Re: Views of an Editor (Critical Analysis of Ford Madox Ford's Novel, The Good Soldier) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Ford Madox Ford's novel, The Good Soldier, has been called a masterpiece by many critics and given an assigned, though not the highest, place in literature's pantheon. Yet, except for its adherents (and they are fierce in their loyalty), it has not been taken to heart by a wide readership. The difficulty of form is not the reason for the critical resistance, for surely Joyce's Ulysses would fall into a stream of neglected masterpieces if difficulty were the primary factor in popular esteem. Some other thorn keeps Ford on a fence of profound acceptance of genius. Probably the factor has less to do with content or complexity of style and form than with an authorial point of view too painful to accept cheerfully. Hence the reaction to Ford as a cynic, as a man without proper attention to morality. Ford is simply embarrassing to accept (though not to acknowledge grudgingly)-his view of human behavior is too permissive in its window of insights. Ultimately the writers of the world accepted as touchstones of cultural identity convey a certain goodness of being beneath the base of human character; such goodness is mixed always with a presence of evil apparent but the struggle implies not merely the triumph of good but its unalloyed integrity. Ford questions such assumption in his presentation, at least in this, his greatest novel, not by denying good and evil but by equating them in a lens limited by habit and lack of knowledge as well as doubt of knowledge beyond one's habitual sphere. In a world now poised (in the United States at least) on a threshold of hope, in a faith that knowledge gained can lead to progress, and that the recapture of past optimism as a road to progress can be achieved, Ford's standing may be in even greater danger. Hence I believe there is a need to call attention again to his cautionary views, for they constitute as profound a view of human behavior as the more entrenched icons of world literature.