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Parade's End #3
A Man Could Stand Up
Book #3 from the series: Parade's End Tetralogy
🎧Listening Length = 7 hours and 14 minutes
When English officer Christopher Tietjens leaves his orderly, affluent, predictable world for the chaos and bloodshed of World War I, he meets suffragette campaigner Valentine Wannop — whom he does not see again until after the war… First published in 1926, this compelling novel is performed by an AudioFile Golden Voice.
A Man Could Stand Up — is the third of four installments in Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End tetralogy, which follows Christopher Tietjens, a wealthy British landowner and the last British Tory; his unfaithful wife, Sylvia; and his mistress, Valentine Wannop.
Opening on Armistice Day (November 11, 1918), A Man Could Stand Up — serves as the climax of the series. Highlighting the tension between traditional values and a rapidly changing social order, the novel details Christopher and Valentine’s trials as the post-war world takes shape around them.
Unique among other war fiction of the time, the Parade’s End tetralogy privileges not the conflict of World War I itself, but the impact the war had on its participants and upon society writ large. With it’s publication, Ford hoped to contribute to the obviating of all future wars. Parade’s End is often referred to as one of the greatest 20th century novels, and one of the best depictions of war in literature. The 2012 television adaptation, written by Tom Stoppard and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall, was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and seven BAFTA Television Awards.
🎧Listening Length = 7 hours and 14 minutes
When English officer Christopher Tietjens leaves his orderly, affluent, predictable world for the chaos and bloodshed of World War I, he meets suffragette campaigner Valentine Wannop — whom he does not see again until after the war… First published in 1926, this compelling novel is performed by an AudioFile Golden Voice.
There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade’s End is one of them. — W. H. Auden
A Man Could Stand Up — is the third of four installments in Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End tetralogy, which follows Christopher Tietjens, a wealthy British landowner and the last British Tory; his unfaithful wife, Sylvia; and his mistress, Valentine Wannop.
Opening on Armistice Day (November 11, 1918), A Man Could Stand Up — serves as the climax of the series. Highlighting the tension between traditional values and a rapidly changing social order, the novel details Christopher and Valentine’s trials as the post-war world takes shape around them.
Unique among other war fiction of the time, the Parade’s End tetralogy privileges not the conflict of World War I itself, but the impact the war had on its participants and upon society writ large. With it’s publication, Ford hoped to contribute to the obviating of all future wars. Parade’s End is often referred to as one of the greatest 20th century novels, and one of the best depictions of war in literature. The 2012 television adaptation, written by Tom Stoppard and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall, was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and seven BAFTA Television Awards.
347 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 1926
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371 people want to read
About the author
Ford Madox Ford
467 books371 followersFord 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".
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".
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March 23, 2014
As Ford progresses with Parade’s End the books cover less and less time; this entire novel takes place in Valentine’s and Tietjens’s minds on Armistice Day.
Will they, won’t they…will they, won’t they…will they, won’t they--ever be happy? together?
Perhaps the war will liberate England in a way it never planned on. But what will be the consequences of that liberation? A Parade is an artificial thing, and all of the parades that Christopher Tietjens has decided are over for good--Tory England, the Empire, the actuality (but not the technicality) of his marriage, the behavior of an English country gentleman-are constructed and constrictive, even if they keep the place going. But the refrain of this novel, 'a man could stand up', is an emerging reference to finally being able to be honest, to stand up for what one wants and feels, to throw off the rules of upper class society. Be honest--for the last 700 pages have shown the mess one creates by assuming and inferring.
We see it in Valentine first, as she finally rebels against the morally compromising, abused role that Edith Ethel cast her in. Christopher too thinks he can do it. The eighteenth century gentleman--perhaps the eighteenth century is more suited to the honesty they need than Victorian and Edwardian times? Valentine and Tietjens can say ‘Chuck it!’ to Edith Ethel. But can they fight the retrograde influence of someone they both love? Will they be done in by retaining the virtues of the old England, by knowing the Parade of vicious hypocritical gossip won’t ‘end’. We finish this third novelof the tetralogy still not knowing the answer.
Before that, though, we have more of Ford’s intense portrayal of the insanity of war and of those in charge of waging it. Of the personal vindictiveness it gives cover to. More of civilian interference. More shell shock. But also an interesting, objective recognition that petty men can be great generals.
The novel closes with Tietjens and Valentine joining returning soldiers from his unit in France to celebrate Armistice Day in London, men they never would have associated with before the War. What next?
At this point I think back to Madrid a few years ago; I was there on May 1, and watched the Labor-intensive May Day parade. At the very end came an army of sanitation workers in fluorescent lime green overalls, sweepting up the debris. So what will be the debris of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade? On to the fourth and final installment.
Will they, won’t they…will they, won’t they…will they, won’t they--ever be happy? together?
Perhaps the war will liberate England in a way it never planned on. But what will be the consequences of that liberation? A Parade is an artificial thing, and all of the parades that Christopher Tietjens has decided are over for good--Tory England, the Empire, the actuality (but not the technicality) of his marriage, the behavior of an English country gentleman-are constructed and constrictive, even if they keep the place going. But the refrain of this novel, 'a man could stand up', is an emerging reference to finally being able to be honest, to stand up for what one wants and feels, to throw off the rules of upper class society. Be honest--for the last 700 pages have shown the mess one creates by assuming and inferring.
We see it in Valentine first, as she finally rebels against the morally compromising, abused role that Edith Ethel cast her in. Christopher too thinks he can do it. The eighteenth century gentleman--perhaps the eighteenth century is more suited to the honesty they need than Victorian and Edwardian times? Valentine and Tietjens can say ‘Chuck it!’ to Edith Ethel. But can they fight the retrograde influence of someone they both love? Will they be done in by retaining the virtues of the old England, by knowing the Parade of vicious hypocritical gossip won’t ‘end’. We finish this third novelof the tetralogy still not knowing the answer.
Before that, though, we have more of Ford’s intense portrayal of the insanity of war and of those in charge of waging it. Of the personal vindictiveness it gives cover to. More of civilian interference. More shell shock. But also an interesting, objective recognition that petty men can be great generals.
The novel closes with Tietjens and Valentine joining returning soldiers from his unit in France to celebrate Armistice Day in London, men they never would have associated with before the War. What next?
At this point I think back to Madrid a few years ago; I was there on May 1, and watched the Labor-intensive May Day parade. At the very end came an army of sanitation workers in fluorescent lime green overalls, sweepting up the debris. So what will be the debris of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade? On to the fourth and final installment.
June 24, 2015
These comments refer to the entire series, Parade's End.
This is the 3rd book of the quartet that makes up Parade's End. It's hard to describe just how astonishing this work is. It's not an easy read, but staying with Ford is so worth it. I found myself going to sleep at night thinking about the characters and waking up still puzzling over them, analyzing this train wreck of a marriage, thinking about the psychological warfare Sylvia exacts on her husband, Christopher, juxtaposed with the very real warfare poor Christopher endures in the trenches.
If I had to summarize the story I'd describe it as one in which modernity plays itself out through the lives of a small cast of characters. But it's so much more than that. Ford was a brilliant stylist; I found myself copying out quote after quote, like his description of the mid-Victorians , who, as to the matter of marital infidelity, "ran with the ethical hare, but hunted with the ecclesiastical hounds. " (!)
