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Saint's Progress
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282 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1919
About the author
John Galsworthy
2,507 books487 followersLiterary career of English novelist and playwright John Galsworthy, who used John Sinjohn as a pseudonym, spanned the Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian eras.
In addition to his prolific literary status, Galsworthy was also a renowned social activist. He was an outspoken advocate for the women's suffrage movement, prison reform and animal rights. Galsworthy was the president of PEN, an organization that sought to promote international cooperation through literature.
John Galsworthy was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1932 "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga."
In addition to his prolific literary status, Galsworthy was also a renowned social activist. He was an outspoken advocate for the women's suffrage movement, prison reform and animal rights. Galsworthy was the president of PEN, an organization that sought to promote international cooperation through literature.
John Galsworthy was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1932 "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga."
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 13, 2022
I have the Heinemann 1929 edition. This is my 7th Galsworthy novel and I absolutely love them. I don't know why he is so out of fashion now. He won the Nobel Prize. Books are a delight to read, such rich characters. I love the character of the priest and Noel, the daughter.
March 23, 2011
I enjoyed this, but I think the title is very misleading. Not only is there no saint, there's virtually no progress. What there is is an airy, dreamy main character who is regarded by most as the saint in question. However, the main character is really his younger daughter, who certainly isn't a saint. There's a lot of talking about religion and belief and so on.
Essentially, I didn't care about any of the characters, or any of the issues they were dealing with. It was enjoyable, but not particularly good.
Essentially, I didn't care about any of the characters, or any of the issues they were dealing with. It was enjoyable, but not particularly good.
July 28, 2021
Galsworthy touches real ground of the time and place in this work more than his usual - which is beautiful dreamy landscapes and problems of heart, of individual travails of love, and of individual rights, especially those of women, and conflicts thereof with social norms and rules. All of which appears here too, in a central way and surrounding every character, every other problem. But the main theme is something we all are familiar with - the devastating and at the same time liberating effect of the first world war on lives, especially in Europe.
The first and foremost effect was the growing awareness amongst the young who paid the greatest price for the war with their lives and love and marriages and more, of future and children and limbs and lives disrupted, that one really could not trust norms of expectations any more, one could not trust time and social rules and life, and life was to be snatched here and now whatever way possible. Young people refused long engagements and if they did not, often they paid the price with the boy dead and the girl left alone for life. Lucky were the brides that conceived before their men went to the war. Not so lucky were everyone else.
So young couples denied a quick marriage could part with death looming, or snatch a few moments of love before that, and the latter resulted in what the then society stupidly called war babies. Babies and innocent no matter what and in this situation so were the parents, and the real guilt of stupidity lay with those elders that refuse to let them marry before the boy went to the war. Young were correct in this and the elders wrong in every way.
This work is about the devastating effect of just such a situation on a family and other people related one way or another to it - the young girl in love and the young boy about to leave for the war in a couple of weeks, the priest father of the girl who considers a quick marriage unwise and refuses to consider it and expects them to come to their senses and wait, the death of the boy very soon in the trenches and the pregnancy of the girl (who is wisely pointed out by a cousin that this means she has not lost her love after all, and has him with her as the child), the effects of this on the girl and much more so on her father the priest who is the titular saint that progresses from refusal to see facts and horror of the situation to fierce protective attitude for his daughter and her baby son, to more.
Nature's beauty here is not missing, but rather more of London in wartime than of English countryside, the usual favourite of Galsworthy. And he shows his mastery in this too, with poignancy of the story reflected in the moonlit Thames and the dark parks and the flowering trees of London.
Monday, December 16, 2013.
.......................................................................
.......................................................................
The first and foremost effect was the growing awareness amongst the young who paid the greatest price for the war with their lives and love and marriages and more, of future and children and limbs and lives disrupted, that one really could not trust norms of expectations any more, one could not trust time and social rules and life, and life was to be snatched here and now whatever way possible. Young people refused long engagements and if they did not, often they paid the price with the boy dead and the girl left alone for life. Lucky were the brides that conceived before their men went to the war. Not so lucky were everyone else.
So young couples denied a quick marriage could part with death looming, or snatch a few moments of love before that, and the latter resulted in what the then society stupidly called war babies. Babies and innocent no matter what and in this situation so were the parents, and the real guilt of stupidity lay with those elders that refuse to let them marry before the boy went to the war. Young were correct in this and the elders wrong in every way.
