Parade’s End, Downton Abbey and Dumbasses: A Study in Fandom

Disclaimer: mean comments about Downton Abbey are only directed at fans that unfairly criticise Parade’s End. The rest of Downton fandom who allow people to have their own preferences are accorded this same right by the author of this post. The genesis of this post lies in a comment made by a certain individual on the…

Parade’s End Book 4 Review: The Last Post

The Last Post is Ford Madox Ford’s Titus Alone: the final book that most readers forget about and that most editors don’t want them to read anyway. It’s very different from its predecessors, and it’s also ‘disappointing’ (please note inverted commas) in that it risks spoiling everything the reader has been through with Christopher and…

Parade’s End Book 3 Review: A Man Could Stand Up –

A Man Could Stand Up – resembles a slight but moving intermezzo leading up to a grand conclusion. Ford Madox Ford thankfully relieves us of spending more time with the exhausting Sylvia Tietjens in constructing a book in three parts in which Christopher and Valentine gradually move so much closer together, intellectually and spiritually, that…

Parade’s End Book 1 Review: Some Do Not…

The best thing about pretty much anything set in the World War I period, be it books, movies or TV programs, is what you might call ‘the set’, or ‘the world’ the characters inhabit. Breakfast rooms and drawing rooms and dining rooms with shiny wooden paneling, fashionable wallpaper, chandeliers and gilt mirrors, Chippendale armchairs, fresh…