Ford is also fascinated with how we are in the world, how we interact (or not) with others. Page after page of dialogue has the characters talking to each other but not hearing or not understanding or not listening to what the other character has to say. The subtitle of the books could well be "what did you say"? Or "I can't hear you!" How so true and real Ford makes this human condition!
Ford was a modernist, as were Joyce and Lawrence and Woolf. I'm so stymied as to why Joyce et al are still read and studied, but not Ford. Why???
If you've not read Parades End , I urge you to do so. It's a true masterpiece, little known in the States, although I'm sure it's better known in the UK.
This is the 3rd book of the quartet that makes up Parade's End. It's hard to describe just how astonishing this work is. It's not an easy read, but staying with Ford is so worth it. I found myself going to sleep at night thinking about the characters and waking up still puzzling over them, analyzing this train wreck of a marriage, thinking about the psychological warfare Sylvia exacts on her husband, Christopher, juxtaposed with the very real warfare poor Christopher endures in the trenches.
If I had to summarize the story I'd describe it as one in which modernity plays itself out through the lives of a small cast of characters. But it's so much more than that. Ford was a brilliant stylist; I found myself copying out quote after quote, like his description of the mid-Victorians , who, as to the matter of marital infidelity, "ran with the ethical hare, but hunted with the ecclesiastical hounds. " (!)
Ford is also fascinated with how we are in the world, how we interact (or not) with others. Page after page of dialogue has the characters talking to each other but not hearing or not understanding or not listening to what the other character has to say. The subtitle of the books could well be "what did you say"? Or "I can't hear you!" How so true and real Ford makes this human condition!
Ford was a modernist, as were Joyce and Lawrence and Woolf. I'm so stymied as to why Joyce et al are still read and studied, but not Ford. Why???
If you've not read Parades End , I urge you to do so. It's a true masterpiece, little known in the States, although I'm sure it's better known in the UK.
October 17, 2019
This third episode in the Parade's End tetralogy is probably the most interesting to date. It centers around the last day or so of World War I, as Valentine Wannop and Christopher Tietjens prepare for their forthcoming reunion and their plunge into living in sin together. They haven't communicated during the entire war but they know that's what they're going to do, despite the occasional doubts that cross their minds; the War has freed them from the societal constraints that bound them.
Valentine has been working as an athletics teacher in a girls' school to keep her family above the starvation line--although starvation is clearly something much of the civilian population has had to contend with, and Valentine frequently observes how underfed the women around her are (most resources having been directed to the working and serving men). Her mother's financial situation has improved, though, and Valentine is now pretty much free to do as she likes. There's a real sense of how the war has liberated her from the obligation to be ladylike (she has learned to swear) and her job has given her a confidence and authority that you don't see in the earlier books.
Christopher's experience in the last days of the war is that of trench warfare, since at the end of the last book he was sent up the line by General Campion, probably so that he can be killed and the General can take up with his wife. Now experienced in war, he has managed to keep his mind intact and is mostly preoccupied with taking command of his battalion as they prepare to retreat toward the sea, since his commanding officer is clearly unfit for his job. The overwhelming sense is that of an army desperate for the war to end, so that "a man could stand up on a hill" without being shot by a sniper; of two armies, in fact, now horribly reduced in numbers and in resources, just trying to keep as many men alive as possible while still obeying orders to fight. It's a band of survivors, well-versed in trench warfare, their ideals (if they had any) as dead as the majority of their former comrades.
The narrative is much clearer in this book, although again Ford leaves the reader to work out what's happening from the thoughts of the characters. At least in this episode the characters are thinking in complete sentences.
Valentine has been working as an athletics teacher in a girls' school to keep her family above the starvation line--although starvation is clearly something much of the civilian population has had to contend with, and Valentine frequently observes how underfed the women around her are (most resources having been directed to the working and serving men). Her mother's financial situation has improved, though, and Valentine is now pretty much free to do as she likes. There's a real sense of how the war has liberated her from the obligation to be ladylike (she has learned to swear) and her job has given her a confidence and authority that you don't see in the earlier books.
Christopher's experience in the last days of the war is that of trench warfare, since at the end of the last book he was sent up the line by General Campion, probably so that he can be killed and the General can take up with his wife. Now experienced in war, he has managed to keep his mind intact and is mostly preoccupied with taking command of his battalion as they prepare to retreat toward the sea, since his commanding officer is clearly unfit for his job. The overwhelming sense is that of an army desperate for the war to end, so that "a man could stand up on a hill" without being shot by a sniper; of two armies, in fact, now horribly reduced in numbers and in resources, just trying to keep as many men alive as possible while still obeying orders to fight. It's a band of survivors, well-versed in trench warfare, their ideals (if they had any) as dead as the majority of their former comrades.
The narrative is much clearer in this book, although again Ford leaves the reader to work out what's happening from the thoughts of the characters. At least in this episode the characters are thinking in complete sentences.
January 25, 2019
Read in the omnibus "Parade's End" (hardcover and audiobook editions).
August 13, 2023
Dizzying in the best of ways. Stimulating to the brain. Felt in the heart. So much I don’t understand and yet feel.
November 11, 2015
What a towering towering masterpiece. Goodness gracious me. It’s true that sometimes you read a fine piece of work and gurgle over it, only to look back a month or two later and ask yourself why. It’s not impossible that I shall do the same with Parades End I suppose.
Possible but not probable, it strikes me. There is a contrary point of view too. I’m very conscious that the books I read in my salad days, 40 years ago, still tend to define greatness for me. They’ve had 40 years more for the notion of a masterpiece to sink in. How can a book now read, in my sixties, compete with those masters I read all that time ago? But – conscious of that thought, right now I am seriously asking myself: in what way exactly is War and Peace a better novel of warfare and its effects than Parades End? This is a towering towering masterpiece of a novel, in its way one of the best I’ve ever read.
To be more precise: three novels in my case. I have for the moment taken Graham Greene’s advice (me and Graham, Graham and me) and am excluding the final, Last Post from this note, as he argued it was not of the same quality and has held back rightful recognition of the first three novels, Some Do Not, No More Parades, and A Man Could Stand Up. They at least and for the moment, are interlocking, mutually reinforcing, masterpieces.
The three novels cover the period immediately before, during and the close of the Great War. They look at the surge of change that was sweeping over society anyway, engulfing “the last Tory in England”, Christopher Tietjens, who was realising that there would be no more ‘parades’, no more a sense of honour and the right way of doing things, no more the values of England: and this, even before the Great War blasted such values to smithereens in every sense.
It’s quite hard work at times, especially in the first books, as FMF – a child of his times of course – opts for the kind of experimentation with style that prevailed in the first decades of the twentieth century. This was the era of Virgina Woolf and of Ulysses after all. The libretto of who said what is there of course, but a lot of the book is presented in terms of what the people thought, a mixture of what the characters thought and felt – at several levels. In an impressionistic, stream of consciousness kind of way the text explores not only what’s going on in, say, Christopher Tietjens’ mind; but also, a peek at his soul too. By that I mean that, for example, all of us sometimes say one thing and mean another: “I really hate lamb stew” when deep down, what is really driving us is “the last time I ate lamb stew I was sitting in front of a woman who broke my heart”. FMF seeks to convey both levels in the book. It requires a degree of concentration to hold on to the narrative sometimes.
But at other times, many times, the language is as light as a feather, and FMF’s sense of poetry is never far from the surface. There are many gorgeous quotes listed in this web site and I shan’t repeat them here. But a favourite of mine from the first novel is this, in the early days of Tietjens’ and Valentine’s gentle love affair:
No, I was right first time. This is towering towering achievement, and one of the great novels. Read it in your twenties and then you can savour it for a lifetime.
