pumpkinstrokemarrow

I do not greatly care for the few paintings of the painting Mr. Ford (aka Ford Madox Brown) that I know, finding his 'Pretty Baa-Lambs' particularly odd, at least in reproduction which is the only way that I have seen it. But I do know the name so the adaptation of a book - Parade's End - by his grandson (aka Ford Madox Ford) for the telly did catch my eye.

Unfortunately, as a serious follower of the Brett version of Holmes on ITV3, I had not cared for the BBC version at all, taking, for some reason I can't put my finger on, a dislike to the lead, Benedict Cumberbatch. No reflection on the chap's ability, it is just that he was not tellyvisual for me. And this dislike tainted my view of Parade's End, where I did not get beyond minute seven of episode one. On the other hand, I was moved to look Ford up in Wikipedia and then Gutenburg. Parade was missing from this last, presumably not out of copyright, but The Good Soldier was present and has now been read.

I found it a rather odd book and I am not sure that I want to read another. Partly because the four main characters are such oddities, all people born with many advantages but who manage to make a terrible mess of things. Partly because the novel is not sequential, darting backwards and forwards in time, a technique which I have never cared for. I like my stories to go forward, at least most of the time, the Odyssey notwithstanding. I suppose that the novel is part of the turn of the century shift in interest from the outside to the inside of events. Not quite from the conscious to the unconscious, but perhaps along those lines. But I prefer Lawrence.

Me notwithstanding, Ford did well, despite having to change out of his German sounding name - Hueffer - in the margins of the First World War, to the extent of collaborating with Conrad on three novels, and Conrad is a writer with whom I do get on.

PS: as a former acquaintance of process and method in the IT industry, I was interested yesterday to come across an example of same in the health industry. We commented as a nurse was filling out some form about some procedure, a procedure which in our old mental hospitals one would have just got on with and done, and she returned as quick as a flash that if you didn't write it down you hadn't done it. Documenting what was done was an important part of the deed itself. I was reminded of testing IT systems, another place where this maxim runs. Essential to the maintenance of good order and discipline as time, circumstances and people move on.