@chrisno1, I prefer hardcovers whenever possible. Beyond the purely aesthetic reasons they're easier for me to hold when reading than a paperback and my aging eyes appreciate the larger print.
E.M. Forster’s most accessible novel finds young Lucy Honeychurch torn between the expectations of polite Edwardian society and the spirit of freedom exemplified by the ‘socialist’ Emerson family. Forster makes a metaphysical point about life and our expectations through constantly referencing views from windows: “It does seem hard that you shouldn’t have a view” says Charlotte Barlett to her cousin on the very first page, the intonation being that Lucy must have a life outside the confines of Summer Street – a hamlet near Dorking in Surrey – and her mother’s grand cottage Windy Corner. The Honeychurch’s of course are snobs of the upper middle class and Lucy has embarked on an old-fashioned Grand Tour of Italy, chaperoned by her much older cousin. Charlotte’s inability to play that role gives rise to a series of events which provide Lucy with a wider world view than that even from her hotel window. Florence and the Arno may be what she physically sees, but her emotions spiral out of control and far beyond that window view following a meeting with the reticent, but attentive and good-looking, George Emerson. On her return to England, Lucy is shocked to discover her fiancé, Cecil Vyse, has engineered for George and his aged father to rent a cottage close to Windy Corner and a comedy of manners ensues as the Emerson’s attempt to ingratiate themselves into countryside society and Cecil attempts to prise Lucy away to the big city.
As readers, we can anticipate where the resolution lies. Most of us have probably seen the superb film adaptation anyway. Forster’s prose is much more controlled than it was in either Where Angels Fear to Tread and The Longest Journey. If the narrative annoyingly drops into the omnipotent narrator occasionally, this seems to be done merely to make those philosophical points. Writer’s such as Hemingway and Faulkner would start to do away with these authorly interjections by the 1920s. Here, they serve to remind us of the intellectual battle being played out in everybody’s minds, especially that of Lucy Honeychurch. Forster’s gentle humour reminds us that what may appear profound is often absurd. He is particularly mocking of Cecil Vyse, an uptight, unfeeling, sloth-like man of letters clearly based on John Ruskin – who is name checked by several characters – and of whom Lucy eventually declares: “You’re the sort who can’t know anyone intimately.” Intelligence and education therefore does not bring forth life!
Forster excels too with his descriptions. He is particularly strong on Italy, although the landscapes have a peculiarly English bent to them, these tourists barely scratch the surface of the Italian culture, staying in a British pension surrounded by British people of a similar class and background. When the more effervescent Italians choose to express themselves, they are roundly admonished. Lucy finds the attitude of her elders mystifying, deepening the generational clash before it finally rears its head in autumnal Surrey. As with Angels, Forster ensures the climax is reached through a series of misunderstandings. Unlike Angels and The Longest Journey, we do not have a tragedy to witness, only plenty of dry wit.
A very fine novel which addresses changing social values with a sly wink at the reader while not forgetting to underscore the cultural commentary with a genuine heart-tugging romance of impulse and physical desire.
Short book of 200 pages, a form of memoir in which an Italian chemist devotes each chapter to an element that comes with a life anecdote, in chronological order. There is an undercurrent of tension in much of the book because Levi is Jewish and much of it unfolds against the backdrop of World War II; while the Holocaust has not yet come to Piedmont, there's the growing feeling that this will not end well and indeed the author winds up in Auschwitz - of course he survives or he wouldn't be writing this. But many along the way do not.
It is a fascinating account of the work many would find during war time, work which often came it seems with a black market, illicit flavour, a scam involved somewhere. It's not all grim, either.
Here is a recent review, a revisit, from a Saturday edition of the Times.
Now, there is an earlier memoir from Levi that details his time in the death camp and explains how he survived, If This Is A Man and it would be hard, upon reading The Periodic Table, not to want to order that one in. I'm not sure I will however - just a chapter or two before bed time of this book gave me unsettling or even unpleasant dreams - the prose is measured, precise and non-sensationalist but you feel the young man as depicted is in that situation where he's not only learning his trade but also in over his head in so many other matters.