Possible but not probable, it strikes me. There is a contrary point of view too. I’m very conscious that the books I read in my salad days, 40 years ago, still tend to define greatness for me. They’ve had 40 years more for the notion of a masterpiece to sink in. How can a book now read, in my sixties, compete with those masters I read all that time ago? But – conscious of that thought, right now I am seriously asking myself: in what way exactly is War and Peace a better novel of warfare and its effects than Parades End? This is a towering towering masterpiece of a novel, in its way one of the best I’ve ever read.
To be more precise: three novels in my case. I have for the moment taken Graham Greene’s advice (me and Graham, Graham and me) and am excluding the final, Last Post from this note, as he argued it was not of the same quality and has held back rightful recognition of the first three novels, Some Do Not, No More Parades, and A Man Could Stand Up. They at least and for the moment, are interlocking, mutually reinforcing, masterpieces.
The three novels cover the period immediately before, during and the close of the Great War. They look at the surge of change that was sweeping over society anyway, engulfing “the last Tory in England”, Christopher Tietjens, who was realising that there would be no more ‘parades’, no more a sense of honour and the right way of doing things, no more the values of England: and this, even before the Great War blasted such values to smithereens in every sense.
It’s quite hard work at times, especially in the first books, as FMF – a child of his times of course – opts for the kind of experimentation with style that prevailed in the first decades of the twentieth century. This was the era of Virgina Woolf and of Ulysses after all. The libretto of who said what is there of course, but a lot of the book is presented in terms of what the people thought, a mixture of what the characters thought and felt – at several levels. In an impressionistic, stream of consciousness kind of way the text explores not only what’s going on in, say, Christopher Tietjens’ mind; but also, a peek at his soul too. By that I mean that, for example, all of us sometimes say one thing and mean another: “I really hate lamb stew” when deep down, what is really driving us is “the last time I ate lamb stew I was sitting in front of a woman who broke my heart”. FMF seeks to convey both levels in the book. It requires a degree of concentration to hold on to the narrative sometimes.
But at other times, many times, the language is as light as a feather, and FMF’s sense of poetry is never far from the surface. There are many gorgeous quotes listed in this web site and I shan’t repeat them here. But a favourite of mine from the first novel is this, in the early days of Tietjens’ and Valentine’s gentle love affair:
It passed without any mention of the word ‘love’: it passed in impulses, warmths, rigours of the skin. Yet with every word they had said to each other they had confessed their love: in that way, when you listen to the nightingale you hear the expressed craving of your lover beating upon your heart.Just for fun, I watched some of the Benedict Cumberbatch dramatization of the novel as I was reading. For those who have watched the TV series in its entirety, rest assured that Tietjens is really only superficially like Benedict Cumberbatch! He, poor soul, has little opportunity to be more than a rather wooden and over-solemn anachronism. But with the advantage of the novels, able to delve inside his soul, Tietjens has hugely greater depth. If anything I think FMF may have overdone it slightly, in making him a persecuted, almost-Christ figure. But he is at least whole, and convincing.
No, I was right first time. This is towering towering achievement, and one of the great novels. Read it in your twenties and then you can savour it for a lifetime.
February 23, 2023
World War I has started and most of the book is in the battlefield and trenches. We also spend a great deal of time in Christopher’s head. Then there is this whole sonnet thing made me think of The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell, I seem to remember something about music in that book as well. Surprisingly I am enjoying this book more than I thought I would.
May 12, 2024
'What! Is THAT still there?' 🥹 things keep sweeping along, and I keep thinking I'm lost, till I find I've been swept away with them.
July 7, 2012
All right, one more to go! This series of four books, known collectively as Parade's End, is easily the comprehensive declaration of post-World War I modernism. Through its techniques and story we see the soul of a movement that had roots in previous literary movements but was forced to move on and change as the landscape of the world changed. Even then, the initial modernist writers would not give up their roots entirely, even though they knew these traditions would die with them.
Some critics, like Grahme Green iirc, believed that Parade's End was originally meant to end with A Man Could Stand Up. They make the claim that Mr. Ford was forced to write the fourth book, The Last Post, and that he always regretted it. As a result, to these critics, I've all ready finished Parade's End. And in a sense, I can see that. Christopher Tietjens has gone through a character change, from the pure eighteenth century Tory of parades to a Man who could stand up in the new post-war world. A way of being has passed away, and Tietjens will never be able to return completely to them, but he has found a new society, one that may lack the glory and nobility of his Victorian upbringing, but that nontheless contains what he desires most.
I'll try to come up with a more coherent review of the entire tetrology when I finish the Last Post.
Some critics, like Grahme Green iirc, believed that Parade's End was originally meant to end with A Man Could Stand Up. They make the claim that Mr. Ford was forced to write the fourth book, The Last Post, and that he always regretted it. As a result, to these critics, I've all ready finished Parade's End. And in a sense, I can see that. Christopher Tietjens has gone through a character change, from the pure eighteenth century Tory of parades to a Man who could stand up in the new post-war world. A way of being has passed away, and Tietjens will never be able to return completely to them, but he has found a new society, one that may lack the glory and nobility of his Victorian upbringing, but that nontheless contains what he desires most.
I'll try to come up with a more coherent review of the entire tetrology when I finish the Last Post.
April 17, 2010
The title refers to being able to stand up on a hilltop and not get shot, that is, the
war would be over.
The focus shifts to life in the trenches. Though instead of combat the modern side of war is covered, the paperwork; the organizing of expenses, the craziness of forms, forms, forms.
Tiejtens experiences are bookended by Valentine's thoughts on him at war, her love for
him, but he has never contacted her during the entire war.
His old friend, MacMaster, owes him some money. MacMaster's wife would find it
convenient if Tiejtens was killed, not so much as the debt, but because it is embarrassing
that her husband owes money. Ahh it's good to have the home front behind you!
January 30, 2014
I took a break after the first two and am so glad I did. The language, the characters, the dialogue, everything was so sharp and wonderful and I was able to attend after the hiatus. Valentine's first person parts are excellent in how they mirror the thoughts and rhythms of Tiejens and her images for him (bear, badger, madman) are great to see in contrast to his own for her (clean, athletic, fair). The exploration of their relationship feels like a very modern love story, forgetting the upward mobility class settings, World War One, a society in its pivotal change, a novel about two people who just need to find the time (and space) to just talk is a better love story then most. I missed Sylvia though...
April 25, 2014
*REVIEW FOR "PARADE'S END TETROLOGY"
Parade’s End, by Ford Madox Ford. First published as a series of books, Some Do Not…, No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up–, and The Last Post, in the 1920s. I read the Vintage edition of all four stories together, published in 1950/1978.
All authors have their overused words. For Rowling in the Potter series, it was “pant.” For Rowling later on, it was all about “thick legs.” For me, it seems to be “face” or “gaze.” For Tolstoy, it was “superfluous” (at least in translation). And for Ford, well, he has a number of them, which at times he is doing on purpose. The worst one, by far, is “lachrymose.” If I have to read “lachrymose” one more time…
This book is a tetralogy. Ford, in fact, never saw it as the omnibus Parade’s End, even though he suggested the title. However, when Graham Greene did a release of it many years ago, he left off the last book, saying that Ford himself wrote The Last Post superfluously (tee hee) and that he later regretted its inclusion. I was, therefore, torn between reading it as a trilogy or in its entirety. It helped that I had a terrible time getting through it at all. I left it at the trilogy. Many Parade fans would be appalled, for even though the last book is supposedly very different, it does have its proponents. Okay, I’ll admit, I skimmed it, and nothing called out to me.
