Episode 71: Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier

We staked out opposite corners of the ring for this one: Adam holding firm to the notion that the narrator is the world's most gullible dolt; Jesse convinced that the narrator is a psycho killer whose reality grows more unstable with every just-remembered detail. Who won? The truth is neither of us. In the end we were rope-a-doped into inarticulacy by Ford's bottomless backstory and untraceable character motivations. One tender mercy to cherish: we dispensed with basketball talk this week, since neither of us cares a whit about USA Basketball. Next time we jump ahead to the 1920s, with Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.

We staked out opposite corners of the ring for this one: Adam holding firm to the notion that the narrator is the world's most gullible dolt; Jesse convinced that the narrator is a psycho killer whose reality grows more unstable with every just-remembered detail. Who won? The truth is neither of us. In the end we were rope-a-doped into inarticulacy by Ford's bottomless backstory and untraceable character motivations. One tender mercy to cherish: we dispensed with basketball talk this week, since neither of us cares a whit about USA Basketball. Next time we jump ahead to the 1920s, with Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.