Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ford is a puzzle for me; he has such a sublime sentence gift, and he maintains it at such a level. The series of books here is masterful in so many ways and puzzling in others. Never try to read it in a hurry and never try to hurry it. The leisure with which he forms this vision of the era of the Great War can be maddening, though in my case I gave way to it and learned to love the grace and fullness. Ford draws out the fullness of every moment, and there are many passages that I remember with a rare clarity, even though it has been a few years since I read the books. There is the long passage in the trenches and in the hotel in the middle novel, Christopher and Sylvia; there is Christopher’s brother in the third novel, having stopped speaking, lying abed under a tent outdoors; there are the parties in the first novel; there are more, too many to name really, so that the reading, in hindsight, proves its worth. If one can deal with the pace of the narrative, its intricate trodding through each moment, this is a wonderful experience. Masterful in many ways. But it has such a gut-deep flaw running all through it, the character of Sylvia, the utter venom with which she is written. There is so little balance to that portrait, even when Ford attempts sympathy for her. It’s not that she’s uncomplicated or a type; she is a character who is hated very deeply by her author. At least that what was what I thought. Spoiled the book for me, though I finished it, and still appreciated the artistry. This was the first time a book struck me in this way, though it’s happened much more often as I age.