time. Later I’ll go back and learn about his politics and who he was writing about, because surely these characters must be modeled on real people in some cases.

As for the writing, one has to be knocked over by how Ford uses his own deep learning and experience to set his knight in a modernist flow of consciousness and make it work. He shows, rather than tells, how brilliant Tietjens is—a very hard thing to do convincingly unless you’re brilliant yourself. Ford also shows how Tietjens is simultaneously emblematic of his class in his love of land and system, and unusual for his contempt and willingness to rip apart the conventions of overlooking unpleasant things that involve his peers. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that Tietjens is not a prig—you don’t feel either disbelief that a man could hold these beliefs and act on them so conscientiously, or the revulsion usually directed at the scrupulous—because Ford so clearly distinguishes between virtuous and righteous.

The contradictory nature of Tietjens is evident from the first, but Ford ingeniously introduces the modernist style gradually. There are time shifts from the first, but signaled in the usual way. At some point, however, the reader is yanked into unsignalled shifts in viewpoint and temporality, and the interior thoughts become more and more like those of Joyce or Woolf. This happens as passions rise and overwhelm reason, so that the style reinforces the text.

In short, a masterpiece.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Если вы ничего не знали о нравах британского общества, кроме Джейн Остин, то you're in for surprise! Кратко излагаю правила, по которым оно функционирует у Форда в описанные времена (перед и во время первой мировой):

- если мужчину (неважно, женатого или нет) увидели проходящим по улице под руку с женщиной (неважно, замужем или нет), в глазах общества у них страстный роман
- если девушка заговорила с незнакомым мужчиной, она шлюха, и скорее всего у нее от него ребенок
- для того, чтобы все общество думало, что у вас от кого-то ребенок, совсем необязательно им видеть никакого ребенка у вас дома. Видимо, это связано с тем, что в те золотые времена нежеланное дитя можно было сразу отослать в деревню к кормилице. Поэтому наличие незаконного ребенка молва может приписать вам в любое время безо всяких доказательств. Даже если вы, например, девственница.
- а главное - все верят этим сплетням, как дети!
- стройные спортивные женщины к распутству не склонны
- склонны только такие voluptuous with flaccid breasts
- если ваш чек из клуба на полшиллинга (условная цена стейка и пинты пива) вернулся неоплаченным, это страшнейший позор и ваше имя уже из грязи не поднять никогда, даже если вы тут же организуете себе овердрафтик из состояния жены
- кстати, если у вас есть жена, - у вас есть проблемы
- на католичках жениться ни в коем случае нельзя, потому что нет более страшного существа для англичанина чем папист (кто знает, что у них на уме)
- что позволено шотландцам, не позволено англичанам
- что позволено северным англичанам, не позволено южным англичанам
- уэльсцам вообще ничего не позволено, они вроде как и не люди даже
- хорошая лошадь поважнее жены будет

Я короче в шоке, и в трепете и нетерпении берусь за второй том, слава тебе господи что их четыре.
Отдельно хочу отметить шедевральный кастинг BBC-минисериала "The End of The Parade", всех героев воображаешь именно такими, как там. Ну кроме может быть Титженса, который должен быть громадным мужланом, а играет его стройный Бндкт Кмбрбтч. Но все равно круто!

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit I'm very glad I'd seen the (excellent) miniseries before I read this, since Ford doesn't make things easy for the reader, darting backward and forward in time as the various characters think about what's been happening or what they hope will happen or what they wish hadn't happened. I'm not sure what you call that--psychological realism? If you like your plotlines nice and clear and linear, you probably won't like it, whatever it is.

Despite Ford's style, and despite the fact that it's hard to actually like any of the characters, even the protagonist Tietjens, I was entranced. It's like being transported directly into another age, and as if you, the reader, were part of that age and understood its values exactly. Which makes sense--this was published in 1924 but it's about the period just before, during, and after World War One, which WAS another age as far as any thinking person in the 20s was concerned. The war shook up the values (of the younger generation at least) so thoroughly that there was no going back, and I think that's exactly what Ford is trying to say. He deliberately makes Tietjens old-fashioned even by the standards of the pre-war world, a man who believes in honor and uprightness in a society where people might say they believed in such things, but most of them didn't uphold those values in private.