A look at Wiki on the author's life - and death - doesn't make for happy reading though there is a dispute over his cause of death. Can you ever move on from those kind of traumatic events even when you survive, or do you just have to re-process them and re-evaluate as time goes on?
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,822MI6 Agent
edited August 18
That sounds very interesting, @Napoleon Plural. I'd imagine the trauma of surviving through the Holocaust would certainly stay with you throughout your life. I've experienced trauma on a much smaller scale than that and it definitely stays with you so I think it would have with Primo Levi too. Strangely I was listening to the BBC radio broadcast of Richard Dimbleby on the liberation of Belsen on CD the other day. I recall one of my History professors saying that it's something everyone should listen to and it definitely is. It's chilling and it puts into some small perspective how heinous the crimes committed during the Holocaust were.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Sorry to hear about that @Silhouette Man - the odd thing about trauma is imo it's not quite based on merit, or rather scale - it doesn't have to be an event that sounds like a big deal to anyone else, on the other hand a person might undergo a really bad experience and not be traumatised much at all. It's a state. I think it comes from having something bad happen - but crucially, if you don't register it at the time, it can stay with you. It you go into shutdown mode, it becomes hard to move on from, without realising it. The phrase 'somewhere there's a nine year old kid still in that room' is appropriate, it's what the TV celeb and now author Richard Osman said about his dad telling him he and his mother were getting a divorce.
Oddly, at the time you can think you're dealing with it quite well by not reacting, it feels quite matter of fact and non-emotional but that's not necessarily a good thing.
Forster’s fourth novel develops the theme of a supposed moral society’s unrest and disquiet at changing 20th Century attitudes, a topic he used at length for the basis of his previous novels. Here, he uses the titular country mansion as an extended metaphor for the decline of England and English class distinctions: while the structure of the building [society] remains sturdy, the people come and go like strays and the furnishings change to suit the occupants, forever altering the fabric of the building [society]. The rural idyl possesses a quietude that draws visitors to it; yet Howard’s End is steeped in its own mythology, of the late Mrs Wilcox, of the boar’s teeth clamped on the trunk of a yew tree, the vistas of imagined Roman hills. It is a place for contemplation while also assuming a thorough orthodoxy. The progressive London set of the Schlegel Sisters invade this closeted world and change forever the conservatism of the extended family of industrialist Henry Wilcox.
However, Margaret and Helen Schlegel are not as clever as they think themselves to be. Politically self-educated, irritatingly sanctimonious about their ideals, the sisters may be progressive, resembling as they do members of a sort of fictional Bloomsbury Group, but they are essentially naive about the conventions of Edwardian morality. The estate and station of women within that society, comes to haunt them time and again. Partial victories are won, but they are tempered by the need to compromise high ideals. Forster, in his prosaic descriptions of the countryside, seems to side with the Londoners, who thrive in romantic, poetic and foolhardy notions. The story however isn’t as clear cut as that. To the Wilcox’s, a family whose wealth has been generated from exploiting colonies in Nigeria, wives are for homemaking, husbands are for business. This traditional view pervades the male characters, from Henry Wilcox’s stubborn industrialist to the cuckold Leonard. Even some of the supporting females lean towards the accepted notions that a full existence is where responsibility is earned without merit.
Sexual and cultural politics play a great part in the characterisations. The hypocritical behaviour of predominantly the men of this era is exposed and their need for these rich men to sustain the status quo becomes evident as we witness how their selfishness and thoughtlessness affects those whose lives they touch. It is here, when dealing with the lower class Leonard Bast that both families, Schlegel and Wilcox, betray their own self-interest, a propensity to use money, station and materialism as bargaining chips; nature, emotion and empathy rarely enter into decisions. Only the impulsive, flirtatious younger sister, Helen, remains true to her passions. For her, the ills of the world really can be saved by rhetoric and principled thought. Yet even for Helen, being confronted by societies inequalities only has one solution: to throw money at Leonard Bast. She has not recognised that riches do not change one’s circumstances, for emotionally we remain the same. So while Howard’s End fluctuates with the times, the British Empire and its innate Englishness begins to flounder.
