"The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy

Way back in March, I decided to read -- or at least to START reading! -- "The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy, in advance of a new TV adaptation ("The Forsytes") that started showing that month on PBS. (It ran for six episodes, and has been renewed for a second season.)  One of my blog readers (you know who you are!) offered to join me in a "slow readalong," and we have had fun comparing notes as we both slowly made our way through the book (while juggling others at the same time)!  

"The Forsyte Saga" is a massive book, running more than 900 pages (!) in paperback. (I read an e-version.) It's actually a trilogy -- three volumes in one:  The Man of Property (1906), In Chancery (1920), and To Let (1921). (I should really count this as three books read instead of one, no??) Galsworthy was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga," and was only the second English author to receive the award since its inception in 1901.

The book tells the story of three generations of the Forsytes, a large, upper middle-class English family, starting in 1886 and ending in the early 1920s -- years of great social change and upheaval in Britain, including both the Boer War and First World War.  There's a broad cast of characters spotlighted at various points in the book, but the focus throughout is particularly on the very proper (and very pompous) "man of property," Soames Forsyte, his unhappy marriage to Irene Heron, and its reverberations throughout the family over the years.   

Galsworthy was a well-known social activist who advocated for the women's suffrage movement, prison reform and animal rights, and the book is surprisingly modern in its treatment of women, who (as the book reminds us at several points) were then considered the property of their husbands (!).  Divorce was extremely difficult to get and was considered highly scandalous -- thank goodness laws have evolved since then!  Interestingly from my perspective, it also includes several strong, independent childless female characters, including June, who runs an art gallery and nurtures young artists; and her younger half-sister Holly, who marries her cousin and decides not to have children as a result. 

The ebook edition I read had helpful clickable footnotes explaining the unfamiliar terms and historical references, as well as a family tree at the front, which helped a lot, especially at the beginning when I was trying to figure out all the relationships!  (Spoiler alert:  The tree does contain some spoilers re: various births, deaths and marriages.) 

Content warnings:  The book includes a traumatic episode of marital rape (not shown) and its aftermath. As well, a racial slur that is considered strictly verboten today is used in Book 3, Part One, Chapter V.   

It's a very long book, but overall, I enjoyed it tremendously -- and although the final few chapters were not quite what I expected, I thought it was a great way to wrap up the book.  And I'm very glad I at least got a start on reading it before I watched the TV show -- it helped a lot in figuring out who was who (even though -- as I mentioned in posts here and here -- the TV show is a highly soap-ified "reimagining" of the books that doesn't stick too strictly to the source material -- caveat emptor!) (I got a real kick out of reading the catty comments on this Reddit thread!  lol)   

A solid 4 stars. 

This was Book #27 read to date in 2026 (and Book #2 finished in September), bringing me to 68% of  my 2026 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 40 books. I am currently 1 book behind pace to meet my goal. You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2026 tagged as "2026 books."