Ford's not afraid to have Tietjens exemplify the Victorian double standard, either--Tietjens sees his faithless wife as a whore, but when he allows others to believe (erroneously) that he has also committed adultery, he thinks they will see him as "a bit of a rip"; in other words, it would be OK for him to be unfaithful because he's a man, if he were the kind of man who could be unfaithful. He also has that acute consciousness of tiny distinctions of class that still persist among many Brits, and I can't help wondering whether his loyalty to Sylvia is partly because he has married slightly up. Tietjens' family is old, solid, and respectable, but Sylvia is the real deal, the kind of aristocrat who projects an aura of sheer upper class glamor wherever she goes.

She's also Catholic, and it's amazing how important such things were in the world Ford portrays. Some Do Not is an immersive experience I'm not easily going to forget.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely the only editions to read of this masterpiece. Surely these four books comprise one of the greatest novels of the period. Just wonderful stuff. Read it twice now and know I will read it again

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found reading this quite strange: frankly a bit of a mess, but an interesting one. The tone was frequently on the verge of hysteria, and yet the central character was the epitome of the British stiff upper lip. Yes, I know about still waters running deep, but even so ...

However, I am intrigued enough to go on with the series, as I suspect that the later volumes will help make more sense of what motivated the various characters, especially Sylvia and Edith Ethel. What motivated Ford to create these unpleasant women may need a bit of psychoanalysis!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg

I made the proofing of this book for Free Literature and Project Gutenberg will publish it.

[Derek Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There will never be a Ford Madox Ford revival," said my very tweedy English prof in college. Alas, probably not. This 4-volume work is usually cited for the intensity of its coverage of WWI and and the surrounding times in England. For me, it's the unrivaled intensity of emotion throughout. What the protagonist, Tietjens, and his star-crossed lover, Valentine Wannop (!) go through to try to find some resolution in life is, in places, like an operation without anesthetic. God, could Ford get at the confounding necessities of human life.

[Siv30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

לסקירה מפורטת בעברית ואנגלית, קישור לבלוג שלי -

https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/some...

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free download available at eBooks@Adelaide.

This is the first book of the tetralogy Parade's End.

Opening lines:
The two young men — they were of the English public official class — sat in the perfectly appointed railway carriage. The leather straps to the windows were of virgin newness; the mirrors beneath the new luggage racks immaculate as if they had reflected very little; the bulging upholstery in its luxuriant, regulated curves was scarlet and yellow in an intricate, minute dragon pattern, the design of a geometrician in Cologne.

From Wiki:
The novels chronicle the life of Christopher Tietjens, "the last Tory", a brilliant government statistician from a wealthy landowning family who is serving in the British Army during World War I. His wife Sylvia is a flippant socialite who seems intent on ruining him. Tietjens may or may not be the father of his wife's child. Meanwhile, his incipient affair with Valentine Wannop, a high-spirited pacifist and suffragette, has not been consummated, despite what all their friends believe. The two central novels follow Tietjens in the army in France and Belgium, as well as Sylvia and Valentine in their separate paths over the course of the war.

The sequel of this book is No More Parades.

[vicky. · Rating 1 out of 5]

dnf around 50%
you know, I truly thought I was going to finish this book despite knowing it was going to be 1 star since chapter two. I guess I felt confident because I had a paperback and was easier to go on reading.
basically: I don't know what the book is about. There's no plot, lots of characters and long paragraphs of introspection.
It's boring, confusing and very british. Usually I love british novels but this was too much.
Just watch the tv show with Benedict Cumberbatch, it's better.

[Femke Buysen]

I am sure many people love this book, but sadly I’m not one of them. This book felt dense and almost boring to me. The plot of was technically very interesting, but the writing style and characters created a big disconnect with the novel for me. I haven’t read enough modernist literature to find out whether I just dislike this movement or whether it was actually just Ford’s writing style that bothered me. Will be picking up Virginia Woolf next so I’ll let you know :)

[Richie Kercenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This first novel in the Parade's End tetralogy, also known as the Tiejens Saga, is an excellent specimen of modernist literature, and uses the latter's aesthetics in both form and style, as well as in presenting the focal character, Christopher Tiejens, as a man standing outside society, and representing what the social structure ought to have been in the stead of a chaotic world of hypocrisy, corruption, and ambition.