This is another one of those books listed without fail in the top one hundred best books, wherever you might find that list. It has been called the greatest war novel(s) of all time, as well as the best of the 20th century. It does not have the large base of obsessive followers as many of the other chart-toppers (Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby, Don Quixote, etc.), and it is clear why. It is a difficult read. Or, in the words of some article I read months ago and can not now find, it is a dying novel. Sure, it has themes and stories that could transcend, but its language and literary devices are wearing thin.
The writing style is somewhere between stream-of-consciousness and chunky time jumps (backwards and forwards). Ford’s writing is replete with repeated words and phrases, amazingly sustained run-on sentences, and ellipses. (If ellipses vex you, I beg you not to pick up this book.) Particular moments in time are relived again and again, the whole 730 dense pages adding up to maybe a total of ten actual scenes. Points are driven into the reader’s head until it’s simply buzzing. I believe all of this comes from the stream-of-consciousness thing, and it’s a style I have a very hard time enjoying. Perhaps it’s because I don’t think in meandering tirades of words. I think in pictures. Meandering, messy, repetitive tirades of words are tiresome to me.
And yet I can appreciate many things about this novel(s). You are really able to get in to a couple of the character’s heads. The characters, in general, are extremely finely drawn. So is leftover Victorian England. So is war, or at least WWI. You’ve got this great love triangle, and an exploration of fresh topics, like one’s upbringing and theories versus their passion and circumstances. And Sylivia? She’s just one big train wreck of a personality disorder, and I heartily enjoyed reading her on tenterhooks.
But I found myself wishing, very frequently, that Ford’s writing style had been very, very different. I appreciate his care and perspective; I can’t tolerate his voice. I want to play editor, and demand that he cut the whole thing by at least half, re-order it into sequential events, and flesh out a few of the supporting characters and subplots. Plus, give us more action! Then, I’m afraid, the whole thing would be dead, a mangled, lifeless thing, the harrowing tension gone. Which is what the book is, really: a very tight winding in the distinct voice of the times.
Not a re-read for me. Can’t say I regret having read it. It took me forever. If I was forced to choose one to re-read, it would definitely be A Man Could Stand Up–, which has some achingly beautiful language and moments.
__________
I had decided to move this book up on my queue when I saw that the new British TV series was written by Tom Stoppard. (For Stoppard reviews, see here and here.) Of course, Cumberbatch fever helped.
I ended up watching the whole five-part series while I was on a break from reading the novel, which has confused me considerably. From what I can recall, the series is a great representation of the novel(s). It has that sort of fractured, in-his-head, finely-drawn characters feel, and it covers just about all the scenes, at least in the middle two books. There were some plot changes that I am not sure about. It could have been that I misunderstood something. It could have been that not reading the last book put me at a disadvantage. It could have been Stoppard added things for translation into movie. Plus, for a book which gathers most of its sexual steam by being definitively demure, the series was a bit too overtly sexy for itself.
Otherwise, fans of British TV and/or Cumberbatch will be happy with this series. It is true, as has been widely said, that he does a great job acting, as does Rebecca Hall. I can imagine these were two of the most difficult characters to play, of all time, which may be why Parade’s End doesn’t seem to have hit the big or small screen until now. Beautiful cinematography, fun costumes. Enjoyable, at the very least, for anyone who tolerates period films.
__________
“…the oddnesses of friendships are a frequent guarantee of their lasting texture” (p5).
“Such calamities are the will of God. A gentleman accepts them” (p12).
“Disasters come to men through drink, gambling, and women” (p14).
“…you live beside a man and notice his changes very little” (p17).
“Damn it. What’s the sense of all these attempts to justify fornication?” (p18).
“It’s the tradition, so it’s right” (p18).
(About England:) “We’re always, as it were, committing adultery–like your fellow–with the name of Heaven on our lips” (p21).
“The gods to each ascribe a differing lot: / Some enter at the portal. Some do not!” (p24).
“But Sister Mary of the Cross at the convent had a maxim: ‘Wear velvet gloves in family life.’ We seem to be going at it with the gloves off” (p41).
“‘What’s to stop it?’ the priest asked. “‘What in the world but the grace of our blessed Lord, which he hasn’t got and doesn’t ask for?’” (p45).
“Cats and monkeys. Monkeys and cats. All humanity is there” (p85).
“‘It’s the person who does the thing he’s afraid of who’s the real hero, isn’t it?” (p88).
“I could harangue the whole crowd when I got them together. But speak to one man in cold blood I couldn’t’” (p89).
“In every man there are two minds that work side by side, the one checking the other; thus emotion stands against reason, intellect corrects passion…” (p93).
“Who knows what sins of his own are heavily punishable in the eyes of God, for God is just?” (p129).
“I shall write in my bedroom on my knee. I’m a woman and can. You’re a man and have to have a padded chair and sanctuary…” (p132).
“It was as if for a moment destiny, which usually let him creep past somehow, had looked at him” (p147).
“Obviously he might survive; but after that tremendous physical drilling what survived would not be himself, but a man with cleaned, sand-dried bones” (p200).
“If you hunch your shoulders too long against a storm your shoulders will grow bowed…” (p201).
“He considered that, with a third of his brain in action, he was over a match for Mark, but he was tired of discussions” (p216).
“This civilization had contrived a state of things in which leaves rotted by August. Well, it was doomed!” (p232).
“No! ‘Pasteurized’ was the word! Like dead milk. Robbed of their vitamins…” (p294).
“An enormous crashing sound said things of an intolerable intimacy to each of those men, and to all of them as a body” (p315).
“The distrust of the home Cabinet, felt by then by the greater part of that army, became like physical pain” (p320).
“‘If you let yourself go,’ Tietjens said, ‘you may let yourself go a tidy sight father than you want to’” (p325).
“He used the world hell as if he had first wrapped it in eau-de-Cologned cotton-wadding” (p348).
“‘Don’t think I’m insulting you. You appear to be a very decent fellow. But very decent fellows have gone absent’” (p364).
“The man looked you straight in the eyes. But a strong passion, like that for escape–or a girl–will give you control over the muscles” (p364).
“English people of good passion consider that the basis of all marital unions or disunions, is the maxim: No scenes” (p368).
“He would, literally, rather be dead than an open book” (p368).
“…she had seemed a mere white phosphorescence…” (p370).
“You cannot force your mind to a deliberate, consecutive recollection” (p371).
“My wife must have been more aware of my feelings for Miss Wannop than was I myself” (p373).
“Obviously he was not immune from the seven deadly sins” (p377).
“One reserved the right so to do and to take the consequences” (p377).
“That whole land was to be annihilated as a sacrifice to one vanity” (p386).
“The world was foundering” (p387).
“But it’s better to go to heaven with your skin shining and master of your limbs” (p390).
“…he might be just in time for the last train to the old heaven…” (p394).
“The French were as a rule more gloomy than men and women are expected to be” (p437).
“You cannot keep up fits of emotion by the hour” (p436).
“They wanted the war won by men who would at the end be either humiliated or dead. Or both. Except, naturally, their own cousins or fiancee’s relatives” (p533).
