The story that skewered the British class system |
'Imperialistic urges and sexual politics': The story that skewered the British class system
The Forsyte Saga novels were "the lens through which we observe the state of the nation". As a new adaptation is about to stream in the US, how did this tale – of an upper-middle-class family in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era – encapsulate the timeless themes of power, generational tension and "new money"?
It has been lavishly adapted three times for TV, and there are several film and radio versions – including a 1949 Hollywood version with Errol Flynn. A recent five-hour stage production was a huge critical hit. The Forsyte Saga may have been around for more than a century but John Galsworthy's study of British class, family dynamics, social status and "new money" still has the power to resonate with, and sometimes shock, audiences and readers. Now a new TV adaptation is about to stream on PBS Masterpiece.
"The Forsyte family is the lens through which we observe the state of the nation," playwright and screenwriter Lin Coghlan tells the BBC. "It was a moment in history where imperialism and profit built families and institutions – but at an extraordinary cost. A theme which never becomes irrelevant."
The Forsyte Saga comprises three novels and two short stories, and is the first section of the larger trilogy The Forsyte Chronicles. Coghlan adapted – with Shaun McKenna – Galsworthy's novels for BBC Radio 4, and subsequently their two-play adaptation transferred to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). She says: "Although the early books in the series open at the close of the 19th Century, the family that Galsworthy creates feels like a family we can recognise, whatever the era we live in. The family members are competing in terms of success, and also in the battle for recognition. These are largely men. The women are grappling with different challenges."
Galsworthy's writing career spanned the first three decades of the 20th Century and in 1932, he won the most prestigious literary award of all, the Nobel Prize "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga", said the judges.
Gill Durey, honorary associate professor at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia and the author of a book about Galsworthy, says he was a worthy recipient of the prize. "He is a realist writer, writing about issues considered modern in his era," she says. "The novels are very readable, the characters well drawn and distinctive. The focus is on relationships and the difficulties encountered in life. The main characters are the wealthy Forsytes, but ordinary people's struggles feature, too."
Durey points out that writers from a different literary tradition didn't rate Galsworthy and were critical of his work. "The Modernists – Virginia Woolf, Rebecca West, DH Lawrence, James Joyce – were furious about Galsworthy's Nobel Prize and tried to denigrate him," she says. Yet The Forsyte Saga has nevertheless proved to be an exceptionally enduring tale, that is still pertinent today.
The British Gilded Age
The first Forsyte novel, published in 1906, is called The Man of Property. This is about Soames........