Ford Madox Ford's Novels: A Critical Study.

316 Pages·1962·16.101 MB·303\316

by  John A. Meixner

FORD MADOX FORD'S NOVELS
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FORD MADOX FORD'S NOVELS
A CRITICAL STUDY
ly ]ohn A. Mcixncr
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS • MINNEAPOLIS
© Copyright 1962 by the University of Minnesota
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed in the United States of America at the Lund Press, Minneapolis
Library of Congress Catalog Card Nttmber: 62-18851
PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN, INDIA, AND PAKISTAN BY THE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, LONDON, BOMBAY, AND KARACHI
AND IN CANADA BY THOMAS ALLEN, LTD., TORONTO
To the Hofflcrgs
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PREFACE
T
HE aims of this book are many. But on inspection they
simplify to three —the description of Ford's fictional world; the
analysis of his craft; and the evaluation of his accomplishment. Of
the first two, little need be said; the book itself will define them.
For the third, however, a few observations may have their value
at the outset, as guides to the critic's approach.
In reading and rereading these novels, the author of this study
has had experiences which have pleased him or not, and he has
tried to find out why —to understand in an objective spirit the
grounds for his response (including the bases of his preference),
and to articulate them as overtly and as lucidly as possible. He
has been interested in displaying the strengths of Ford's work and
in accenting its genuine importance in twentieth-century litera-
ture. But he has not been unaware, as the reader will discover, of
surprising limitations. In the past Ford has been harmed by neg-
lect; in recent years he would seem to have suffered no less from
excessive claims — claims which have been doubly damaging: in
provoking antagonism or indifference (and thus obscuring his
true achievements); and in not according his books that critical
respect upon which, with his high, rigorous conception of the
art of the novel, he himself would have insisted. A first-rate taste,
Ford knew precisely what he had, and had not, achieved in his
Vlll FORD MADOX FORD S NOVELS
fiction. It is by balance, in the end, therefore, that Ford will be
honored best.
But, of course, criticism that is thoroughly poised and detached
is — finally — not possible. However objective the spirit in which
the critic labors, the basis of his judgment must be subjective,
dependent on his individual knowledge, experience, and sensibil-
ity. It cannot, indeed, be otherwise. Nor, in the end, is it even
desirable. Without a point of view involved in the human condi-
tion, such writing must almost surely lack significance, color, and
shape. Criticism has always been a kind of dialogue, in essence if
not necessarily in form, between writer and reader. It is a con-
versation between minds of a different order which, if fruitful,
sheds light that may not earlier have existed — a greater clarity, a
quickened, more comprehending, even deepened, perception.
In this paradoxical faith, therefore — of the careful objectifica-
tion of his own subjectivity — the author of this book has pursued
his enterprise, with what creativity, penetration, and justice the
individual reader must determine.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
iii IN THE writing of any such book as this, one's debts over
a period of years steadily enlarge. And it is a pleasure, humanly
and professionally, to acknowledge them in this place. First
should come those whose influence was most central: Professor
I. J. Kapstein of Brown University, who helped determine its or-
ganization, made valuable critical and stylistic comments, and who
bracingly proclaimed that criticism itself should be a work of art;
Professor James Franklin Beard, my colleague at Clark Univer-
sity, a trenchant, forthright, valuable commentator; and Dr. Car-
rie Hoffberg (now in the Department of Psychology, University
of Michigan), who was extremely helpful as listener, encourager,
and perceptive critic, and who has since emerged as a poet of
remarkable power. In addition, the author is grateful to the
diverse comments — critical, factual, or stylistic —of the follow-
ing: Robie Macauley, editor of The Kenyan Review, in whose
pages an abridged version of the discussion on the Good Soldier
has already appeared, under the title, "The Saddest Story"; Pro-
fessor Richard M. Ludwig of Princeton University; Professors
Clyde K. Hyder, W. P. Albrecht, J. Neale Carman, and Rob-
ert G. Mahieu of the University of Kansas; Professor Samuel
Middlebrook, Assistant Dean of the College, College of the City
of Newr York; and, in particular, Professor Edward A. Bloom