Money and power is irrelevant to Leonard Bast and his wife. They have none. Only moral courage sustains him. When circumstances prevaricate a moral blindness, he is stricken with guilt. Helen’s interference drives a wedge between herself and Leonard, as well as between herself and her sister, the upright, youngish spinster Margaret. Moments of sublime revelation are excellently described, creeping at the reader before exploding in a clipped sentence or two of astonishing realism, reactive pragmatism being a feature of the characters and of the E.M. Forster’s prose. His depictions of both poverty and wealth are exemplary. When Helen and Margaret’s cossetted cosmopolitan international orbit is threatened by social scandal, it takes the solid, outward reliability of Henry Wilcox’s man of property and dollars to even the metaphorical scales that are juggling the atmosphere of Howard’s End.
A very fine book of much texture and a strongly realised social position. It may be a tad too long, but Howard’s End’s philosophical point is nicely rounded off because Forster has made us care for these people and how their lives become ordered and fruitful from the chaotic catastrophes that surround them.
Have you considered doing this professionally? You use difficult words and concepts, so you should be qualified. If they pay by the word you can make a lot of money too! Just trying to be helpful. ☺️
I am glad you both enjoyed the review @Number24@Hardyboy [nice avatar BTW] punctuation issues aside, it isn't a bad go... I think it was instinct to put in an apostrophe. My bad 🙄
@chrisno1 seems coy about taking his reviews outside this forum I've found, even reluctant to do a blog - I attribute it to one of those Hammer movies where Vincent Price wreaks revenge on movie reviewers who have irked him...
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,822MI6 Agent
edited September 2
Nice review, @chrisno1. Talking of E. M. Forster I recall one of my English teachers at A Level saying that Forster wrote a lot of stuff he didn't much care for. However he said he did write one thing that he thought was very good and that stuck with him. It was "Only one's own dead matter." I'm not sure what novel that was from but it stuck with me too. I think that Howards End is the novel that coined the phrase "only connect" too which has since become the name of a BBC TV quiz show on rather arcane knowledge.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Comments
@chrisno1, I prefer hardcovers whenever possible. Beyond the purely aesthetic reasons they're easier for me to hold when reading than a paperback and my aging eyes appreciate the larger print.
A ROOM WITH A VIEW – E.M. Forster (1908)
E.M. Forster’s most accessible novel finds young Lucy Honeychurch torn between the expectations of polite Edwardian society and the spirit of freedom exemplified by the ‘socialist’ Emerson family. Forster makes a metaphysical point about life and our expectations through constantly referencing views from windows: “It does seem hard that you shouldn’t have a view” says Charlotte Barlett to her cousin on the very first page, the intonation being that Lucy must have a life outside the confines of Summer Street – a hamlet near Dorking in Surrey – and her mother’s grand cottage Windy Corner. The Honeychurch’s of course are snobs of the upper middle class and Lucy has embarked on an old-fashioned Grand Tour of Italy, chaperoned by her much older cousin. Charlotte’s inability to play that role gives rise to a series of events which provide Lucy with a wider world view than that even from her hotel window. Florence and the Arno may be what she physically sees, but her emotions spiral out of control and far beyond that window view following a meeting with the reticent, but attentive and good-looking, George Emerson. On her return to England, Lucy is shocked to discover her fiancé, Cecil Vyse, has engineered for George and his aged father to rent a cottage close to Windy Corner and a comedy of manners ensues as the Emerson’s attempt to ingratiate themselves into countryside society and Cecil attempts to prise Lucy away to the big city.
As readers, we can anticipate where the resolution lies. Most of us have probably seen the superb film adaptation anyway. Forster’s prose is much more controlled than it was in either Where Angels Fear to Tread and The Longest Journey. If the narrative annoyingly drops into the omnipotent narrator occasionally, this seems to be done merely to make those philosophical points. Writer’s such as Hemingway and Faulkner would start to do away with these authorly interjections by the 1920s. Here, they serve to remind us of the intellectual battle being played out in everybody’s minds, especially that of Lucy Honeychurch. Forster’s gentle humour reminds us that what may appear profound is often absurd. He is particularly mocking of Cecil Vyse, an uptight, unfeeling, sloth-like man of letters clearly based on John Ruskin – who is name checked by several characters – and of whom Lucy eventually declares: “You’re the sort who can’t know anyone intimately.” Intelligence and education therefore does not bring forth life!