This work is about the devastating effect of just such a situation on a family and other people related one way or another to it - the young girl in love and the young boy about to leave for the war in a couple of weeks, the priest father of the girl who considers a quick marriage unwise and refuses to consider it and expects them to come to their senses and wait, the death of the boy very soon in the trenches and the pregnancy of the girl (who is wisely pointed out by a cousin that this means she has not lost her love after all, and has him with her as the child), the effects of this on the girl and much more so on her father the priest who is the titular saint that progresses from refusal to see facts and horror of the situation to fierce protective attitude for his daughter and her baby son, to more.
Nature's beauty here is not missing, but rather more of London in wartime than of English countryside, the usual favourite of Galsworthy. And he shows his mastery in this too, with poignancy of the story reflected in the moonlit Thames and the dark parks and the flowering trees of London.
Monday, December 16, 2013.
.......................................................................
.......................................................................
February 5, 2016
Galsworthy touches real ground of the time and place in this work more than his usual - which is beautiful dreamy landscapes and problems of heart, of individual travails of love, and of individual rights, especially those of women, and conflicts thereof with social norms and rules. All of which appears here too, in a central way and surrounding every character, every other problem. But the main theme is something we all are familiar with - the devastating and at the same time liberating effect of the first world war on lives, especially in Europe.
The first and foremost effect was the growing awareness amongst the young who paid the greatest price for the war with their lives and love and marriages and more, of future and children and limbs and lives disrupted, that one really could not trust norms of expectations any more, one could not trust time and social rules and life, and life was to be snatched here and now whatever way possible. Young people refused long engagements and if they did not, often they paid the price with the boy dead and the girl left alone for life. Lucky were the brides that conceived before their men went to the war. Not so lucky were everyone else.
So young couples denied a quick marriage could part with death looming, or snatch a few moments of love before that, and the latter resulted in what the then society stupidly called war babies. Babies and innocent no matter what and in this situation so were the parents, and the real guilt of stupidity lay with those elders that refuse to let them marry before the boy went to the war. Young were correct in this and the elders wrong in every way.
This work is about the devastating effect of just such a situation on a family and other people related one way or another to it - the young girl in love and the young boy about to leave for the war in a couple of weeks, the priest father of the girl who considers a quick marriage unwise and refuses to consider it and expects them to come to their senses and wait, the death of the boy very soon in the trenches and the pregnancy of the girl (who is wisely pointed out by a cousin that this means she has not lost her love after all, and has him with her as the child), the effects of this on the girl and much more so on her father the priest who is the titular saint that progresses from refusal to see facts and horror of the situation to fierce protective attitude for his daughter and her baby son, to more.
Nature's beauty here is not missing, but rather more of London in wartime than of English countryside, the usual favourite of Galsworthy. And he shows his mastery in this too, with poignancy of the story reflected in the moonlit Thames and the dark parks and the flowering trees of London.
Monday, December 16, 2013.
...........................................................................
...........................................................................
The first and foremost effect was the growing awareness amongst the young who paid the greatest price for the war with their lives and love and marriages and more, of future and children and limbs and lives disrupted, that one really could not trust norms of expectations any more, one could not trust time and social rules and life, and life was to be snatched here and now whatever way possible. Young people refused long engagements and if they did not, often they paid the price with the boy dead and the girl left alone for life. Lucky were the brides that conceived before their men went to the war. Not so lucky were everyone else.
So young couples denied a quick marriage could part with death looming, or snatch a few moments of love before that, and the latter resulted in what the then society stupidly called war babies. Babies and innocent no matter what and in this situation so were the parents, and the real guilt of stupidity lay with those elders that refuse to let them marry before the boy went to the war. Young were correct in this and the elders wrong in every way.
This work is about the devastating effect of just such a situation on a family and other people related one way or another to it - the young girl in love and the young boy about to leave for the war in a couple of weeks, the priest father of the girl who considers a quick marriage unwise and refuses to consider it and expects them to come to their senses and wait, the death of the boy very soon in the trenches and the pregnancy of the girl (who is wisely pointed out by a cousin that this means she has not lost her love after all, and has him with her as the child), the effects of this on the girl and much more so on her father the priest who is the titular saint that progresses from refusal to see facts and horror of the situation to fierce protective attitude for his daughter and her baby son, to more.
