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 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.
Surprisingly philosophical-a romance for the unromantic July 27, 2008
I started this book for my A.P. English Lit. class rather reluctantly because it sounded a bit romantic and sentimental-adjectives I try to stay away from. However from the first pages, I was astonished at the intellectual depth lurking beneath the romance on the surface.
Yes the book is a romance, but one that I (who constantly mock sentimental scenes in movies) actually liked. For one thing, the characters are truly likable. There is Lucy, who, though rather naive, has the potential to break out of her shell and live well. Then there is George Emerson-one of my all time favorite characters. George is a melancholy young man who is upset because the "universe doesn't fit" and is known to put up pictures of question marks in hotel rooms. With characters like this, you cannot help but feel they deserve any happiness a romance might bring.
In addition there is a whole host of unique characters who bring this novel to life. This goal is also accomplished by Forster's beautifully fluid prose: I fell in love with his writing style immediately. From eccentric chapter titles ( e.g. Chapter 6: The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them. Chapter 7: They Return ) to descriptive passages ("The amour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul. In a few moments Lucy was equipped for battle."), Forster displays an immense talent for writing as well as a keen sense of irony.
The book is satisfying beyond the story itself or even the way in which it is told-as I said in my title it is surprisingly philosophical. Much more than a romance, this novel is most accurately a story about life. The book encourages the reader to think upon what it means to live a good life, the value of the individual, the nature of truth and beauty, the reconciling of duty with desire and evil with good, and much more. Highly recommended.
Delightful! June 23, 2008
Forster's wit, irony, and well-drawn characters make this an enjoyable read. If you're not used to reading pieces from this period, you may need to warm up to the style, but once you do, you'll enjoy this.
Book review May 24, 2008
Followed the PBS special almost to the word but the book's ending was much better.
Make room in your heart for Forster's delightfully frothy "A Room With a View" May 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Edward Morgan Foster (1879-1970) lived a long life as a Cambridge don and world traveler. However, most of this author's fiction was completed in the first 20 years of the 20th century. "A Room With a View" is a gently satirical view of the English abroad and at home in the late Edwardian Age. Perhaps we can view England as the cozy room of normality and routine while the sunny Italian landscape provides us a view of a wider world outside our usual gaze.
The short novel is divided into two parts. In part one we are introduced to a group of English travelers in Italy. We meet Charlotte
an old maid aunt who is chaperoning the upper middle class young lady the fetching Lucy Honeychurch. (Charlotte reminds one of the governess types described with right on accuracy by Charlotte Bronte). The women want a good view of Florence so reluctantly switch rooms with Mr. Emerson (a dreamy transcendentalist like older man who reminds us of the philisophical musings of Concord sage Ralph Waldo Emerson) and his stra handsome son George. (George is to become a knight saving Lucy from the clutches of the effete snob aesthete Cyril Vise). On a sightseeing picnic Lucy and George kiss and then depart. Lucy goes to Rome meeting her future fiance the artistic and bookish Cyril.
Part II is set in England. After several complications the course of true love is finally set on its right course. Lucy jilts Cyril and finds true bliss with George. The novel is cyclicalbeginning in spring and ending with Lucy Honeychurch's honeymoon with George. This occurs in the same Florentine hotel in which they met. A year has passed and it is spring again for these young lovers.
Forster provides a gallery of colorful characters: Mr Beebe the clergyman who hopes Lucy dumps Cyril for George; Eleanor Lavish a comically drawn mystery writer; Lucy's brother Fred and a Cockney hotel owner in Florence.
Forster wishes to open the stuffy door of Victorian fiction with a new frankness on sexuality and freedom of expression. His scene in which the major male characters bathe in a pond is an example of this theme. Forster favors physical and intimate love to the aesthetic passionless p love which Vise has for Lucy. George is athletic and earthy while Vise is a nerdy bookworm. Forster's book is good in the use of witty dialogue. His understanding of the British class system leads him to satirical comments on its rigidity.
A quibble. The characters don't have much depth seeming to be actors in a stage presentation. Forster is worth reading for his advocacy of true love and emotion in a society of elaborate and often hypocritcal rules. He is a good author worthy of your time.
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