One of the key concepts of Modernism in the novel is its use of the city as something much more significant than a background to the story. Much like Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, the city is intertwined and woven into the consciousness of the characters. The story begins, in fact, in Hythe, a coastal town in the English countryside. Both the descriptions of rural life and the kind of events which take place in it are used as a means to compare their underlying associations with those of the city. While the countryside is, thus, symbolic of the traditional values of the past, the city represents modernity and progress. Progress in this case, however, is not of a positive kind, for it is associated with isolation, estrangement, and fragmentation.

One illustration of this binary opposition between country life and city bustle, as respective representations of tradition and modernity, is the weekend of repose which the men from the city, including Tiejens and Macmaster, had spent playing Golf in the countryside. Being a haven of tradition, the apparition of modernity in the shape of the suffragettes was rejected with violent vehemence in this rural setting. In this manner, the countryside is depicted as a place where forces of the modern collide with traditional values. Another example of that can be found in the the accident between the Wannop’s horse cart and the General’s motorcar. This scene is quite symbolic of the opposing forces of tradition and modernity as antagonistic to one another, and incapable of coexistence.

While staying in the country, the characters were, by no means, capable of harmonizing with their rural surroundings. Mentally speaking, they were still trapped in the chaotic whirl of the city as was the case of Macmaster who spent his time daydreaming about his social ambitions, and the set of people he would be able to associate with in the future.

The concept of alienation and estrangement is developed by means of the disastrous union of Sylvia and Tiejens. The two were isolated from one another on account of their lack and almost absence of communication. This can be generalized and applied to the whole social strata. The lack of communication, at the time, had led people to echo empty words in their conversations, like Sylvia and Christopher, without attempting to listen or understand the standpoint of their interlocutors. This concept and phenomenon would, by and by, worsen on account of the second world War and become a key characteristic of the post-modern literature, and more specifically the theatre of the absurd.

[Rick Slane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was many pages into this before it earned the third star. The action takes place shortly before and during WWI. The narrator seems to describe events so that they are as difficult to grasp as possible, but since they are described over and over again they eventually become known. The main character is such a good guy that he pisses his wife and best friend off to such an extent that they plot against him.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A character based novel set in England in 1914. Protagonist Christopher Tietjens refuses to retaliate against his wife, Sylvia, and her scandalous affairs. Christopher and Sylvia come from wealthy families. Christopher is very generous, giving funds to friends, with little thought of expecting repayment. Christopher is a very intelligent man with an excellent memory for numbers and quotes. Christopher is in love with Valentine Wannop but has not even kissed Valentine. Sylvia gets bored with Christopher and cannot stand being in his company. Sylvia tries to arrange for Christopher to have an affair with Valentine.

This novel is not an easy read as there is little plot and the drawn out thought processes of Christopher and Sylvia can become a little frustrating at times!

I find the main characters unique and intriguing and will continue to read the other three books in the ‘Parade’s End’ series.

This book was first published in 1924 and is the first novel in the four book ‘Parade’s End’ series.

[SnezhArt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Очень британская книжка про прекрасного мужчину, который пытается жить вопреки жене и жизни, не сдавая своих позиций.

[Ian Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a powerful portrait of the battling of cultures in the midst of the battling of nations.

The mixture of stream of consciousness with somewhat muddled old fashioned ways of speaking can at times make this a bit thick to follow, but with a few googles to reassure myself, I feel I got the most out of this read.

At times the ridiculousness of some of the characters almost seemed like farce, but I’m concluding that exaggeration was minimal and the reality of what was was always comical (to the point of torture) with enough perspective.

The best parallel to modern times? Maybe the more things change the more they stay the same, and what religion and class culture created then has been equally exchanged for whatever it is we have today. It looks better up close, but someday we will also take a step back, or be lucky enough to have our own FMF.

[Sara Strange · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this and am sad that I took so long to read it - I feel I lost some of the urgency of it. It was a slow burn that picked up depth as it went along. Each time I picked it up again it was harder to put down. I want to read it again.

