'A Modern Comedy' is the second trilogy in the epic cycle about the Forsyte family - a family whose history, like a mirror, reflects the history of England in the first third of the 20th century.
Times are changing. Old-fashioned ideas about love and friendship, loyalty and honor turn out to be ridiculous, absurd.
Women become independent, decisive, ironic, and men - tired, wise and indifferently cynical. The shadow of the recently passed First World War looms over the generation of the 'Jazz 20s'.
And each of the trilogy's heroes - consciously or not - became, to one degree or another, a victim of this war.