The last of the main characters is the young suffragette, Valentine Wallop. Adelaide Clemens stole the show with her sparkling portrayal of this character. She made the viewer feel her yearning for Tietjens. While the naivety of her character could have dominated the role, Clemens balanced it beautifully between youth and womanhood. I truly loved the way this character came off. First let me say that this has been my favorite adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s tetralogy. It was lush, eloquent, and artfully told—and I am eager to watch it again. However, the four novels that make up the tetralogy were not equally incorporated within the miniseries. I know that a tetralogy of this length, 900 plus pages, would have been nearly impossible to fit within the timeframe given, but I wished that they would have given a bit more time to the ending.
The Book:
Although Ford Madox Ford was a member of the ‘Lost Generation’—a generation that came of age during World War I, whose members included distinguished artists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and T. S. Eliot among a few—Ford’s distinctive writing style stood apart.
Yet in Parade’s End, there are similarities to two talented author’s he called friends.
The opulent lifestyle, the unacknowledged affairs, the love-triangle, and the ennui that comes along with the realization that money buys a lot of things but not happiness or love echoes the classic style of Fitzgerald. While the turmoil, politics, debris, and grit of war and it’s linger aftermath are in the style of Hemingway.
Literary critics say that in some ways Ford Madox Ford was the master of this generation. He took the elements of the WWI era and combined them in Parade’s End. Not only did he offer the love stories and angst of a Fitzgerald novel he pulled in the startling reality of a nation at war and the emotional impact it has on the soldiers that Hemingway captured.
I have never been overly fond of Fitzgerald’s writing, the man was highly talented and had a gift for words, but he was too focused on the romance—not that it was a bad thing but when reading about this era, I want more. Hemingway’s writing is more for me, but reading too much of Hemingway’s doom and gloom is not always a good thing.
This is where Ford Madox Ford comes in. He was more inclusive of all the elements of this era. For me, his writing showcases the good, the bad, the war, and the romance of the era. Fans of both Hemingway and Fitzgerald will find a nice balance in Parade’s End along with Ford’s fresh perspective.