I was surprised that I liked this book so much. It was hilarious to me that this is such an old book and on the Modern Library's Top 100 Best Novels but it's subject matter was sort of taboo-- adultery. The narrator's wife had the ultimate "headache" excuse: a made up heart condition so she could not be excited in any way and left alone, especially at night. And everyone is cheating on everyone and the only one is unaware is the narrator. The narrator did a great job at making the whole situation sound ridiculous and funny. A great read and a classic.

This was another book ruined for me by being required reading in school. In what universe can a 15 or 16 year old appreciate ...the complex social and sexual relationships between two couples... much less one set in Edwardian times? It was a complete waste of time for all involved. High school English teachers, please take note. If you even think about assigning this book to your students, you're in the wrong business.

I had another go at it as an adult. Yuck. Boring. Still a waste of time, IMO. It's just a soap opera with a couple of stupid deaths caused by infidelity without a likeable character.

Ιδιαίτερο βιβλίο! Δίσταζα να το διαβάσω αλλά πείστηκα τελικά από τα σχόλια ανθρώπων που εκτιμώ εδώ στο goodreads.
Ο Τζον Ντόουελ είναι ο αφηγητής και είναι πραγματικά εξαιρετικός. Είναι ειλικρινής γι’ αυτό και σκληρός κάποιες φορές. Ακανόνιστη αφήγηση με μπρος και πίσω στον χρόνο που όμως κυλάει τόσο ωραία και κάνει τον αναγνώστη να αγωνιά αν και γνωρίζει την τύχη των πρωταγωνιστών.
Ένα ψυχογράφημα που ουσιαστικά δεν μιλά για καλούς και κακούς ανθρώπους, αλλά για ζωντανούς ανθρώπους. Άντρες και γυναίκες με πάθη, ελαττώματα και ενοχές.
Ποιος είναι τελικά ο αδικημένος; Ποιος ο καλός και ποιος ο κακός; Δεν υπάρχει απάντηση κι αυτό ήταν που μου άρεσε περισσότερο στον Καλό στρατιώτη. Δεν παίρνεις το μέρος κανενός συγκεκριμένα. Απλά παρατηρείς, συμπάσχεις.
Το απόλαυσα!
«... ακόμα και οι πιο λυπημένες ιστορίες έχουν πολλές νότες χαράς»

Yes definitely one to read again.

I liked it. Mostly. To be precise, up to two-thirds; after that, the subject matter, the narrator (for it is largely a retrospective, first-person narrative by a middle-aged white male), and the style (increasingly exalted - think schoolgirls, not nobility) began to tire me. I think it was partly because I started to dislike the narrator and his manner of self-presentation; what made the first two-thirds of the book enjoyable for me was waiting for some sign that he is, in fact, unreliable - it was hard for me to accept his cluelessness, which he, in turn, explains by his religion - he repeatedly identifies himself as a "Philadelphia Quaker." Ford's novel represents Catholics as curious, cruel beings; I even checked what his faith was - he was a Catholic convert, and probably The Good Soldier is a fruit of some long discussion on human nature, fidelity and religion he had with himself. Very observant.

An unusual book, with passages of breathtaking prose. Very much of its time in terms of content but well ahead of it stylistically. I’m a sucker for unreliable, prissy, self-deceiving narrators and in this respect could see parallels with some of my favourite authors (Vladimir Nabokov, Kazuo Ishiguro, John Banville; the latter two presumably read and were perhaps influenced by this book). At the same time, I didn’t really believe in or have a great deal of sympathy with any of the central characters, which meant I tired of their antics after a certain point and was ultimately relieved to leave them to it.

Um livro pra se ler devagar, com cuidado... Contado por John Dowell ,relata  as infidelidades em série  de sua esposa Florence e de um casal ,Leonora e Edward Ashburnham , de quem ele é sua esposa tornam-se amigos íntimos. O livro se desenvolve a conta gotas com o narrador ,John Dowell , buscando arrancar qualquer coisa que possa dar lhe pista do que realmente aconteceu.Uma narrativa onde impera a traição, não poderia deixar de ter suas consequências : 2 suicídios é um personagem louco..