[Paul Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just marvelous. Ford is such a stylist

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*; audiobook narrated by Stephen Crossley very well done.

This first book in "Parade's End" took me a while to warm up to. However, although Christopher Tiejens is not a person that I can easily understand, as the story progressed I did find myself interested in trying to figure out both Tiejens and his wife Sylvia. By the end of the book, I was persistently reminded of one of my father's favorite films - Grand Illusion. Both are set about the same time (WW1) & deal with the coinciding battle going on between people who still believed in the ideals of nobility and gentlemanly behavior and those who believed in practicality and ambition.

The book and the film are quite different but despite that I get the same feeling from them about the sadly inevitable failure of those "gentlemen". I have seen the movie several times (being, as I mentioned, my Dad's favorite) and for a long time, I didn't understand why he liked it so much - it's a very good film but to my mind somewhat depressing. Now, reading this book, I begin to understand what he saw. It is the tragic but noble stand of a man who knows that he will be misunderstood or misrepresented but continues to act as he believes right despite any negative consequences for himself. I don't personally consider that the Victorian morality was the correct one and certainly not the only one, so that explains why I have had some trouble identifying with Tiejens. But, although I don't share his views, I can sympathize with his position and admire his actions. And in any philosophy, the rumor-mongers and hypocrites are despicable.

[Jorge Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

O romance Some Do Not, publicado em 1924, é o primeiro da tetralogia Parade’s End, de Ford Madox Ford, um dos mais importantes escritores modernistas ingleses. Aparentemente, a tetralogia teria como objecto a primeira guerra mundial. É reconhecidamente um dos grandes monumentos literários provenientes da experiência traumática desse acontecimento que levou à morte uma geração de jovens europeus. Contudo, pelo menos no primeiro romance, a guerra é um assunto distante, que por vezes aflora não nela mesma, mas nas consciências das personagens. O que está em jogo, na trama narrativa, será quase um exercício filosófico, não porque o romance tenha um carácter especulativo e aborde problemas teóricos, mas porque é, na verdade, uma experiência de pensamento, como o são a Alegoria da Caverna, de Platão, ou a Hipótese do Génio Maligno, de Descartes. Não tem, todavia, finalidade de construção conceptual, como as referidas experiências, mas existencial. Apesar de marcadamente orientada para a captura da vida no seu fluir, esta experiência de pensamento não deixa de partilhar com as referidas uma preocupação com a distinção entre aparência e realidade, um cuidado com a verdade. Trata-se de transplantar um homem do século XVIII, Christopher Tietjens para as primeiras décadas do século XX. Não que se esteja perante um romance de ficção científica, em que se faz acordar alguém nascido num passado já remoto num tempo presente. O caso é outro. Christopher Tietjens, o último tory, é um homem cujos valores se pautam pela solidez moral dos gentlemen século XVIII. Pertence a uma família de ricos terratenentes, chegada a Inglaterra com Guilherme de Orange, em finais do século XVII, na sequência da Revolução Gloriosa.

Continuar a ler em: https://kyrieeleison-jcm.blogspot.com...

[Graychin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first installment of Ford Madox Ford’s big multi-volume novel of the First World War, Parade’s End. I dropped the whole project right here. I can’t do it. I won’t. Ford’s book was recommended to me by a fellow reader whose tastes I generally trust – but then (since no one’s perfect) he’s also an enthusiast of late Henry James novels.

Some Do Not… (awful title) started well enough but devolved into irksome vagueness on the author’s part and maddening confusion on my own. Ford won’t let himself tell a straightforward story. I want a story that moves from A to B to C to D; it’s not much to ask. But Ford insists for some reason on a progress from D to A to B to C to D(?), with brief suggestions also of Aa and Ab, and maybe of C1 and C2; leaving it all an open question in the end whether the ultimate D is really the same D as the original D.

God, I hate it when writers do that kind of thing. It almost - almost - makes me hate books.

2.5 stars

[Diane Zwang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed meeting all the characters. At first I thought Sylvia was quite a piece of work but she somehow has her head screwed on straight compared to some of the others. Like Kristel said Christopher is a dying breed, I also find him foolish with the loaning of money to anyone who asks. This book seemed to be a lot about marriage and mistresses. On to the next one.

