The Good Soldier
- 198
- Pages
- about 3.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Good Soldier” is a short, superbly controlled tragedy of marriage and betrayal, told by a narrator who cannot be trusted. Ford Madox Ford tells it in non-chronological flashbacks set just before the First World War, and the truth surfaces only gradually. Some readers praise its economy; some admire the poetic prose yet get lost in its meandering, and others recoil from the prejudices about gender, religion and race they find in it.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 novel by the British writer Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I, and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham and his seemingly perfect marriage, along with that of his two American friends. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique that formed part of Ford's pioneering view of literary impressionism. Ford employs the device of the unreliable narrator to great effect, as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads the reader to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life, specifically "the agonies Ford went through with his wife and his mistress in the six preceding years."
Where the score comes from
The sources average 6.9 across 55 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 27% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Classics average of 7.7. That is how 7.5 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.5 | 8 | 14% |
| Hardcover | 6.7 | 47 | 86% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Good Soldier?
It has 198 pages — shorter than 79% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Classics — and a score of 7.5, the closest to this book.