“…the telephone began, for Valentine, to assume an aspect that, years ago it had used to have–of being part of the supernatural paraphernalia of inscrutable Destiny” (p543).
“…flee away and eat pomegranates beside an infinite washtub of Reckitt’s blue” (p546).
“You had to keep them–the Girls, the Populace, everybody!–in hand now, for once you let go there was no knowing where They, like waters parted from the seas, mightn’t carry You” (p551).
“To save three thousand, two hundred pounds, not to mention interest–which was what Vincent owed him!–Edith Ethel with the sweetest possible smile would beg the pillows off a whole hospital ward full of dying …. She was quite right. She had to save her man. You go to any depths of ignominy to save your man” (p570).
“‘I didn’t consciously want to bother you but a spirit in my feel has made me who knows how …. That’s Shelley, isn’t it?” (p571).
“Then… What should keep them apart? …. Middle Class Morality? A pretty gory carnival that had been for the last four years!” (p576).
“If people wanted your to appreciate items of sledge-hammering news they should not use long sentences” (p578).
“Thoughts menaced him as clouds threaten the heads of mountains” (p588).
“Probably because they–the painters–drew from living models or had ideas as to the human form …. But these were not limbs, muscles, torsi. Collections of tubular shapes in field-grey or mud-colour they were. Chucked about by Almighty God? As if He had dropped them from on high to make them flatten into the earth” (p594).
“How the devil had that fellow managed to get smashed into that shape? It was improbable” (p597).
“In the trench you could see nothing and noise rushed like black angels gone mad; solid noise that swept you off your feet …. Swept your brain off its feet” (p602).
“You imagined that the heavenly powers in decency suspended their activities at such moments. But there was positively lightning. They didn’t!” (p603).
“It appeared to him queer that they should be behaving like that when you could hear… oh, say, the winds of the angel of death ….” (p622).
“But Great General Staff likes to exchange these witticisms in iron. And a little blood!” (p655).
*REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST BLOG
Parade’s End, by Ford Madox Ford. First published as a series of books, Some Do Not…, No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up–, and The Last Post, in the 1920s. I read the Vintage edition of all four stories together, published in 1950/1978.
All authors have their overused words. For Rowling in the Potter series, it was “pant.” For Rowling later on, it was all about “thick legs.” For me, it seems to be “face” or “gaze.” For Tolstoy, it was “superfluous” (at least in translation). And for Ford, well, he has a number of them, which at times he is doing on purpose. The worst one, by far, is “lachrymose.” If I have to read “lachrymose” one more time…
This book is a tetralogy. Ford, in fact, never saw it as the omnibus Parade’s End, even though he suggested the title. However, when Graham Greene did a release of it many years ago, he left off the last book, saying that Ford himself wrote The Last Post superfluously (tee hee) and that he later regretted its inclusion. I was, therefore, torn between reading it as a trilogy or in its entirety. It helped that I had a terrible time getting through it at all. I left it at the trilogy. Many Parade fans would be appalled, for even though the last book is supposedly very different, it does have its proponents. Okay, I’ll admit, I skimmed it, and nothing called out to me.
This is another one of those books listed without fail in the top one hundred best books, wherever you might find that list. It has been called the greatest war novel(s) of all time, as well as the best of the 20th century. It does not have the large base of obsessive followers as many of the other chart-toppers (Anna Karenina, The Great Gatsby, Don Quixote, etc.), and it is clear why. It is a difficult read. Or, in the words of some article I read months ago and can not now find, it is a dying novel. Sure, it has themes and stories that could transcend, but its language and literary devices are wearing thin.
The writing style is somewhere between stream-of-consciousness and chunky time jumps (backwards and forwards). Ford’s writing is replete with repeated words and phrases, amazingly sustained run-on sentences, and ellipses. (If ellipses vex you, I beg you not to pick up this book.) Particular moments in time are relived again and again, the whole 730 dense pages adding up to maybe a total of ten actual scenes. Points are driven into the reader’s head until it’s simply buzzing. I believe all of this comes from the stream-of-consciousness thing, and it’s a style I have a very hard time enjoying. Perhaps it’s because I don’t think in meandering tirades of words. I think in pictures. Meandering, messy, repetitive tirades of words are tiresome to me.
And yet I can appreciate many things about this novel(s). You are really able to get in to a couple of the character’s heads. The characters, in general, are extremely finely drawn. So is leftover Victorian England. So is war, or at least WWI. You’ve got this great love triangle, and an exploration of fresh topics, like one’s upbringing and theories versus their passion and circumstances. And Sylivia? She’s just one big train wreck of a personality disorder, and I heartily enjoyed reading her on tenterhooks.
But I found myself wishing, very frequently, that Ford’s writing style had been very, very different. I appreciate his care and perspective; I can’t tolerate his voice. I want to play editor, and demand that he cut the whole thing by at least half, re-order it into sequential events, and flesh out a few of the supporting characters and subplots. Plus, give us more action! Then, I’m afraid, the whole thing would be dead, a mangled, lifeless thing, the harrowing tension gone. Which is what the book is, really: a very tight winding in the distinct voice of the times.
Not a re-read for me. Can’t say I regret having read it. It took me forever. If I was forced to choose one to re-read, it would definitely be A Man Could Stand Up–, which has some achingly beautiful language and moments.
__________
I had decided to move this book up on my queue when I saw that the new British TV series was written by Tom Stoppard. (For Stoppard reviews, see here and here.) Of course, Cumberbatch fever helped.
I ended up watching the whole five-part series while I was on a break from reading the novel, which has confused me considerably. From what I can recall, the series is a great representation of the novel(s). It has that sort of fractured, in-his-head, finely-drawn characters feel, and it covers just about all the scenes, at least in the middle two books. There were some plot changes that I am not sure about. It could have been that I misunderstood something. It could have been that not reading the last book put me at a disadvantage. It could have been Stoppard added things for translation into movie. Plus, for a book which gathers most of its sexual steam by being definitively demure, the series was a bit too overtly sexy for itself.
Otherwise, fans of British TV and/or Cumberbatch will be happy with this series. It is true, as has been widely said, that he does a great job acting, as does Rebecca Hall. I can imagine these were two of the most difficult characters to play, of all time, which may be why Parade’s End doesn’t seem to have hit the big or small screen until now. Beautiful cinematography, fun costumes. Enjoyable, at the very least, for anyone who tolerates period films.
__________
“…the oddnesses of friendships are a frequent guarantee of their lasting texture” (p5).
“Such calamities are the will of God. A gentleman accepts them” (p12).
“Disasters come to men through drink, gambling, and women” (p14).
“…you live beside a man and notice his changes very little” (p17).
“Damn it. What’s the sense of all these attempts to justify fornication?” (p18).
“It’s the tradition, so it’s right” (p18).
(About England:) “We’re always, as it were, committing adultery–like your fellow–with the name of Heaven on our lips” (p21).
“The gods to each ascribe a differing lot: / Some enter at the portal. Some do not!” (p24).
“But Sister Mary of the Cross at the convent had a maxim: ‘Wear velvet gloves in family life.’ We seem to be going at it with the gloves off” (p41).
“‘What’s to stop it?’ the priest asked. “‘What in the world but the grace of our blessed Lord, which he hasn’t got and doesn’t ask for?’” (p45).
“Cats and monkeys. Monkeys and cats. All humanity is there” (p85).
“‘It’s the person who does the thing he’s afraid of who’s the real hero, isn’t it?” (p88).