Um livro difícil de se ler pois a história tem vários vai -e-vens no tempo e se não prestarmos atenção nos perdemos na narrativa . É também um livro muito difícil de se resenhar pois o narrador não sei se é confiável  , para  mim, Ele é apenas um fingidor que faz vistas grossas a tudo. Adorado por uns (eu) e  tido por outros como apenas um livro regular,  foi considerado um dos melhores 100 livros já escritos.

The Unreliable Narrator

Last week* I reviewed Through the Window, a book of essays by Julian Barnes, including three on the Edwardian novelist Ford Madox Ford, an author I hadn't read and wasn't sure I wanted to. But Barnes' words on his most famous novel hooked me, so here I am:

Looked at now, the novel barges its way into the modernist club for very different reasons: its immaculate use of a ditheringly unreliable narrator, its sophisticated disguise of true narrative behind a false facade of apparent narrative, its self-reflectingness, its deep duality about human motive, intention, and experience, and its sheer boldness as a project.

Indeed. In this quite slim novel about two couples who spend their summers together at a German spa, nothing is quite as it seems, as the characters and their feelings are shuffled and redealt again and again. The normal processes of linear narrative and gradual revelation go out the window; this is a book where you know everything, but understand delightfully little.

n  This is the saddest story I have ever heard.n The famous opening line introduces what appears to be a typical Jamesian narrator, a wealthy American Anglophile who will spin us a tale from his leather armchair. But that "heard" is deceptive; so far from being disinterested, Dowell, the narrator and husband in one of the couples, is involved every inch of the way. But as he goes back over events again and again, seeking ways of reconciling facts with his own ignorance, contradicting himself not only between one section and another but often within a single sentence, he weaves a web of obfuscation and desire that has soon ensnared even him.

Move on to the second sentence: n  We had known the Ashburnhams for nine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an extreme intimacy—or, rather with an acquaintanceship as loose and easy and yet as close as a good glove's with your hand.n The simile is doubly striking: first, because it implies a world where gentlemen have their gloves hand-sewn to order; and second, because it introduces a sexual metaphor at odds with the propriety of Dowell's diction, but that will turn out to be entirely relevant. For within a few pages we learn what another novelist might keep to the end, that Captain Ashburnham, the Good Soldier and epitome of the English gentleman, has in fact been the lover of Dowell's invalid wife for the better part of nine years.

n  I have, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so that it may be difficult for anyone to find their way through what may be a sort of maze. I cannot help it.n Oh no? It slowly becomes clear that Dowell, the bumblingly inept storyteller, is quite conscious of what he is doing. Describing a sad farewell at a rural railway station, he throws in this casual line: n  The signal for the train's departure was a very bright red; that is about as passionate a statement as I can get into that scene.n By giving away events long before they happen, he gives himself the right to come back to them again and again, adding detail, expanding the back-story, questioning motivation, showing things in an entirely different moral light. We soon get the idea of Ashburnham's philandering and his wife's forbearance; Florence Dowell's duplicity takes a little longer to emerge; but even so, we continue to reevaluate them as questions of religion and pedigree come into play. But Dowell keeps himself in the shadows. What sort of a husband is he? What keeps him looking up to Ashburnham no matter what he does? Is everything he says even true? This awkwardly proper, but quite unreliable, narrator is as fascinating as they come.

*January 2013, on Amazon; review transferred to Goodreads.

