From 'The Good Soldier'
“The Good Soldier” by Ford Madox Ford was my second favorite novel of the semester, only narrowly beat out by “Brighton Rock.” One of the things that made it such an outstanding book and a writing inspiration was the characters. I was turned off by some of the characters; I hated and loved some of the characters simultaneously; I loved some of the worst behaving characters, while hating some of the best behaving characters; and most importantly I felt for the characters. With reading such short novels, I actually expect less development than when I am reading long epics or series, but all of the characters were written with such depth. The plot wasn’t much of anything, which happens to be the case for a lot of the best books in my opinion, (i.e. Catcher in the Rye) but the characters move the book forward in a more interesting than plot could. His character development was exceedingly inspiring. Leonora has been one of my favorite characters this entire year. She’s vengeful and frail and loving and sad and hopeful and mean and resentful and exciting and in the end, happy. His characters’ personalities aren’t just listed as I have just done though; a lot of what you know about the different characters is implied through their history, their religion, their behavior, and a number of other tools. The implied characterization gives the characters a greater allusion of authenticity. It gives the characters more life. I’ve read a lot of characters that just stick on the page like the 2-dimensional words they are, but Ford, in “The Good Soldier,” gives makes his characters 3-D, by giving them so many contrasting emotions. People are moody, everyone is, and he gives that to these characters. I absolutely hope to take away some of his elements of characterization, and I hope I create a character, one day, that people like as much as I like Leonora.
“We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.”
--Ford Madox Ford, 'The Good Soldier'
“We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.”
--Ford Madox Ford, 'The Good Soldier'
Picture at top from: http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/image/detail/Good-Soldier.jpg