“I could harangue the whole crowd when I got them together. But speak to one man in cold blood I couldn’t’” (p89).
“In every man there are two minds that work side by side, the one checking the other; thus emotion stands against reason, intellect corrects passion…” (p93).
“Who knows what sins of his own are heavily punishable in the eyes of God, for God is just?” (p129).
“I shall write in my bedroom on my knee. I’m a woman and can. You’re a man and have to have a padded chair and sanctuary…” (p132).
“It was as if for a moment destiny, which usually let him creep past somehow, had looked at him” (p147).
“Obviously he might survive; but after that tremendous physical drilling what survived would not be himself, but a man with cleaned, sand-dried bones” (p200).
“If you hunch your shoulders too long against a storm your shoulders will grow bowed…” (p201).
“He considered that, with a third of his brain in action, he was over a match for Mark, but he was tired of discussions” (p216).
“This civilization had contrived a state of things in which leaves rotted by August. Well, it was doomed!” (p232).
“No! ‘Pasteurized’ was the word! Like dead milk. Robbed of their vitamins…” (p294).
“An enormous crashing sound said things of an intolerable intimacy to each of those men, and to all of them as a body” (p315).
“The distrust of the home Cabinet, felt by then by the greater part of that army, became like physical pain” (p320).
“‘If you let yourself go,’ Tietjens said, ‘you may let yourself go a tidy sight father than you want to’” (p325).
“He used the world hell as if he had first wrapped it in eau-de-Cologned cotton-wadding” (p348).
“‘Don’t think I’m insulting you. You appear to be a very decent fellow. But very decent fellows have gone absent’” (p364).
“The man looked you straight in the eyes. But a strong passion, like that for escape–or a girl–will give you control over the muscles” (p364).
“English people of good passion consider that the basis of all marital unions or disunions, is the maxim: No scenes” (p368).
“He would, literally, rather be dead than an open book” (p368).
“…she had seemed a mere white phosphorescence…” (p370).
“You cannot force your mind to a deliberate, consecutive recollection” (p371).
“My wife must have been more aware of my feelings for Miss Wannop than was I myself” (p373).
“Obviously he was not immune from the seven deadly sins” (p377).
“One reserved the right so to do and to take the consequences” (p377).
“That whole land was to be annihilated as a sacrifice to one vanity” (p386).
“The world was foundering” (p387).
“But it’s better to go to heaven with your skin shining and master of your limbs” (p390).
“…he might be just in time for the last train to the old heaven…” (p394).
“The French were as a rule more gloomy than men and women are expected to be” (p437).
“You cannot keep up fits of emotion by the hour” (p436).
“They wanted the war won by men who would at the end be either humiliated or dead. Or both. Except, naturally, their own cousins or fiancee’s relatives” (p533).
“…the telephone began, for Valentine, to assume an aspect that, years ago it had used to have–of being part of the supernatural paraphernalia of inscrutable Destiny” (p543).
“…flee away and eat pomegranates beside an infinite washtub of Reckitt’s blue” (p546).
“You had to keep them–the Girls, the Populace, everybody!–in hand now, for once you let go there was no knowing where They, like waters parted from the seas, mightn’t carry You” (p551).
“To save three thousand, two hundred pounds, not to mention interest–which was what Vincent owed him!–Edith Ethel with the sweetest possible smile would beg the pillows off a whole hospital ward full of dying …. She was quite right. She had to save her man. You go to any depths of ignominy to save your man” (p570).
“‘I didn’t consciously want to bother you but a spirit in my feel has made me who knows how …. That’s Shelley, isn’t it?” (p571).
“Then… What should keep them apart? …. Middle Class Morality? A pretty gory carnival that had been for the last four years!” (p576).
“If people wanted your to appreciate items of sledge-hammering news they should not use long sentences” (p578).
“Thoughts menaced him as clouds threaten the heads of mountains” (p588).
“Probably because they–the painters–drew from living models or had ideas as to the human form …. But these were not limbs, muscles, torsi. Collections of tubular shapes in field-grey or mud-colour they were. Chucked about by Almighty God? As if He had dropped them from on high to make them flatten into the earth” (p594).
“How the devil had that fellow managed to get smashed into that shape? It was improbable” (p597).
“In the trench you could see nothing and noise rushed like black angels gone mad; solid noise that swept you off your feet …. Swept your brain off its feet” (p602).
“You imagined that the heavenly powers in decency suspended their activities at such moments. But there was positively lightning. They didn’t!” (p603).
“It appeared to him queer that they should be behaving like that when you could hear… oh, say, the winds of the angel of death ….” (p622).
“But Great General Staff likes to exchange these witticisms in iron. And a little blood!” (p655).
*REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST BLOG
July 30, 2025
A Man Could Stand Up by Ford Madox Ford
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
This is the third tome in the tetralogy Parade’s end by ford Madox Ford
And it is an exquisite, great work.
Like in the previous parts, the protagonist has an extraordinary effect on this reader.
I wish I could be more like him.
Well, I mean the good side.
For part of his attraction rests in his humanity and even the dark side which is revealed better in this third episode.
In Some Do Not and The Last Parade I was at times frustrated with the impeccable Christopher Tietjens, too much of an Ubermensch.
His wife is not only cheating on him, but being provocative in the process and rude to Valentine Wannop, not even kissed by Christopher at the time.
And the perfect gentleman declares that he would not divorce the insolent Sylvia under any circumstances.
Furthermore, when they meet in a public place and she is with her lover, Tietjens does not stop at refraining from any scene or display of anger, resentment, but he even gives the false impression that he had not seen the couple, to avoid causing any embarrassment to his spouse.
This volume is more positive than the previous ones and we can see that from the title which suggests
- A move upwards, standing up as opposed to (Some) Could Not and No More (Parades), the latter being a symbol of the end of celebrations and joy
- The Last Parade was symbolic of an era where festivities and cheerfulness have no place, in the context of a devastating World War
I see in A Man Could Stand Up reasons for hope and maybe the “light of the end of the tunnel” with an end to PTSD
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has affected multitudes coming from battle zones and it is apparent in Tietjens.
The hero is marked and obsessed with an act of bravery, which in his mind turns into a reason to feel guilty.
He has tried to save a subordinate from what appeared to be extreme danger only to see the poor man lose an eye.
- It is my responsibility. I should have left him there and nothing would have happened…because of me he has lost an eye
This is the way the brave, generous, decent, dedicated, friendly, loyal, exemplary, unbelievable Tietjens puts it…more or less
He becomes more interested and inclined to begin a closer relationship with Valentine Wannap, even if I thought it will never happen.
I am still not sure that it will.
This may be the frail, darker side of this superman.
At times he can be exasperatingly insensitive, cold, calculated and on the border of pathology, even giving the impression that he is a psychopath.
A psychopath is one that cannot have feelings or emotions and often speculates what others feel to reach to the top…The Donald?
Maybe
But the key word is: appears.
For the complexity of the protagonist makes it possible that the reader needs to dig further and use his or her EQ- as much as there is- to understand this complicated personage that has a habit of hiding his deep felt anxieties, fears or affections.
Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
This is the third tome in the tetralogy Parade’s end by ford Madox Ford
And it is an exquisite, great work.
Like in the previous parts, the protagonist has an extraordinary effect on this reader.
I wish I could be more like him.
Well, I mean the good side.
For part of his attraction rests in his humanity and even the dark side which is revealed better in this third episode.
