Galsworthy does not cease to amaze. This work is perhaps more amazing in some ways, even when compared to his most famous Forsyte series.
Fraternity begins almost as an afterthought of a yawn, with a small gathering of various persona at an English uppercaste but not quite aristocrat family, two couples where two sisters are married to two brothers and the father of the sisters lives with one of the couples, while the other has a daughter almost engaged to a cousin on her mother's side who is serious about helping the poor. The father, Stone, is writing a book titled Universal Brotherhood of Man, and is dead serious about the whole thought of how humanity is a fraternity. And then the other half he has included not quite explicitly emerges to be a serious omission in terms of thought.
Stone is living with the daughter who is an artist and proud and sensitive - and has lost love of her life, her husband, by expecting much and not letting him know but wait, and baffle him. She is a painter and the young model she used lately needs help, employment, guidance, and more. So the young model is set up as a help for Stone's project to help him copy his fresh works everyday. She lives renting a room in proximity with the seamstress who is employed by the sisters, and the brutish husband of the seamstress begins to be proprietory about the model, and his dark brooding about her occupation in the family and possible connection with the husband of the artist is the beginning of the trouble.
In a society where decency is above all, progressive thought conflicts with old tradition and fraternity of humanity is not in accord with castes where a low caste poor young woman could only be a servant of one sort or another to an upper caste male. The gentleman is sympathetic, and would rather help the young woman, since she has no other guardian, but he fails to see the various complications such innocent help sets in motion - her dependence on him, his being attracted, the jealousy of the poor brute married to the seamstress, the disturbing of balance in his marriage, and more.
Galsworthy takes it to critical planes with some home truths via the young daughter of the family visiting the poor in company of her suitor, and a couple of small and not so small events. Before one knows it is all at a critical stage, and one wonders how it could have come so far with such decent people merely being sympathetic to poor. Decency of people involved does not help any, however, when it comes to it - what does help is the old tradition, caste, where a gentleman may not consort with a woman of low caste. He is not acting on tradition however, he has instincts too finicky, and there is no other way of defining them than in terms of what is called caste.
Much told and many questions but all in the almost impressionistic tradition of words painting a Monet in literature, where one sees only a gentle mist and not much of strong lines, but a picture of a society in churning of times where empire is graduating to a commonwealth of republics and caste is giving way, with tragedies of dire sort in the turmoil depicted with force that hit one and one wonders how the mist overlaying could have hidden it all so - and that is Galsworthy.
