The Good Soldier

By: Ford Madox Ford

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Handsome, wealthy, and a veteran of service in India, Captain Edward Ashburnham appears to be the ideal "good soldier" and the embodiment of English upper-class virtues. But for his creator, Ford Madox Ford, he also represents the corruption at society's core. Beneath Ashburnham's charming, polished exterior lurks a soul well-versed in the arts of deception, hypocrisy, and betrayal. Throughout the nine years of his friendship with an equally privileged American, John Dowell, Ashburnham has been having an affair with Dowell's wife, Florence. Unlike Dowell, Ashburnham's own wife, Leonora, is well aware of it.

When The Good Soldier was first published in 1915, its pitiless portrait of an amoral society dedicated to its own pleasure and convinced of its own superiority outraged many readers. Stylistically daring, The Good Soldier is narrated, unreliably, by Dowell, through whom Ford provides a level of bitter irony. Dowell's disjointed, stumbling storytelling not only subverts linear temporality to satisfying effect, it also reflects his struggle to accept a world without honor, order, or permanence. Called the best French novel in the English language, The Good Soldier is both tragic and darkly comic, and it established Ford as an important contributor to the development of literary modernism.

Public Domain (P)2010 Tantor

Unexpected unconventional classic

Truly, as the narrator proclaimes, the saddest story. Duty takes a palpable hit and sentimentality becomes a laughing stock.

Well executed narration... but why a British one

The story is fascinating, if a bit repetitive.

The narrator was good but... for a book that repeatedly talks about Americans vs. Brits and where the narrator in the book is American, why did they pick a British voice?

THE GOOD SOLDIER

What did you love best about The Good Soldier?

I tried to read this book a few years ago and stopped halfway through. This Audible version was just the right vehicle to help me realize why this book and its author have such an enduring reputation. Phenomenal and unusual story; cannot imagine a better narrator for this particular version; he comes across as not exactly American & not exactly English, sort of a strange mixture, which is part of the point of the story.
A winning combination of reader and book. Highest recommendation!

One of the Best

Painful and without redemption, yet infused with sweetness and mercy and entirely and honestly human. Flawed and cruel characters held down fiercely by a rigid and stultifying society

The Good Soldier - Dishonest Narrator

The novel uses many interesting devices to the story. A great of time shifts and slow winding of facts through interior discussions and conversations. Some of the actions, that actions based on motives and desired outcomes. seem contrived but I needed to keep in mind that this was a different time and place. However, the one assumption I forgot in reading this novel: the narrator may be, or is dishonest. Excellent voice performance.