In Some Do Not and The Last Parade I was at times frustrated with the impeccable Christopher Tietjens, too much of an Ubermensch.
His wife is not only cheating on him, but being provocative in the process and rude to Valentine Wannop, not even kissed by Christopher at the time.
And the perfect gentleman declares that he would not divorce the insolent Sylvia under any circumstances.
Furthermore, when they meet in a public place and she is with her lover, Tietjens does not stop at refraining from any scene or display of anger, resentment, but he even gives the false impression that he had not seen the couple, to avoid causing any embarrassment to his spouse.
This volume is more positive than the previous ones and we can see that from the title which suggests
- A move upwards, standing up as opposed to (Some) Could Not and No More (Parades), the latter being a symbol of the end of celebrations and joy
- The Last Parade was symbolic of an era where festivities and cheerfulness have no place, in the context of a devastating World War
I see in A Man Could Stand Up reasons for hope and maybe the “light of the end of the tunnel” with an end to PTSD
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has affected multitudes coming from battle zones and it is apparent in Tietjens.
The hero is marked and obsessed with an act of bravery, which in his mind turns into a reason to feel guilty.
He has tried to save a subordinate from what appeared to be extreme danger only to see the poor man lose an eye.
- It is my responsibility. I should have left him there and nothing would have happened…because of me he has lost an eye
This is the way the brave, generous, decent, dedicated, friendly, loyal, exemplary, unbelievable Tietjens puts it…more or less
He becomes more interested and inclined to begin a closer relationship with Valentine Wannap, even if I thought it will never happen.
I am still not sure that it will.
This may be the frail, darker side of this superman.
At times he can be exasperatingly insensitive, cold, calculated and on the border of pathology, even giving the impression that he is a psychopath.
A psychopath is one that cannot have feelings or emotions and often speculates what others feel to reach to the top…The Donald?
Maybe
But the key word is: appears.
For the complexity of the protagonist makes it possible that the reader needs to dig further and use his or her EQ- as much as there is- to understand this complicated personage that has a habit of hiding his deep felt anxieties, fears or affections.
September 23, 2021
A Writer Could Stop at a Trilogy
This is the third in a Tetralogy from Parade's End. Having reviewed the first two books, the first harshly, the second more judiciously, I can say that these volumes that focused on the war years themselves have been more interesting.
The biggest problem with Ford and so many of his English contemporaries was that they were quite often of the professional or peerage classes about which they obsessively write unlike Americans of the time.who were poor bohemians skewering their betters with whom they mixed. To Brits, they were documenting the passing of the old Empire to varying degrees of melancholy and joy.
England's years-long stalemate with the Germans who were in the process of trying to expand their Empire at the expense of the French and British, was broken only with the entrance of the United States into the war. As was further clearly illustrated a few decades later, England no longer has the military or industrial heft to fight her own battles or to maintain her Empire to her stuff upper lipped chagrin.
And yet England military still relied on her nobles and seasoned professionals to lead men less infatuated with an Empire where the sun never sets, particularly against a nation who dependent on the use of the most terrible of weapons that not only killed men but ruined them physically and psychically be they on the massive or molecular level.
This book begins and ends on Armistice Day with the war year of 1918 in the trenches of France as an interlude.The characters save but a few are generally unlikeable and the Victorian reticence annoying but, overall, a well written volume.
I understand the fourth and last in the series wasn't well received. Tetralogies are tough! Sometimes, three is quite enough.
This is the third in a Tetralogy from Parade's End. Having reviewed the first two books, the first harshly, the second more judiciously, I can say that these volumes that focused on the war years themselves have been more interesting.
The biggest problem with Ford and so many of his English contemporaries was that they were quite often of the professional or peerage classes about which they obsessively write unlike Americans of the time.who were poor bohemians skewering their betters with whom they mixed. To Brits, they were documenting the passing of the old Empire to varying degrees of melancholy and joy.
England's years-long stalemate with the Germans who were in the process of trying to expand their Empire at the expense of the French and British, was broken only with the entrance of the United States into the war. As was further clearly illustrated a few decades later, England no longer has the military or industrial heft to fight her own battles or to maintain her Empire to her stuff upper lipped chagrin.
And yet England military still relied on her nobles and seasoned professionals to lead men less infatuated with an Empire where the sun never sets, particularly against a nation who dependent on the use of the most terrible of weapons that not only killed men but ruined them physically and psychically be they on the massive or molecular level.
This book begins and ends on Armistice Day with the war year of 1918 in the trenches of France as an interlude.The characters save but a few are generally unlikeable and the Victorian reticence annoying but, overall, a well written volume.
I understand the fourth and last in the series wasn't well received. Tetralogies are tough! Sometimes, three is quite enough.
May 31, 2020
At the front because of Sylvia's interfering, Christopher dreams of a place where a man could stand up--a hill in England, but not in a trench at the front. Meanwhile, the meddling Edith Ethel tells Valentine that he has sent for her but he has sold all his furniture and is dotty. "You do not run when you are selling furniture if you are sane." (704) Back to the front with C, who realizes that he loves V and is mad at the Huns for keeping him away from her. "You seduced a young woman in order to be able to finish your talks with her.... you can't otherwise talk. You can't finish talks at street corners; in museums, even in drawing rooms." (680) But it takes Mrs. Wannop on the phone trying to talk each of them out of living in sin before they both realize they have come to the same decision.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 29, 2024
The third novel in the ‘Parade’s End’ four book series, begins on Armistice Day, November 1918. The novel focuses on Valentine Wannop and Christopher Tietjens, beginning with Valentine wondering what her future will be. Christopher, the man she loves has not written to her for over a year. The story then centers on Christopher Tietjens and the power plays in military life. Christopher’s commanding officer purposely sent Christopher to the front, hoping Christopher would be killed, thereby allowing the commander to marry Sylvia, Christopher’s wife!
Another interesting historical fiction novel about the effects of World War One on individuals. Christopher remains an interesting, complex character!
This book was first published in 1926.
Another interesting historical fiction novel about the effects of World War One on individuals. Christopher remains an interesting, complex character!
This book was first published in 1926.
July 18, 2019
I thought this was less good than its predecessors.
The parts of the novel that concern Valentine, her fears and hopes are excellent. Ford really nails her insecurities. For 1920s writing this is quite remarkable, as her doubts and desires, seem much more modern. Perhaps even selfish?
Christopher's part in this is what is less good. The harking back, again to the war is perhaps unnecessary in the longer flow. He has really made his point about Campion previously, and to raise it again less interesting.
Their eventual meeting in the last sequence is very poignant. Despite the interruptions they face both seem happier than for the duration of the war!
I am interested to see how this works out for them! Badly, no doubt.
This novel is a difficult staging post, it has no ability to stand independently, in any way & that's odd. Sequence novels, are usually self contained.
The parts of the novel that concern Valentine, her fears and hopes are excellent. Ford really nails her insecurities. For 1920s writing this is quite remarkable, as her doubts and desires, seem much more modern. Perhaps even selfish?
Christopher's part in this is what is less good. The harking back, again to the war is perhaps unnecessary in the longer flow. He has really made his point about Campion previously, and to raise it again less interesting.
Their eventual meeting in the last sequence is very poignant. Despite the interruptions they face both seem happier than for the duration of the war!
I am interested to see how this works out for them! Badly, no doubt.
This novel is a difficult staging post, it has no ability to stand independently, in any way & that's odd. Sequence novels, are usually self contained.
