Book review: Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford

I know it's not really the done thing, first watching (and reviewing) the tv-adaptation and thén reading the novel which was source material. But, with Parade's End, it was this year's adaptation which pointed me to the existence of this classic novel.

Or actually set of novels, because Parade's End is a combination of four novels originally published seperately: Some do not... (1924), No more parades (1925), A man could stand up (1926) and Last Post (1928). The main character of these novels is Christopher Tietjens, a man born in the wrong century. As a younger son from Yorkshire landed gentry, he holds fast to 18th century morals, while the world around him is changing at lightning speed. He gets tricked into marrying the stunning, but mean socialite Sylvia Satterswaithe, who's unborn child might or might not be his. Through friends, Christopher meets and falls for the young suffragette Valentine Wannop. In the mean time, war is looming on the horizon.

( The war had made a man of him! It had coarsened him and hardened him. There was no other way to look at it. It had made him reach a point at which he would no longer stand unbearable things. )