Books like A Modern Comedy

Back when I was a kid I read THE FORSYTE SAGA and then, in due course, A MODERN COMEDY. The first trilogy is all about Soames and Irene, whereas the second trilogy deals with Soames' daughter Fleur and her husband, Michael Mont. Many readers have rated the second trilogy as inferior to the first, but in my opinion A MODERN COMEDY holds up quite well to critical scrutiny. It is very different, of course, in focus and intent. THE FORSYTE SAGA shows the transition, in manners and morals, from late Victorian to post-Great War England. A MODERN COMEDY, on the other hand, is a brilliant satire of London society in the turbulent 1920's. Michael Mont, idealist and do-gooder, is shown in striking contrast to the spoiled, self-centered Fleur; while Fleur's father, Soames Forsyte, represents all the caution, self-restraint and repression of the previous century. Volume 1, THE WHITE MONKEY, introduces Fleur Mont as a bored, restless society girl. She is stuck in a rebound marriage and still dreams of her lost love, Jon Forsyte. She considers having a fling with poet Wilfrid Desert---her husband's best friend!---just to break the monotony. She decides not to, though---not from any moral scruples but because Wilfrid just doesn't appeal to her physically any more than poor Michael does. We are given to understand that Fleur is frigid in the bedroom. That, perhaps, explains why she's always so desperate to experience "new sensations." Many of Galsworthy's heroines are women like her, beautiful but neurotic and seeking orgasms that they've never had. Fleur's sexual frustration, in fact, becomes an underlying theme throughout the books. And the reader comes to sympathize more and more with Michael, her good-natured and long-suffering hubby. He loves Fleur blindly and foolishly, in the way that so many of Galsworthy's male characters love their women. Ultimately Fleur produces a son and heir---Christopher, nicknamed "Kit"---and for awhile, relations improve on the home front. In Volume 2, THE SILVER SPOON, Fleur pushes Michael into Parliament so as to jump-start her own career as Society hostess. As for Michael, he proves to be a well-meaning but largely ineffectual back bencher. He tries to promote "Foggartism," an airy Utopian theory that won't fly but sinks like a lead balloon. And then one of Fleur's friends is overheard ridiculing her at a party of Fleur's. Soames, outraged, "shows the insolent baggage the door." The "baggage" is Marjorie Ferrar, granddaughter of a Marquess. Fleur predictably retaliates, writing libellous letters about Marjorie. And the result? A silly lawsuit, since neither of these prideful young women will apologize to the other. In one memorable scene Fleur looks out her window at two graceful cats---emblems of herself and Marjorie---who suddenly arch their backs, becoming all teeth and claws! Miaow!The case comes to trial. Fleur's attorney puts Marjorie on the stand and exposes her as a woman of "loose morals," which is exactly what Fleur claimed her to be. Marjorie, in turn, defends her own principles with admirable spirit. High drama in the courtroom! And while Fleur (technically) wins the case, it is but a Pyrrhic victory. Marjorie garners all the public sympathy and attention. Fleur, on the other hand, finds herself socially snubbed---oh, horrors!---in the aftermath. Soames then agrees to take his spoiled daughter off on a round-the-world cruise. Michael, left at home with Kit, soon realizes that his son ("the eleventh baronet") is fast turning into a little pampered brat...just like muvver. The globe-trotters wind up in Washington D.C., where Soames encounters the dead past. By a mischance he sees Irene, Jon and Jon's new wife checking into the same hotel as his own! Soames takes care to keep Fleur unaware, to prevent her from meeting her old love. But he himself creeps out of bed that night to observe Irene, himself unseen. His obsession with her is still alive just as (we know) Fleur is still obsessed with Irene's son. This scene foreshadows the final and very dramatic conclusion to Fleur's story that comes in Volume 3, SWAN SONG. SWAN SONG begins with the General Strike of 1926. Fleur runs a canteen for railway workers, demonstrating how efficient she can be when given something to do. One day she is shocked to see her cousin Jon among the workers there. Fleur's basic nature is to want what she doesn't already have. Though genuinely fond of Michael she has never stopped desiring Jon, "the one who got away." And besides, she has always been a frigid wife who would like to experience something better. Jon, it seems, is now happily married to a nice American girl but that doesn't deter Fleur. She begins to pursue him...stealthily and subtly at first, later more openly. Ultimately she seduces Jon on the grounds of his old home at Robin Hill, the home that Soames, years ago, had originally built for Irene and himself. Fleur makes all the moves, and when Jon finally kisses her back she whispers "I claim you!" She's Soames' daughter all right. The affair doesn't end happily. After the deed is done Jon runs away from Fleur, distraught and confused. He returns to his wife--his PREGNANT wife, as he now discovers she is---and confesses all. He promises never to see Fleur again. Fleur, unused to rejection of this magnitude, becomes suicidal. She returns to Soames' home, which she accidentally sets on fire by smoking in her father's picture gallery. Soames, "the man of property," tries to save his masterpieces by throwing them out the window onto an outspread sheet held below. Later, down on the lawn he sees Fleur deliberately positioning herself in the path of a falling object: a heavily framed portrait that topples off the windowsill. (Ironically it is a copy of Goya's "La Vendimia," featuring a girl that Fleur resembles.) Soames saves his daughter whom he pushes out of harm's way, but is struck by the picture himself. He dies a few days later with a remorseful Fleur at his bedside. She promises to mend her ways, telling her father: "Yes, Daddy, I will be good." A MODERN COMEDY ends in a sad, surprising and yet appropriate way. Soames Forsyte's character has grown immeasurably since THE MAN OF PROPERTY. Through his adored daughter he has learned to transcend Self. And he gives up his life---the ultimate renunciation of property--- for the person he most loves. Fleur is undoubtedly changed forever by his sacrifice. And Michael Mont, the most decent character here, a truly good man, understands that her obsession with Jon is finally over, that "a swan has sung." We know, too, that Michael will stand by his wife in this, her darkest hour. As he puts it in the final chapter: "It's pretty hard sometimes to remember that it's all comedy; but one gets there, you know."