Hol volt eddig ez a kis remekmű? És miért nem olvastam én eddig Fordtól úgy egyáltalán? Nagy mulasztás, higgyétek el nekem.
Adva van egy, a békebeli századelő langyos unalmában játszódó történet, amely szinte észrevétlenül valami bravúros kor- és kórképpé kerekedik ki, miközben látszólag semmi egyébről nem szól, mint egy négyesfogat lassan felgöngyölített múltjáról.
Adva van tehát két pár – az előkelő angol Ashburnhamék (micsoda név!), Edward és Leonora, illetve az amerikai Dowellék (no ez is, egyszerű, mint a faék, ugyebár), John és Florence. Egy harmonikus menüettet járó négyes (a négyes szám szinte sorsszerű meghatározottságában, ha a regényen végigvonuló számos utalást nézzük), egy a maradandóság és biztonság képzetét keltő egység, amely kísértetiesen emlékeztet bizonyos _vonzásokra és választásokra_. Talán nem véletlen, hogy a cselekmény eléggé tetemes része német földön, Bad Nauheimban játszódik, ahol főszereplőink kilenc fürdőszezont töltenek el együtt, miközben a „szívesek” bajaikat kúrálják. Merthogy tele a regény szívesekkel és szívtelenekkel, valódiakkal és álcázottakkal, innen a csendes víztükör alatt alattomosan megbújó, fenyegető zűrzavar és veszélyes kavargás-örvénylés.

A regény első személyű elbeszélője nem más, mint az amerikai páros férfi tagja, a naiv, jámbor kvéker, egy érzelmekre immunisnak tűnő alak, ugyancsak érdekes választás a szerző részéről, hiszen személyében a lehető legmegbízhatatlanabb narrátort kapja az olvasó. Azt, aki a történések idején sem volt képben a dolgokkal, aki soha nem látta és vette észre a nyilvánvalót, akit mindig mások világosítottak fel, és aki most, az elbeszélés és emlékezés ideje alatt is tétován illesztgeti egymásba a kirakós darabkáit, mintha nem is igazán akarná látni a kép egészét. Ez a nézőpont és elbeszélői pozíció viszont remek alkalom a narrátornak, hogy eljátsszon az emlékezés működésének érdekes kacsakringóival, hogy szarkasztikus-cinikus módon, jó adag iróniával fűszerezve leplezze le nemcsak a megidézett világot, hanem a narrátor hiszékenységét, gyávaságát, vagy épp ezek manipulatív módon való eljátszását is. Mert az olvasó nem igazán lehet bizonyos abban, hogy Dowell tényleg annyira tudatlan és ártatlan-e, mint amennyire látszik. Elbeszélése csupa élőbeszédszerű locsogás-fecsegés, csapongás erre meg amarra, ugrándozás az időben, kitérőkkel, asszociációkkal és egyéb figyelemelterelő manőverekkel megspékelve, mintha elbeszélőnk leplezni-tagadni akarná, ami nyilvánvaló.
Szóval ennek az amerikai úriembernek a nézőpontjából ásunk bele lassan a múltba, vele együtt próbáljuk megfejteni annak titkait (amelyek már, valljuk be, nem is annyira titkok). Narrátorunk a lagymatag nyomozás és a vissza-visszarettenés közepette látszólag rádöbben erre-arra, de mintha igazán megdöbbenni sem nagyon tudna. Közben állítólag meg akarja érteni a történteket, és elmesélni azt a következő nemzedékek okulására (meg azért, hogy végre felejthessen).
És tényleg okulásra szolgál, nemcsak a történet, de annak értelmezési kísérlete is, az, ahogy a múltat feldolgozzuk, ahogy emlékezünk rá, meg ahogy hebegünk-habogunk róla.

