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Reading Group

Seminar: Nicholas Birns, Parade's End: Ford Madox Ford's Wartime Tetralogy (May 16 session)

- Fully Registered

Tuesday, May 16, 2017 - 11:00 AM | For Members Only | Whitridge Room | $60 for all four sessions (recommended); $15 per session | Advance registration required

2017 marks the hundredth anniversary of this country’s entrance into the First World War. Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End tetralogy stands as an unequaled portrayal of the convulsive effects of that war on modern civilization. When one of the war’s returning soldiers, Christopher Tietjens, an Edwardian gentleman once settled into the long golden afternoon of the British Empire, finds that its sun is beginning to set, his work and his love life change in dramatic and unexpected ways. The leafy world of the stately homes of England begin to rattle, shake and crumble, along with Tietjens’ own increasingly unraveling life. His terrifying calculating wife, his new love, the idealistic feminist Valentine Wannop, and classic cad Major Perowne each add rich dimensions to this exploration of the emerging modern times that will carry Tietjens along with them. Participants will also examine the way in which Tietjens’ tangled relationships speak to that era’s evolving manners and morals, and the way Ford’s own innovative style is itself inflected by the changes it depicts.

Copies of the books for discussion are available for registrants to purchase.

This seminar meets on four Tuesdays:

February 28
March 28
April 25
May 16

all at 11:00 AM in the Whitridge Room.

To register, click below and log in or contact the Events Office at 212.288.6900 x230 or events@nysoclib.org.