Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…
The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy.
The Forsyte Saga
From the back cover: The Forsyte Saga is John Galsworthy’s monumental chronicle of the lives of the moneyed Forsytes, a family whose values are constantly at war with its passions. The story of Soames Forsyte’s marriage to the beautiful and rebellious Irene, and its effects upon the whole Forsyte clan, The Forsyte Saga is a brilliant social satire of the acquisitive sensibilities of a comfort-bound class in its final glory. Galsworthy spares none of his characters, revealing their weaknesses and shortcomings as clearly as he does the tenacity and perseverance that define the strongest members of the Forsyte family.
My edition contains all three novels: The Man of Property, In Chancery, and To Let as well as a few interludes including Indian Summer of a Forsyte and Awakening. It’s a monster of a book at 878 pages. It also has a rather large and complicated family tree at the beginning which is still dog-eared for easy reference.
Several years ago, at least 8, maybe 9, PBS aired The Forsyte Saga mini-series and a few of us decided that we should read along with the mini-series. I cheated and pretty much kept reading while everyone else waited for the series to air. I didn’t expect to get sucked in to the lives and loves of this family but something wouldn’t let me stop reading. I remember being thoroughly disappointed when I got to the last page. Even after the marathon that it had been, I wanted more. To this day, I still regard this book as one of my favorites. There was something just so lovely about the writing, the setting, and also very juicy since all the dirty laundry of this prestigious, well-known, rich family was being aired. Oh, the drama.
Just Book Reading 
This sounds wonderful! I’d heard about the mini-series, of course, and for whatever reason, didn’t watch it.
But I should definitely read this book. It sounds great.
Here’s mine, from the not-so-distant past:
http://snowimpressions.blogspot.com/2010/05/my-favorite-reads.html
The PBS series was good but the book was so much richer. I love all the little details.
The PBS series sounds familiar, but I haven’t seen it. I hadn’t realized it was a book. I love it when I get sucked into a book like that – especially one that is nice and long.
If I remember, the series was almost as long as the book!