Galsworthian wittering
I cracked 100,000 words in the Soames/Irene fic this evening. This is the most I've written in a single plotted thing ever. I keep saying that. I keep being surprised by it. I should stop being surprised.
It's not my first life fandom (that would be original Trek) but it is my first life ship, in that I first watched the series around age 12 in one of its perpetual re-airings on UHF public TV in Boston in the 70s, and then read the novels, and then watched it again, and then forgot it until Eric Porter popped up in the Granada Holmes adaptation as Moriarty and I said oh yes, I remember this actor, and then I watched it again.
There was something about the intensity of Porter's Soames, and how clearly he was weeping when nobody was watching, and angry when anybody was, that got me. And then of course, the transformation on his face when he first sees his infant child. I had no idea at the time of Porter's reputation as an actor. Anyway, whether Soames deserves it or not, Soames/Irene is the original ship of my heart. I wanted to write fic for them at some point in my life. I guess I am getting it written before old age gets me as it eventually will. (Yes, it will get you too, younger friendos. It'll creep up on you by surprise. I swear to god, last time I looked I was 30.)
Irene is such a problem as a character in Galsworthy. He spends no time in her point of view, on purpose. If you've read a biography of him (as I have) you learn that this is because he can't examine his own wife's motives. His wife is the model for Irene: she was his cousin's wife first. He had an affair with her that he kept hidden until his father died, so that he, uh, wouldn't be disowned. After his father's death, he wrote The Man of Property (1905), and generally crusaded against restrictive divorce laws. He tells his own story at least 3 times in the Forsyte Saga, each time somewhat sanitized: as Young Jolyon and Helene, as Irene and Bosinney, and as Young Jolyon and Irene.
I personally think the weirdest version is the Bosinney/Irene version, where Bosinney commits suicide in the fog after learning of the marital rape. It's such a fragile male ego thing. The fellow does this and abandons that poor woman because his ego can't take it. Good Lord. This theme pops up a couple of times: Galsworthy gives a similar experience to George Forsyte, who has the fun of learning that the woman he was just with is also sleeping with her husband. George has a bit of a pathetic fallacy experience where it thunderstorms on him while he writhes around in the grass and he gets soaked through and forsakes women forever.
The most self-excusing version is the Jolyon/Irene version, where they're practically forced into it by Soames's suit for divorce. In real life, John Galsworthy and Ada Galsworthy had been having a clandestine affair for years before his father died and they made it public to force the divorce to happen.
The novels avoid Irene's point of view, because if they do, they make Galsworthy confront his own affair.
If we ever enter into Irene's point of view, we have to deal with the problem that To Let has to deal with: why did Irene enter into a marriage without love, with a man who was deeply in love with her? The novels give us merely "she was unhappy at home". This is not enough to make us sympathetic. Irene is very afraid in To Let that Jon will judge her for this. From this fear comes tragedy; not telling Jon is a mistake. (Soames's reluctance to tell Fleur makes more sense: It makes him absolutely miserable to even think about it.)
The BBC does better: they give Irene a creepy stepfather. This is a threat worth taking a risk to escape. I think adaptations live or die based on how well they do with this question. We need a period-realistic reason why Irene would marry Soames that is not frivolous.
The problem any adaptation has to surmount is that the last four novels spend most of their time in Soames's point of view, and by the end Soames has become a character Galsworthy is in sympathy with, and his last act is redemptive. You can't hate Soames. You have lived in his head. You know how much he loved Irene and how he struggled to understand. You know how much he loved Fleur. You know how much he wanted to be loved by anybody in his life. You know him.
You can't hate Irene, either. You can be frustrated by her, and you can wonder why she does not act, why she doesn't sell her jewels and run away with Bosinney decisively. It's completely baffling. So you have to vary from the source text to make a modern audience feel in sympathy with her.
Also: Irene is completely off-stage in the last three novels, save in the interlude "Passers-by". I think the BBC adaptation does well to bring her back into the story in their concluding episodes: the energy of the story is the Soames/Irene relationship. Its first shot is the James family in their barouche; its last shot is Soames on his deathbed with his hand in Fleur's; the story is Soames's. His story is driven by Irene. Get her back on screen or else.
IMO, at least. Uh. Where was I? My opinions.
Anyway, this is my fix-it fic. I think Soames learns something over his life, and if given a second chance, would behave differently. I don't think it'll be smooth sailing, though.