Nature's beauty here is not missing, but rather more of London in wartime than of English countryside, the usual favourite of Galsworthy. And he shows his mastery in this too, with poignancy of the story reflected in the moonlit Thames and the dark parks and the flowering trees of London.
Monday, December 16, 2013.
...........................................................................
...........................................................................
February 5, 2016
Galsworthy touches real ground of the time and place in this work more than his usual - which is beautiful dreamy landscapes and problems of heart, of individual travails of love, and of individual rights, especially those of women, and conflicts thereof with social norms and rules. All of which appears here too, in a central way and surrounding every character, every other problem. But the main theme is something we all are familiar with - the devastating and at the same time liberating effect of the first world war on lives, especially in Europe.
The first and foremost effect was the growing awareness amongst the young who paid the greatest price for the war with their lives and love and marriages and more, of future and children and limbs and lives disrupted, that one really could not trust norms of expectations any more, one could not trust time and social rules and life, and life was to be snatched here and now whatever way possible. Young people refused long engagements and if they did not, often they paid the price with the boy dead and the girl left alone for life. Lucky were the brides that conceived before their men went to the war. Not so lucky were everyone else.
So young couples denied a quick marriage could part with death looming, or snatch a few moments of love before that, and the latter resulted in what the then society stupidly called war babies. Babies and innocent no matter what and in this situation so were the parents, and the real guilt of stupidity lay with those elders that refuse to let them marry before the boy went to the war. Young were correct in this and the elders wrong in every way.
This work is about the devastating effect of just such a situation on a family and other people related one way or another to it - the young girl in love and the young boy about to leave for the war in a couple of weeks, the priest father of the girl who considers a quick marriage unwise and refuses to consider it and expects them to come to their senses and wait, the death of the boy very soon in the trenches and the pregnancy of the girl (who is wisely pointed out by a cousin that this means she has not lost her love after all, and has him with her as the child), the effects of this on the girl and much more so on her father the priest who is the titular saint that progresses from refusal to see facts and horror of the situation to fierce protective attitude for his daughter and her baby son, to more.
Nature's beauty here is not missing, but rather more of London in wartime than of English countryside, the usual favourite of Galsworthy. And he shows his mastery in this too, with poignancy of the story reflected in the moonlit Thames and the dark parks and the flowering trees of London.
Monday, December 16, 2013.
...........................................................................
...........................................................................
The first and foremost effect was the growing awareness amongst the young who paid the greatest price for the war with their lives and love and marriages and more, of future and children and limbs and lives disrupted, that one really could not trust norms of expectations any more, one could not trust time and social rules and life, and life was to be snatched here and now whatever way possible. Young people refused long engagements and if they did not, often they paid the price with the boy dead and the girl left alone for life. Lucky were the brides that conceived before their men went to the war. Not so lucky were everyone else.
So young couples denied a quick marriage could part with death looming, or snatch a few moments of love before that, and the latter resulted in what the then society stupidly called war babies. Babies and innocent no matter what and in this situation so were the parents, and the real guilt of stupidity lay with those elders that refuse to let them marry before the boy went to the war. Young were correct in this and the elders wrong in every way.
This work is about the devastating effect of just such a situation on a family and other people related one way or another to it - the young girl in love and the young boy about to leave for the war in a couple of weeks, the priest father of the girl who considers a quick marriage unwise and refuses to consider it and expects them to come to their senses and wait, the death of the boy very soon in the trenches and the pregnancy of the girl (who is wisely pointed out by a cousin that this means she has not lost her love after all, and has him with her as the child), the effects of this on the girl and much more so on her father the priest who is the titular saint that progresses from refusal to see facts and horror of the situation to fierce protective attitude for his daughter and her baby son, to more.
Nature's beauty here is not missing, but rather more of London in wartime than of English countryside, the usual favourite of Galsworthy. And he shows his mastery in this too, with poignancy of the story reflected in the moonlit Thames and the dark parks and the flowering trees of London.
Monday, December 16, 2013.
...........................................................................
...........................................................................
September 21, 2023
Good but flawed. The novel deals with an English family during World World I, undergoing various crises. Unfortunately, many of the characters were not "believable" i.e. there was insufficient character development in the novel to explain their change in behavior. None the less, the novel was pretty good, all told. (p.s. I didn't actually read the book - I listened to the excellent Librivox recording
https://librivox.org/saints-progress-... read by Simon Evers.)
https://librivox.org/saints-progress-... read by Simon Evers.)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews