The Good Soldier [Paperback]

Ford Madox Ford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2005

"The Good Soldier" is the story of two couples. The first couple is English, Edward Ashburnham, the good soldier referenced in the title, and his wife Leonora. The second couple is American, John and Florence Dowell, who have been living abroad for quite some time. In a German spa prior to World War I the two couples meet and subsequently Edward and Florence become engaged in an affair. "The Good Soldier" is a tragic tale of passion. As John Dowell laments at the beginning of the book, it is "the saddest story I have ever heard."

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Digireads.com (January 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1420925601
• ISBN-13: 978-1420925609
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #323,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What makes something bad?, August 9, 2011

By 

Lindsey Peterson - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Good Soldier (Kindle Edition)

The post-mortem of a good-on-paper marriage that much later turned out to be even less than the little the narrator thought of it. The crux of his questioning of the marriage really is, "If for nine years I have possessed a goodly apple that is rotten at the core and discover its rottenness only in nine years and six months less four days, isn't it true to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple?" Is it possible for something to be bad if you don't know it? Where does the bad lie? Is it something empirical? Does it have to be measured in order to exist? Or is it a property of something waiting to be discovered and measured?

This book really describes fully the needs of a person to be acknowledged and the consequences of acknowledging the fullness of another. The non-affair that kills Edward really only hurts him because he acknowledges something that had probably been building for a while, but harmlessly while it went unnoticed. Acknowledgement is really the driving force behind the novel, both in the positive and negative aspects. The impetus of the narrator's story is his final acceptance of what his marriage really was, an acknowledgement of his wife's true nature. But at the same time that he is criticizing his wife for her shortcomings, he is illustrating his own and acknowledging them. He sees that he allowed himself to be deceived and so was a party in his deception. The question that comes to me is would he have been happier without the knowledge? Would I be happier if I didn't have the knowledge, being in his place? Do we need to know or do we want to know? And why? Is it just to punish ourselves, show ourselves how little we really matter? Is the thirst for acknowledgement a way to verify our own existence or a way to embitter it?

"We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece, November 22, 2011

By 

JSmalls - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Good Soldier (Paperback)

I've appreciated this book more as I've grown older. When I originally read the story I was a younger man; as I've aged, the dilemmas faced by the characters and the story have become more real to me and to how I see the world. This is a great book with lasting lessons.

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of the 1001 books list, January 22, 2012

By 

ehalsey - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Good Soldier (Kindle Edition)

So, I am about 400 books into the 1001 books to read before you die (I'd better read faster) and THE GOOD SOLDIER is my favorite book so far. I think it just hit the core of a strong feeling I have, that no other author has struck. Life is just such a whirlwind of stupidity but FMF illustrated an interesting apex in this wonderful book.