“The youngest son of a Yorkshire country gentleman, Tietjens himself was entitled to the best—the best that first-class public offices and first-class people could afford.”

“…Tietjens cared more for his wife’s reputation than for any other fatter in a complicated world, …”

“If you wanted something killed you’d go to Sylvia Tietjens in the sure faith that she would kill it: emption: hope: ideal: kill it quick and sure. If you wanted something kept alive you’d go to Valentine: she’d find something to do for it…”

“Fortunately death, love, public dishonor and the like are rare occurrences in the life of the average man, so that the great advantage would seem to have lain with English society; …”

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably the most well-written book I'll ever give only 3 Stars to. If people really used to speak/act like this then I pity them, but I'm certainly not interested in reading another 3 books about them.

[Beck Henreckson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had trouble getting into this, and it felt very fragmented, but by the end I was very invested in the characters. Excited to keep reading. 3.5

[Scott McIntyre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in my 20s, I was way into that Paris generation of American writers - Hemingway, Fitzgerald et al. I suppose a lot of people do get interested in those people in their 20s. I used to come across the name Ford Madox Ford all the time when reading about that period, but I never ended up reading his work. I don’t know why. For some reason, I took him to be an American. That’s not the reason I didn’t read his work. Just mentioning it as one of those misapprehensions that can persist through the course of a lifetime.

This book is a masterpiece. It is a beautiful work of art. If you haven’t read it, remedy the situation immediately. However - do yourself a favour. Don’t pick up this book as a bit of bedtime reading, to be picked up and browsed for a quiet quarter of an hour before nodding off. Ford Madox Ford is one of those writers who demands a bit of his readers. You have to concentrate. He plays tricks with time, jolting you suddenly forward in the narrative, so that you can’t quite grasp what it is going on, before jamming the plot into reverse and going back in time again to make everything clear. Don’t worry - there’s nothing too opaque and tricky going on - you will be able to follow the action and pick up the threads, but you will need to be concentrating in order to do so. I hope that doesn’t make the book sound too demanding and put anyone off reading it, because the rewards far outweigh the effort.

A word of warning - if you are one of those ultra-modern people who can’t get along with characters who are restrained and circumspect, who do not communicate their feelings with modern-day standards of openness etc, this book won’t be for you. I know from reading reviews that a lot of such readers do exist. The people who populate this book are circumspect, discreet and undemonstrative to a very high degree. If that bothers you, give this book a miss. As great as it is, you probably won’t like it.

[Satu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I read Some Do Not, after I had seen the 2012 BBC miniseries Parade's End, I didn't quite enjoy it. It probably bored me and I haven't read the subsequent books in the series, yet. The anticipation of the first world war and the intricacies of British class society a hundred years ago might not have been what I was looking for in a book. However those are fascinating now some six or so years later. People change. Or Bill Nighy's performance made it sound better than the Gutenberg ebook felt. His narration of the Parade's End tetralogy is phenomenal. I'm sure I'll make it to the end this time.

The characters are vivid and intriguing. I can never understand most of the women characters, but maybe that's just me. I don't think the plot is the interesting part of this book. It's about the characters and society and the fact that an era had come to an end. They were living in a new, labile world.

I don't think the author ate fruit much. Who on earth peels figs or peaches? And how?!?!

[Dustincecil · Rating 4 out of 5]

second read. really so good.! amazing how much you can pick up from a second reading...
i still believe sylvia to be one of the 'best' villains i've ever read. she needs her own trilogy of novels..
I've seen the miniseries twice now, so it's difficult to see these characters in my mind instead of from the screen- but really worth it. the miniseries did a great job translating this to the screen.

Some pretty lush character sketches so far. I'm looking forward to the rest of these books. A study in the power of gossip, and the power of suggestion.

LOVE this title, and the endless flexibility it offers.

[Lucy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I lost the will to live reading this and skimmed the last couple of chapters. I couldn't bear any more. And to think it's the first of a tetralogy! No chance I'll search out the others. He makes Woolf seem organised. And as for the wooden characters, there wasn't a single real person among them. Avoid at all costs.