I recently read seven works by E.M. Forster in order of publication:
- Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
- The Longest Journey (1907)
- A Room with a View (1908)
- Howards End (1910)
- A Passage to India (1924)
- Maurice (written in 1913–14, published posthumously in 1971)
- Aspects of the Novel (1927)
Forster is known for the mantra “Only connect,” a quote from Howard’s End. Perhaps his best-known novel, which I read previously, is A Passage To India. My favorite of the novels is A Room with a View, which I read and posted about previously.
See below for some thoughts on Forster’s writing.
Muddle
It surprised me to encounter the word “muddle” in all six novels and in Aspects. It’s possible that this was just a trendy word among Brits at the time, but I think it’s Forster’s pet word. I’m not the only one who has noticed its repetition. It’s deeply meaningful in the context of his novels, and stands in opposition to sincerity, integrity, and other concepts related to truth.
The point is that the opposite of truth is not always falsehood, but may be a kind of neither-here-nor-there ambiguity, which Forster calls “muddle”, and which philosopher Harry Frankfurt might call “bullshit”, if were a statement rather than a state of being. Like bullshit, muddle can be harmless or harmful, but one should be wary of it; clarity and open-eyed sincerity are preferable, and the earlier an individual realizes this, the better of he or she is and the more fulfilled his or her life will be.
Where Angels Fear to Tread
A headstrong English woman visits a small town in Italy and decides to marry one of the locals. Her late husband’s brother, Philip, is sent to stop her—but she is already married. After she gives birth and dies, he is sent back to Italy to retrieve the child—but he fails again. Perhaps he’d do some good in the world if he chose sides properly, rather than drifting through life without honestly caring about anything one way or the other! Italy does work its charms on him, and in the end he comes to understand what it is to be alive—but it’s too late to do anyone much good.
I like the idea that travel is a good of gaining perspective, and the idea that actions should be motivated by personal values rather than the desire to keep up appearances in accordance with social conventions. But I find the events of the story too unhappy to like the book overall.
The Longest Journey
Rickie, an orphan who dreams of becoming a writer, goes to Cambridge, makes a couple of friends, gets an education, gets married, and gets shunted into an unsuitable teaching career by his brother-in-law. His aunt mischievously reveals that an irresponsible young man she’s sheltering is his half-brother. Can he overcome what has become a stifling marriage, and openly embrace what really matters? It turns out he can… but at what a cost!
Again, I am in agreement with Forster’s themes, but I find it frustrating that his main character succeeds only by failing, as it were.
A Room with a View
A musical young woman named Lucy falls in love with a despondent young man named George as a result of two strange shared experiences in Italy: one of blood and death in a square in the city of Florence, another of natural beauty on a hill in the countryside. Nevertheless, she gets engaged to another man, Cecil, who views her more like a piece of art than a person, and nearly prevents her from ever becoming herself. Fortunately, George and his father turn up in her neighborhood and the latter gives her some good advice which she manages to follow.
This seems to be Forster’s most optimistic novel, and I like it quite a lot. I was surprised, therefore, when I watched what is considered to be a faithful film adaptation, and didn’t like it at all. I realized that maybe I don’t like Lucy herself; she stumbles into her happy ending more than she pursues it purposefully.
Howards End
Three orphaned Schlegel siblings, two sisters and a brother, interact socially with the Wilcoxes (whose country house is called Howards End) and also with an awkward and struggling young man named Leonard Bast who sat next to them at a concert. These people’s lives get rather tangled up, meanwhile revealing the changing social customs of the day.
Wow. So much muddle, I can’t even with this one. It’s a little too like a soap opera.
A Passage to India
A young British woman visits India as a prospective spouse of a young British man posted there. Wanting to see the real India, and not just the colonial side of things, she accepts what wasn’t necessarily meant as an invitation to visit the Marabar Caves with an Indian doctor. The expedition doesn’t go as planned; some crisis transpires after she is separated from her chaperone, and the doctor is accused of improper behavior; everyone in the town takes sides in the conflict, because of course they do. Can racial lines be crossed?
This is an interesting peek into another world: a world filled with well-meaning people, miscommunication, and deep-seated political problems.
Maurice
Maurice has no ambition to marry, but he doesn’t really know why. He dreams of having a true “friend”. At Cambridge, he enters some sort of close relationship with another student named Clive, but it isn’t really what either of them wants, and their paths diverge dramatically.
Forster was gay, and so is the protagonist of this novel, which Forster didn’t try to publish during his lifetime. I can’t imagine what life would have been like for someone like Maurice. Is it an exaggeration, or is it possible in Forster’s time that there could have been someone who not only didn’t know he was gay and didn’t know of any other gay men, but who didn’t even know there was a word for men attracted to other men?
Aspects of the Novel
This is a series of lectures on fiction focusing on story, characters, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm.
I’m not super clear on Forster’s ideas, but it seems the story is a chronologically presented series of events that are somehow inherently suspenseful. Someone is a storyteller if, like the woman in Arabian Nights who was trying not to be killed, he or she can keep the audience wondering, “What next?” The storyteller appeals to the audience’s caveman-level curiosity.
In contrast, plot is the deliberate manipulation of characters’ actions to form a dramatic structure infused with causality. Forster says “The king died and then the queen died” is a story, whereas “The king died and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The creator of a plot appeals to the audience’s intelligence: the audience must know the reason that things happen.
Part of the author’s job is to reveal the hidden life of his or her characters, and it is the exposure of this hidden life that makes characters different from actual people: we can never and will never understand real people, but we can feel that we understand characters if they are sufficiently convincing, which they can be, whether they are flat or round.
Fantasy and prophecy are two kinds of stuff that can happen in books but not in real life that the author asks the reader to believe nevertheless. Fantasy seems to be a shallow sort of thing that is more easily achieved, whereas prophecy seems to be deep, subtle, and rare, in Forster’s opinion.
Pattern is a kind of overall structure, like an hourglass or chain, and gives the reader of a novel some sort of overall satisfaction. It seems to be a characteristic of plot. Rhythm seems to be a nebulous concept wrapped up with the idea of repetition or echo, and seems to be a characteristic of style.
It was interesting to hear what Forster had to say about Dickens, Austen, Joyce, and Dostoevsky, among others. I don’t read literary criticism, so it was strange to hear an author whose works I’ve read discuss other works I’ve read. I forget that these authors were people, and in some cases had read each other’s works, possibly during each other’s lifetimes because the books are timeless… they have lives of their own, far longer than those of their authors.