Forster excels too with his descriptions. He is particularly strong on Italy, although the landscapes have a peculiarly English bent to them, these tourists barely scratch the surface of the Italian culture, staying in a British pension surrounded by British people of a similar class and background. When the more effervescent Italians choose to express themselves, they are roundly admonished. Lucy finds the attitude of her elders mystifying, deepening the generational clash before it finally rears its head in autumnal Surrey. As with Angels, Forster ensures the climax is reached through a series of misunderstandings. Unlike Angels and The Longest Journey, we do not have a tragedy to witness, only plenty of dry wit.
A very fine novel which addresses changing social values with a sly wink at the reader while not forgetting to underscore the cultural commentary with a genuine heart-tugging romance of impulse and physical desire.
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi.
Short book of 200 pages, a form of memoir in which an Italian chemist devotes each chapter to an element that comes with a life anecdote, in chronological order. There is an undercurrent of tension in much of the book because Levi is Jewish and much of it unfolds against the backdrop of World War II; while the Holocaust has not yet come to Piedmont, there's the growing feeling that this will not end well and indeed the author winds up in Auschwitz - of course he survives or he wouldn't be writing this. But many along the way do not.
It is a fascinating account of the work many would find during war time, work which often came it seems with a black market, illicit flavour, a scam involved somewhere. It's not all grim, either.
Here is a recent review, a revisit, from a Saturday edition of the Times.
Now, there is an earlier memoir from Levi that details his time in the death camp and explains how he survived, If This Is A Man and it would be hard, upon reading The Periodic Table, not to want to order that one in. I'm not sure I will however - just a chapter or two before bed time of this book gave me unsettling or even unpleasant dreams - the prose is measured, precise and non-sensationalist but you feel the young man as depicted is in that situation where he's not only learning his trade but also in over his head in so many other matters.
A look at Wiki on the author's life - and death - doesn't make for happy reading though there is a dispute over his cause of death. Can you ever move on from those kind of traumatic events even when you survive, or do you just have to re-process them and re-evaluate as time goes on?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That sounds very interesting, @Napoleon Plural. I'd imagine the trauma of surviving through the Holocaust would certainly stay with you throughout your life. I've experienced trauma on a much smaller scale than that and it definitely stays with you so I think it would have with Primo Levi too. Strangely I was listening to the BBC radio broadcast of Richard Dimbleby on the liberation of Belsen on CD the other day. I recall one of my History professors saying that it's something everyone should listen to and it definitely is. It's chilling and it puts into some small perspective how heinous the crimes committed during the Holocaust were.
Sorry to hear about that @Silhouette Man - the odd thing about trauma is imo it's not quite based on merit, or rather scale - it doesn't have to be an event that sounds like a big deal to anyone else, on the other hand a person might undergo a really bad experience and not be traumatised much at all. It's a state. I think it comes from having something bad happen - but crucially, if you don't register it at the time, it can stay with you. It you go into shutdown mode, it becomes hard to move on from, without realising it. The phrase 'somewhere there's a nine year old kid still in that room' is appropriate, it's what the TV celeb and now author Richard Osman said about his dad telling him he and his mother were getting a divorce.
Oddly, at the time you can think you're dealing with it quite well by not reacting, it feels quite matter of fact and non-emotional but that's not necessarily a good thing.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
HOWARD’S END – E.M. Forster (1910)
Forster’s fourth novel develops the theme of a supposed moral society’s unrest and disquiet at changing 20th Century attitudes, a topic he used at length for the basis of his previous novels. Here, he uses the titular country mansion as an extended metaphor for the decline of England and English class distinctions: while the structure of the building [society] remains sturdy, the people come and go like strays and the furnishings change to suit the occupants, forever altering the fabric of the building [society]. The rural idyl possesses a quietude that draws visitors to it; yet Howard’s End is steeped in its own mythology, of the late Mrs Wilcox, of the boar’s teeth clamped on the trunk of a yew tree, the vistas of imagined Roman hills. It is a place for contemplation while also assuming a thorough orthodoxy. The progressive London set of the Schlegel Sisters invade this closeted world and change forever the conservatism of the extended family of industrialist Henry Wilcox.
