Lots of us post-moderns connect with modernist writers because
we share their mistrust of power in the hands of the fallible agents of
government and religion and reject many traditional beliefs. But one baddish thing
to do to anybody is take away their hope for a better future. The classic
tetralogy Parade’s End scares me because
modernist writers, especially those coming out of World War I like Ford, were so
cynical and disillusioned that the reader’s hope gets cuffed around. I thought
that re-reading the novels one after another (not the way I read them about 3
or 4 years ago) would steel me, get me beyond feeling mere anger and
frustration with the same old gaga fools getting the younger generation into
the suck for the same stupid reasons. Emotional outcome: mixed.
A Man Could Stand
Up – Ford Madox Ford
This is the third volume in the tetralogy. After years of
separation and uncertainty for the duration of hostilities, the army veteran
Christopher Tietjens and his beloved Valentine Wannop see each other again on
the day of the armistice. But tormented by images of the horrible war and
the prolonged stress of combat, Tietjens is in a bad way with PTSD. He suffers
from anxiety and obsessive guilt that he was responsible for a terrible wound
sustained by his subaltern. Tietjens’ harpy of a wife Sylvia has sold all his
furniture and he returns from the war to an empty house.
However, now that the war has ended, with the old world
of Victorianism and feudal traditions tossed in the trash heap by independent-minded
people, Tietjens has the desperate strength to escape the relentless malice and
cruelty of his hateful wife and is ready to confess his love for Valentine. So
far he had refused to do this for the conventional reason that a gentleman
doesn’t divorce his wife. The theme Ford examines is that after the First World
War, nothing is going to be same. Men will return from the war in pain:
Hitherto, [Valentine] had
thought of the War as physical suffering only: now she saw it only as mental
torture. Immense miles and miles of anguish in darkened minds. That remained.
Men might stand up on hill, but the mental torture could not be expelled.
From the nightmare of war and the chaos of a disoriented
present, the lovers have the chance of a new beginning in a cottage with Tietjens
selling old furniture to rich snooty Americans eager to snap up bargains. Tietjens
and Valentine’s goal is to lead a life
together, where they no longer have to duck social censure, and to do what they
respect each other for: to stand up a.k.a. be wise, brave, fair, and disciplined
to do work that they think is important.
The cruelty of Sylvia and all power holders breaks the
heart of the reader. Ford's ability to recognize and describe the effects of
historical events on the souls of sensitive wise people makes him a great writer.
It’s a good novel, if the reader is tough enough to manage heartbreak and
roiling blood pressure and attentive enough to follow involved modernist "impressionistic realism."
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