Forgotten Treasures: A Symposium

If I had to name one 20th century novel that has somehow missed out on the popular acclaim it deserves, I’d go for Ford Madox Ford’s “The Good Soldier.” It does for the fragile male psyche what “Anna Karenina” does for the women.

Lower down the literary ladder, let me single out Geoffrey Household’s “Rogue Male,” the unsung precursor of such novels as “The Day of the Jackal.” It was published, I believe, on the day World War II broke out, which was in all senses bad luck, since it was about an English gent who thought it would be fun to assassinate Hitler. The film, with James Mason in the lead, did little.