Some Do Not … by Ford Madox Ford (story read aloud txt) 📕
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Some Do Not … opens at the cusp of World War I. Christopher Tietjens, a government statistician, and his friend Vincent Macmaster, an aspiring literary critic, are visiting the English countryside. Tietjens, preoccupied with his disastrous marriage, meets Valentine Wannop, a suffragette, during a round of golf. As their love story develops, the novel explores the horrors of the war without the narrative ever entering the battlefield.
The characters are complex and nuanced. Tietjens is an old-fashioned man even by the standards of his day; he’s concerned with honor and doing the right thing, but he lives in a society that only pays those values lip service. Yet he himself isn’t free of a thread of hypocrisy: he won’t leave his deeply unhappy marriage because that would be the wrong way to act, but the reader is left wondering if he tolerates his situation simply because he married up in class. He wants to do to the noble and right thing, but does that mean going to war?
The men and women around him each have their individual motivations, and they are often conniving and unlikable in their aspirations even as the propaganda of England at war paints the country as a moral and heroic one. The delicate interplay of each character’s subtleties paints a rich portrait of 1920s English society, as the romantic ideals of right and wrong clash with notions of ambition and practicality.
The prose is unapologetically modernist: unannounced time shifts combine with a stream-of-consciousness style that can often be dense. Yet Ford’s portrayal of shell shock, the politics of women in the 1920s, and the moral greyness of wartime is groundbreaking. The book, and its complete tetralogy—called Parade’s End—has garnered praise from critics and authors alike, with Anthony Burgess calling it “the finest novel about the First World War” and William Carlos Williams stating that the novels “constitute the English prose masterpiece of their time.”
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- Author: Ford Madox Ford
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His brother Mark was talking on. “I know all about women,” he had announced. Perhaps he did. He had lived with exemplary fidelity to a quite unpresentable woman, for a number of years. Perhaps the complete study of one woman gave you a map of all the rest!
Christopher said:
“Look here, Mark. You had better go through all my passbooks for the last ten years. Or ever since I had an account. This discussion is no good if you don’t believe what I say.”
Mark said:
“I don’t want to see your passbooks. I believe you.”
He added, a second later:
“Why the devil shouldn’t I believe you? It’s either believing you’re a gentleman or Ruggles a liar. It’s only common sense to believe Ruggles a liar, in that case. I didn’t before because I had no grounds to.” Christopher said:
“I doubt if liar is the right word. He picked up things that were said against me. No doubt he reported them faithfully enough. Things are said against me. I don’t know why.”
“Because,” Mark said with emphasis, “you treat these south country swine with the contempt that they deserve. They’re incapable of understanding the motives of a gentleman. If you live among dogs they’ll think you’ve the motives of a dog. What other motives can they give you?” He added: “I thought you’d been buried so long under their muck that you were as mucky as they!”
Tietjens looked at his brother with the respect one has to give to a man ignorant but shrewd. It was a discovery: that his brother was shrewd.
But, of course, he would be shrewd. He was the indispensable head of a great department. He had to have some qualities. … Not cultivated, not even instructed. A savage! But penetrating!
“We must move on,” he said, “or I shall have to take a cab.” Mark detached himself from his half buried cannon.
“What did you do with the other three thousand?” he asked. “Three thousand is a hell of a big sum to chuck away. For a younger son.”
“Except for some furniture I bought for my wife’s rooms,” Christopher said, “it went mostly in loans.”
“Loans!” Mark exclaimed. “To that fellow Macmaster?”
“Mostly to him,” Christopher answered. “But about seven hundred to Dicky Swipes, of Cullercoats.”
“Good God! Why to him?” Mark ejaculated.
“Oh, because he was Swipes, of Cullercoats,” Christopher said, “and asked for it. He’d have had more, only that was enough for him to drink himself to death on.”
Mark said:
“I suppose you don’t give money to every fellow that asks for it?”
Christopher said:
“I do. It’s a matter of principle.”
“It’s lucky,” Mark said, “that a lot of fellows don’t know that. You wouldn’t have much brass left for long.”
“I didn’t have it for long,” Christopher said.
“You know,” Mark said, “you couldn’t expect to do the princely patron on a youngest son’s portion. It’s a matter of taste. I never gave a ha’penny to a beggar myself. But a lot of the Tietjens were princely. One generation to addle brass: one to keep: one to spend. That’s all right. … I suppose Macmaster’s wife is your mistress? That’ll account for it not being the girl. They keep an armchair for you.”
Christopher said:
“No. I just backed Macmaster for the sake of backing him. Father lent him money to begin with.”
“So he did,” Mark exclaimed.
“His wife,” Christopher said, “was the widow of Breakfast Duchemin. You knew Breakfast Duchemin?”
“Oh, I knew Breakfast Duchemin,” Mark said. “I suppose Macmaster’s a pretty warm man now. Done himself proud with Duchemin’s money.”
“Pretty proud!” Christopher said. “They won’t be knowing me long now.”
“But damn it all!” Mark said. “You’ve Groby to all intents and purposes. I’m not going to marry and beget children to hinder you.”
Christopher said:
“Thanks. I don’t want it.”
“Got your knife into me?” Mark asked.
“Yes. I’ve got my knife into you,” Christopher answered. “Into the whole bloody lot of you, and Ruggles and Ffolliott and our father!”
Mark said: “Ah!”
“You don’t suppose I wouldn’t have?” Christopher asked.
“Oh, I don’t suppose you wouldn’t have,” Mark answered. “I thought you were a soft sort of bloke. I see you aren’t.”
“I’m as North Riding as yourself!” Christopher answered.
They were in the tide of Fleet Street, pushed apart by foot passengers and separated by traffic. With some of the imperiousness of the officer of those days Christopher barged across through motorbuses and paper lorries. With the imperiousness of the head of a department Mark said:
“Here, policeman, stop these damn things and let me get over.” But Christopher was over much the sooner and waited for his brother in the gateway of the Middle Temple. His mind was completely swallowed up in the endeavour to imagine the embraces of Valentine Wannop. He said to himself that he had burnt his boats.
Mark, coming alongside him, said:
“You’d better know what our father wanted.”
Christopher said:
“Be quick then. I must get on.” He had to rush through his War Office interview to get to Valentine Wannop. They would have only a few hours in which to recount the loves of two lifetimes. He saw her golden head and her enraptured face. He wondered how her face would look, enraptured. He had seen on it humour, dismay, tenderness, in the eyes—and fierce anger and contempt for his, Christopher’s, political opinions. His militarism!
Nevertheless they halted by the Temple fountain. That respect was due to their dead father. Mark had been explaining. Christopher had caught some of his words and divined the links. Mr. Tietjens had left no will, confident that his desires as to the disposal of his immense fortune would be carried out meticulously by his eldest son. He would have left a will, but there was the vague case of Christopher to be considered. Whilst Christopher had been a youngest son you arranged that he had a good lump sum and went, with it, to the devil
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