September 25, 2025
I can see why this is one of the most respected novels about warfare and its effects on the people who fight and those who wait. Tietjen’s character is almost too good to be true, but his heroism is real, while Sylvia clearly needs psychiatric help. But the author is so sympathetic to the mental toll war takes on everyone that I could almost forgive Sylvia. Almost- but I’m no Christopher Tietjens.
June 4, 2017
3.5 rounded up.
A little bit of a stretch to the parts that I wanted. Pretty great trench life stuff here.
and a very touching ending.
one more book to go. I'm so excited to watch the show.
A little bit of a stretch to the parts that I wanted. Pretty great trench life stuff here.
and a very touching ending.
one more book to go. I'm so excited to watch the show.
August 25, 2017
I have moved back to the "no so good" side of the equation for this 3rd book in the series. Too much wandering about over too short a time span. I want more meat on these bones. (Purchased at Ca' Foscarina bookshop in Venice)
Read
February 24, 2021The easiest to read so far—mostly because we see a lot of Valentine. I’ll remember it for the strange conversation at the end of the book between her mother & the badger, a few moments of quiet tenderness
June 15, 2023
Armistice Day at last. Ford shows the last of the insanity of war and where the characters were when the great war finally ended. Some of it felt long winded, but I soldiered on. I can't wait to read how the people gathered up the smithereens of their lives and carried on.
June 6, 2020
Utterly brilliant. A transcendent reading experience.
July 24, 2020
The physical and mental anguish of trench-warfare in WWI highlight the excellent third novel of Ford"s tetralogy Parade's End.
February 1, 2024
nearly teared up at the end, as valentine received the 'old pals'
and chuckled at the thought of all the battleworn still shouting
full blast as they had in the trenches..
and chuckled at the thought of all the battleworn still shouting
full blast as they had in the trenches..
September 20, 2024
The whole of the action of Part 3 takes place on Armistice Day, 1918 and is a stream of consciousness alternating between the interior monologues of Christopher and Valentine.
February 18, 2025
Book 3 in the Parade's End four book series. Takes place in the WWI trenches.
February 15, 2017
As with the previous two novels... once again extraordinary woozy dreamy surreal descriptions of life on the front line; sitting in a trench, early in a misty morning, waiting, waiting, waiting; shelling, strafing; fear, worry, detachment; looking out across the churned ground, mens bodies held in grotesque still life poses on the barbed wire...and yet intercut with humour, absurdity. I kind of feel this juxtaposition shouldn't work; but it does, wonderfully, and horrifyingly.
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Finished A Man Could Stand Up - wonderful book; and a relief to have some cathartic release at the end of the headlong rush. Its been a long time since I read Celine's Journey to the End of the Night - but that also had this element of the absurdity of the war told in a clattering exhausting repetitive welter of thought; but I think this is better; part of me wonders about influence.
Ford's description of the trenches is just astounding - amongst the best I have read - I say rush, but he can switch into slow motion movement; which just piles on a feeling of relentlessness. And then he can switch from the contemplation of the tiny - a pink pebble in the sunlit sand - to sheer overwhelming noise on a colossal scale. He depicts the Germans sympathetically, while his description of them as grey caped gas masked soldiers is haunting and chilling. But he saves his real ire or the stupidity of civilian command. It is quite something. Amazing.
Not sure if I want to read The Last Post now; I'd be happy sitting with this as the end... its easily the best of the three I've read so far; perhaps I'll just leave it for a bit.
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Finished A Man Could Stand Up - wonderful book; and a relief to have some cathartic release at the end of the headlong rush. Its been a long time since I read Celine's Journey to the End of the Night - but that also had this element of the absurdity of the war told in a clattering exhausting repetitive welter of thought; but I think this is better; part of me wonders about influence.
Ford's description of the trenches is just astounding - amongst the best I have read - I say rush, but he can switch into slow motion movement; which just piles on a feeling of relentlessness. And then he can switch from the contemplation of the tiny - a pink pebble in the sunlit sand - to sheer overwhelming noise on a colossal scale. He depicts the Germans sympathetically, while his description of them as grey caped gas masked soldiers is haunting and chilling. But he saves his real ire or the stupidity of civilian command. It is quite something. Amazing.
Not sure if I want to read The Last Post now; I'd be happy sitting with this as the end... its easily the best of the three I've read so far; perhaps I'll just leave it for a bit.
August 9, 2013
A Man Could Stand Up is the third novel in Ford Madox Ford's tetralogy Parade's End. This volume begins on Armistice Day with a focus on Valentine Wannop, Christopher Tietjens' maybe-yes, maybe-no lover. She is embroiled in continuing turmoil created by the arch-villianess, Sylvia Tietjens. The whole world has changed, never to be the same again, yet Valentine is trapped in the ageless, timeless, unchanging machinations of jealosy, selfishness, hypocrasy and greed. In the second part of the novel the focus shifts back in time to the front where Christopher finds himself immersed in the pointless, futility of "modern," industrialized warfare. Ford develops a powerful and profound anti-war argument by writing a cascade of minute detail. He describes the role played by geology and soil structure on the effectiveness of trenches. There is the endless attempt to predict the next wave of enemy attack by analyzing the frequency, type and patterns of the shelling. This is punctuated by matter-of-fact descriptions of the madness of living in trenches and the matter-of-fact reality of dying in them. There is a feeling that the war is coming to an end accompanied by the terrifying idea that one may be the last man to die. The third part of the novel finds Valentine at Grey's Inn waiting to be reunited with Christopher. She is in a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts, memories and emotions. There is no climax or resolutipn here, just a continuing flow of doubt, second-guessing and illusion. As in the previous novels, the appeal of this narrative is not in the action, the characters, or even in the importance of the themes: the joy is in the sheer beauty of Ford's writing style.
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August 26, 2023This is among the most transitional novels I have ever read. It’s so clearly the third of a series of four novels that it almost doesn’t make any sense on its own (and I’ve read the first two) and it’s almost confusing within the context of the whole series two because it has so little connection to the ways in which a novel is told. It’s almost like it couldn’t even muster enough edges and borders to be anything other than the middle chapters of a longer work.
That said, it’s good and it’s the clear next steps of the story.
We find the narrative has shifted away from Sylvia and onto Christopher Tietjens’s new love as she waits for him to return from the war. She looks and she waits.
In the war, Christopher does his best not to die and to certainly not die in the final days of a war that he can tell is ending.
The title of the novel refers to a saying by one of the men in the war about how once the war finally ends and no one is shooting any more, “A Man can stand up on a hill and look” around for the first time in years. And this image becomes a literal understanding of what’s going on in the war, but also a metaphor for the ways in which a traumatic set of events that colors and stresses our sense of ourselves (or our lives, or our bodies, or our cultures or countries) keeps us from understanding things like a sense of the future and broader context.
That said, it’s good and it’s the clear next steps of the story.
We find the narrative has shifted away from Sylvia and onto Christopher Tietjens’s new love as she waits for him to return from the war. She looks and she waits.
In the war, Christopher does his best not to die and to certainly not die in the final days of a war that he can tell is ending.
The title of the novel refers to a saying by one of the men in the war about how once the war finally ends and no one is shooting any more, “A Man can stand up on a hill and look” around for the first time in years. And this image becomes a literal understanding of what’s going on in the war, but also a metaphor for the ways in which a traumatic set of events that colors and stresses our sense of ourselves (or our lives, or our bodies, or our cultures or countries) keeps us from understanding things like a sense of the future and broader context.
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