Ford igazi szatírát kanyarít ebből az első pillantásra finom, visszafogott hangú szerelmi sztoriból. Mert ebben a túlzott halkszavúságban, ebben a dadogó, meg-megtorpanó tapintatoskodásban, az angol lélek kiismerhetetlenségén búsongó, de azt rajongásig csodáló elbeszélésben benne rejtőzik a kor minden visszássága. Határozottan, sőt sorsdöntően érzékeltetik jelenlétüket a társadalmi konvenciók, a katolikus erkölcs béklyói. Az angol úriemberség és előkelő életmód megannyi erénye mögött ott lapul az idejétmúltság, az értelmetlenség, a képmutatás, no meg a belefásultság, amely miatt szép csendben, különösebben látványos események (legalábbis ezek nyilvánosságra hozatala, beismerése) nélkül tönkremennek, kisiklanak az életek. A legnagyobb tragédia ebben az egészben az, hogy ebben a világban már nincsenek tragédiák, csak néha megmosolyognivaló, szomorú történetek, és nincsenek hősök sem, bár egyesek eljátsszák a Lohengrint, sőt vele együtt a Cidet is egy személyben. Pontosabban az elbeszélő az, aki így látja-láttatja őket. Amit nem akar látni-hallani, az a börtön, a gúzsbakötöttség, a hisztériás sikolyok, a hol megélt, hol megjátszott szenvedélyek, a csalások és ámítások, az elfojtások, az őrületek és öngyilkosságok. Ilyesmire nincs szüksége a társadalomnak...

Amindenit! Ford 1915-ben írta meg ezt a regényt. És ilyen elbeszélővel! És így összekutyulva iróniát és szentimentalizmust, objektívet és szubjektívet. Így eljátsszva az olvasóval... (És 74 százalékot kap érte a Molyon? Hahhh...)

complex emotions in a tiny circle

This is an unusual novel in that it focusses tightly on the psychologies of two couples. One of the men is the American narrator, then there are his wife, Florence, and an English couple, Edward and Leonora Ashburnham. Edward is the eponymous "good soldier" and generous, public-minded citizen in the English countryside. The novel portrays the emotions and motivations that lie under the surface of "good people" (if we assume that such people exist), a fantastic, sweeping collage of contradictory, conflicting personality elements of love, hate, duty, greed, justice, naiveté, pride, reserve, propriety and more. Maybe you'll say that you can find these in any soap opera. But Ford's is not just any soap opera. He skillfully unwinds the tangled web of relationships as it inexorably grinds on in England and at various places on the continent. Though some minor description of places appears, the author insists on analyzing adultery and the general intricate patterns that lead to hatred between husband and wife and to unfaithfulness. He tries to trace the trails that lead each character to his/her ultimate fate. Florence becomes Edward's lover, one of a long chain, but the narrator (her husband) remains unaware of this till close to the end. He is an exceedingly dim chap in any case, waiting on his wife hand and foot because of a "heart condition" which has never existed in fact. Leonora, much more the "eyes wide open" sort, knows about her husband's activities, but wishes that he would grow close to her anyway. A fifth character makes an appearance, but it is not fortuitous. Two people wind up dead (you learn this in the first few pages).

Ford did work in America for some years, but his understanding of English character is much better than of American ones. His choice of an upper class American for the narrator may have been to write as an outsider looking in, but this top-drawer Philadelphian does not always ring true. Pre-WW I England is surely a foreign culture, and very exotic, for non-Anglo-Saxon, 21st century Americans: we just happen to share a language (more or less). Pride and reserve are not often stressed as values anymore, at least on this side of the Atlantic. While the focus on personality and psychology means that there is not much action as such, this novel must be one of the great studies of adultery, of looking behind the scenes of marriage, which so often, in life as in literature, turns out to be a tragedy. Above all, Ford successfully attempts to show the complexity of the simplest actions and their consequences, the craziness and despair that may lie behind seemingly 'ideal marriages'.

This apparently is one of the all time greats, and I’m gonna have to read it again to extract all the goodness from it. The writing is great, and all the themes I love are present—betrayal, love, society, wounds which will not heal—but the flashback scenes and unreliable narrator mean it is not a straightforward read, and it is all the better for it.

A serial cheater and his catholic wife who doesn't believe in divorce, an oblivious husband and his sickly wife who will bed anyone except him. When these four are put together a situation is bound to arise. In those times, duty reigned above logic and personal fulfilment, confrontations were unsavoury, so the handling of the affair was destined to end in disaster.