Just saw THE FORSYTE SAGA miniseries a few weeks ago.

[raccoon]

Question: Why did Fleur Forsyte marry Michael Mont?

She loved Jon, and due to family stuff he didn't want to marry her.

But she didn't have to marry anybody; her father was rich and indulgent. She could've gone to college, gone to visit her grandmother in Paris, taken a Grand Tour with Soames, etc. Soames told her she could back out at the 11th hour.

Any thoughts? Or did the book say why she went ahead and married him?

[cali]

1. the book does go into more detail

but I think it's clear that Fleur is not only a product of her age, but also is not the type of person to strike out on her own.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. Did you see the recent remake, or the old Black and White UK version?

We are on a Masterpiece Theater rampage on Netflix - watched all of Upstairs, Downstairs, House of Cards, the old Forsyte Saga...now working our way through Duchess of Duke Street. So much better than anything on TV these days!

If you aren't going back and watching the original Forsyte in black and white, do!

[sarge43]

4. Don't forget I, Claudius. n/t

[raccoon]

5. I saw the remake. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. I bought the original on VHS when BBC America was cleaning out

its stock of videotapes. $8.99 per SERIES. How could I resist?

I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, though.

[sarge43]

3. Well, in that time, place and society strata, she had to marry

someone. She was very much her father's child and a product of her class and family. Love can come and go; family, status, position and wealth are forever. Single women were fifth wheels; they contributed nothing to family status and advancement. We're talking here about a class which still fundamentally thought in feudal terms.

She wasn't interested at all in intellectual pursuits, so university - "meh". Grand Tours and swanning around Paris are lovely in the short term, but a lady had to think of her future.

Thanks to her parent's marriage, she had no illusions that True Love was a given in marriage. More important to her analysis, she knew once she had produced the heir and spare (daughter optional), as long as she was reasonably discreet, she would be free to live pretty much as she choose. Mont, being a product of that class, wouldn't mind as he would be hound dogging around, too.

Blood and bone, she was a Forsyte.

[ellenfl]

6. i guess i will have to break down and buy the dvd.

i saw parts of it and really want to see it from start to finish. btw, the actor who played soames is now on american tv ('life') . . . seems american television is hiring lots of foreigners for new shows. the centurion in 'rome' is now in 'grey's anatomy' (christina's new love interest). the lead in 'the mentalist' is australian. rufus sewel plays the lead in 'eleventh hour'. don't american actors want to do tv anymore . . . or are foreigners cheaper?

ellen fl

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Don't forget "Without a Trace"

Anthony LaPaglia is Australian, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste is British.

[monmouth]

7. I loved Soames in the first version, he was eeeeevil...LOL...n/t