This is a great book (or trio of books), it is interesting and intriguing but requires dedication to get through. To me, this is very much like an English Anna Karenina but with less religion. I love that it is a multi-generational story and spans entire lifetimes and the era's in British history. You get to follow along with each new generational shift in attitudes and ideas and current political climates. I enjoy that the narrative follows multiple members of the family and that it switches POV's. It allows you to develop sympathy and understanding of multiple characters who are often in direct conflict with each other and not all of them likable. This is not easy as none of the characters are good or bad, nothing so two-dimensional. They are fully human and complex, leaving you as a reader, torn. This is a 4.5/5 star for me as I think it fell short on a true understanding or empathy for the females. You at times aware that John Galsworthy was a man in the early 1900's writing about what he thinks a woman thinks... and not always convincingly, it lacked emotional maturity and motivation in the females. But ultimately as a whole work one of my favorites.