Customer Reviews: Read 113 more reviews...
 "We were promised a room with a view..." November 15, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
After I saw the 1985 Merchant Ivory film, I was curious about the book. Its not often that the film is as good as the book, but in this it was, so faithfully adapted. When I got the book after seeing the film, I felt I was seeing the film again while reading, the film was sooo faithful to all the key plot and character points in the book and many of the minor ones too. Whether you've seen the film or not, definitely read the book as well. There are one or two typos but its very readable. This is one of my favorite romantic novels, and whats so great about it is that its not a stereotypical "romance novel", its for guys as well. Read it.
 Great Book, Rip-Off Sub-Quality Printing November 11, 2008
0 out of 9 found this review helpful
This is one of the great English Novels. Unfortunately, this is a sub-quality printing by an anonymous publisher that somehow got through Amazon's quality control process. There are numerous typos on every single page, mostly bad paragraphing and the like, making it actually unreadable. Don't buy the version with the steeple on the cover and the big Helvetica typeface.
A beautiful story! October 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really didn't know what to expect--would this be a character story, a philosophical one, a romance? It ended up being a lovely mix of all three. The story centers around Lucy, a young woman who realizes, for the first time, that she has ideas of her own. In other words, it's about Lucy learning how to make decisions for herself, and learning what she truly wants out of life.
The book is full of delightful characters and beautiful passages. Yet, Forster isn't above seeing the humor in life, and many characters are quite amusing, and the chapter with the pond is probably one of my favorites!
I was surprised, a little, by the ending, but in looking back I can see where it fits. I'd like to read it again, knowing where the book is headed, because I think there's so much more there that I didn't grasp the first read through.
In all, it's easy to see why this is a classic!:D I think it's totally deserving of that status.:)
 Social comment on the English abroad/at home October 13, 2008
In Forster's A Room with a View, sheltered young Lucy Honeychurch (what a name!), traveling abroad with her spinster aunt, happens to meet George Emerson and his doting father. Lucy is not quite sure what to make of the pair, as they seem kind enough but are unpolished in their manners and way of thinking. One morning, during a day trip to the mountains, George comes upon Lucy amidst a field of violets and impulsively kisses her.
This indescretion is hurriedly hushed up, and Lucy returns to her home in England. There, she becomes engaged to a respectable young man, a good match by all social accounts, but with whom she has very little in common. Who should happen upon the scene but George Emerson? Lucy finds herself conflicted and confused, unsure of whether to make the socially advantageous match expected by her friends and family or to make a break with convention and think for herself a bit.
While this novel starts out VERY slowly, it picks up speed as one goes along, providing a very satisfying ending. Lucy is so intolerable at the beginning of the book that it is difficult to keep reading, but, thankfully, as she becomes more in command of her own thoughts, she is much easier to relate to. (I find this often with female characters in "classic" literature. It is all one can do to keep from shaking them by the shoulders sometimes. I understand that women were more repressed - oppressed?- when these stories were written, but it can be awfully trying for a modern woman to read such characters. In that respect, reading contemporary novels is sometimes easier.)
I also found the novel's debate about expatriates/natives versus tourists interesting, as the same arguments are traded around travel circles today - i.e. the "ugly American," those who are inseparable from their guidebooks, etc. It's funny to see that people's views on such a subject have really changed very little in the past 100 years!
Though some of this novel is set in Italy, do not expect much of the rich, atmospheric descriptive passages one would hope to find in a contemporary novel of this sort. During the primary character's time there, she is still very much mentally confined, and because we are seeing things through her vision, the novel is more concerned that she see the "right" paintings and statues so that she can say she's seen them. Eeesh.
At any rate, this book is certainly worth reading. I found it to be a pointed social comment on the mores of of the time.
Adventure in Italy August 9, 2008
Forster has written a deceptively light, subtle, and entertaining novel
about decent, educated, lily-white English folk whose only real sin is a
polite timidness of spirit, one of the "curses of a refined nature." The
Forster narrative is correspondingly gentle and good-humored, with chasms of despair lurking in the background and momentous decisions explained with understated matter-of-factness. Some fiction achieves a status like Holy Writ. This novel might.
The central characters in >A Room With a View< are as follows.
1) Lucy Honeychurch:
a. "I can't think," Lucy said gravely.
b. Lucy did not know what to do nor even what she wanted to do.
c. She gave up trying to understand herself, and joined the armies of
the benighted, who follow neither the heart nor the brain, and march
to their destiny by catchwords.
In short, Lucy is searching for a point of view, a sense of self.
2) Cecil Vyse;
a. Of course, he despised the world as a whole; every thoughtful man
should.
b. Cecil had been hesitating whether he should despise the villas or
despise Sir Harry for despising them.
c. "Hopeless vulgarian," exclaimed Cecil, almost before they were out of
earshot. "It would be wrong not to loathe that man."
Honestly, Cecil feels intimidated by social interaction.
3) George Emerson:
a. "A nice fellow," Mr. Beebe said afterwards. "He will work off his
crudities in time. I rather distrust young men who slip into life
gracefully.
b. "I only know what it is that's wrong with him, not why it is . . . .
The old trouble; things won't fit."
The curious catalyst for the relationships that develop is Italy. As Lucy
searched for "ma buoni uomini," the good men, the Italian escort led her to George.
1) "Eccolo!" he exclaimed.
2) At the same moment, the ground gave way, and with a cry she fell out of the wood. Light and beauty enveloped her.
3) "Courage!" cried her companion. "Courage and love!"
4) George had turned at the sound of her arrival. For a moment, he contemplated her, as one who had fallen out of heaven. He stepped forward and kissed her.
Lucy's "muddle" finally reaches its climax. She was "driven by nameless
bewilderment."
1) "I've seen so little of life," she said. "One ought to come up to
London more. I might even share a flat for a little with some other
girl."
2) "And mess with typewriters and latch-keys!" her mother exploded, "and
agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police."
3) "I want more independence," said Lucy lamely. She knew she wanted
something, and independence is a useful cry. She tried to remember her
emotions in Florence; those had been sincere and passionate, and had
suggested beauty rather than short skirts and latch-keys.
A wonderful story, >Room with a View<, perhaps one of the greatest in the
English language.
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