However, Margaret and Helen Schlegel are not as clever as they think themselves to be. Politically self-educated, irritatingly sanctimonious about their ideals, the sisters may be progressive, resembling as they do members of a sort of fictional Bloomsbury Group, but they are essentially naive about the conventions of Edwardian morality. The estate and station of women within that society, comes to haunt them time and again. Partial victories are won, but they are tempered by the need to compromise high ideals. Forster, in his prosaic descriptions of the countryside, seems to side with the Londoners, who thrive in romantic, poetic and foolhardy notions. The story however isn’t as clear cut as that. To the Wilcox’s, a family whose wealth has been generated from exploiting colonies in Nigeria, wives are for homemaking, husbands are for business. This traditional view pervades the male characters, from Henry Wilcox’s stubborn industrialist to the cuckold Leonard. Even some of the supporting females lean towards the accepted notions that a full existence is where responsibility is earned without merit.
Sexual and cultural politics play a great part in the characterisations. The hypocritical behaviour of predominantly the men of this era is exposed and their need for these rich men to sustain the status quo becomes evident as we witness how their selfishness and thoughtlessness affects those whose lives they touch. It is here, when dealing with the lower class Leonard Bast that both families, Schlegel and Wilcox, betray their own self-interest, a propensity to use money, station and materialism as bargaining chips; nature, emotion and empathy rarely enter into decisions. Only the impulsive, flirtatious younger sister, Helen, remains true to her passions. For her, the ills of the world really can be saved by rhetoric and principled thought. Yet even for Helen, being confronted by societies inequalities only has one solution: to throw money at Leonard Bast. She has not recognised that riches do not change one’s circumstances, for emotionally we remain the same. So while Howard’s End fluctuates with the times, the British Empire and its innate Englishness begins to flounder.
Money and power is irrelevant to Leonard Bast and his wife. They have none. Only moral courage sustains him. When circumstances prevaricate a moral blindness, he is stricken with guilt. Helen’s interference drives a wedge between herself and Leonard, as well as between herself and her sister, the upright, youngish spinster Margaret. Moments of sublime revelation are excellently described, creeping at the reader before exploding in a clipped sentence or two of astonishing realism, reactive pragmatism being a feature of the characters and of the E.M. Forster’s prose. His depictions of both poverty and wealth are exemplary. When Helen and Margaret’s cossetted cosmopolitan international orbit is threatened by social scandal, it takes the solid, outward reliability of Henry Wilcox’s man of property and dollars to even the metaphorical scales that are juggling the atmosphere of Howard’s End.
A very fine book of much texture and a strongly realised social position. It may be a tad too long, but Howard’s End’s philosophical point is nicely rounded off because Forster has made us care for these people and how their lives become ordered and fruitful from the chaotic catastrophes that surround them.
Have you considered doing this professionally? You use difficult words and concepts, so you should be qualified. If they pay by the word you can make a lot of money too! Just trying to be helpful. ☺️
Nice review, Chris--I'm actually teaching HE starting Tuesday and for the next three weeks. Only one correction... there's no apostrophe. 😁
I am glad you both enjoyed the review @Number24 @Hardyboy [nice avatar BTW] punctuation issues aside, it isn't a bad go... I think it was instinct to put in an apostrophe. My bad 🙄
@chrisno1 seems coy about taking his reviews outside this forum I've found, even reluctant to do a blog - I attribute it to one of those Hammer movies where Vincent Price wreaks revenge on movie reviewers who have irked him...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Nice review, @chrisno1. Talking of E. M. Forster I recall one of my English teachers at A Level saying that Forster wrote a lot of stuff he didn't much care for. However he said he did write one thing that he thought was very good and that stuck with him. It was "Only one's own dead matter." I'm not sure what novel that was from but it stuck with me too. I think that Howards End is the novel that coined the phrase "only connect" too which has since become the name of a BBC TV quiz show on rather arcane knowledge.