4,5 stars rounded up. I wish I could say something more intelligent about it other than that it's lovely, a praise of humanism and feminism. A lighter fare than Howards End, but still beautiful and not to be dismissed.

I don't deal with romance much. It's a trait that's bled over from real life experiences into my tastes for a very long time, but it wasn't until recently that I started vivisecting it for more credible reasons than "I don't like chick flicks/soap operas/other degenerating names for lovey dovey things that females are supposed to like". If there's one thing I've learned, it's that something is always wrong at the heart of things whenever the word "female" is incorporated into an instinctive dislike.

The word "female" is also a major hint. Now, I don't socialize with as often or with as many people in real life as the average person, but even I've picked up on myriad tropes of conversation that are ubiquitous for females in their twenties, aka me: Do you have a boyfriend? No? Oh, are you looking for one? No? Oh, you're not interested in a boyfriend? Don't you want kids? Now take that and apply it to every form of media aimed at women, from book to movie to television commercial and everything in between. Being someone with far greater interests in more important issues than the future of my womb, this omnipresent intrusiveness is annoying enough without actively seeking it out in entertainment centered around romance, or rather the series of male fantasies society likes to pretend is acceptable for anyone and everyone.

In short, if you want to sell me a romance, it either needs to avoid the problematic tropes or subvert them entirely, period. Life is short and made even shorter by the majority of others you converse with constantly bringing up a problematic version of love and sex and all that jazz, and as consequence I have no time for that shit in my literature. The issue's insidious enough that even female authors don't realize it most of the time, so let me get to the point already and explain just what I'm doing with this book that all signs say should be putting me off forevermore.

Had it not been for reading Howards End immediately previous, I would have spent the majority of A Room with a View expecting Forster to fail. It's obvious why the latter is far more popular than the former: lots of comedy, lots of twists and turns, lots of outrageous characters, and a minimal amount of the juicy expoundings of thought and form and Big Ideas that I so adored in the previous. Both works operate through a female main character, but in ARwaV it is not until the very end that Forster is giving said character credit for her own intelligent autonomy, thereby showing me that he did indeed know what he was doing.

It's not perfect. I could bring up the usual Edwardian White English Male excuse, but seeing as how this work does romance magnitudes better than the majority of modern day works by both sexes (don't be lazy and consign it to Nora Roberts/50 SoG, that's instinctive dislike based on the word "female" and you know it), I'll forgo the easy "sign of the times" classification. What interests me more is how Forster handled his balance between social justice and individual happiness, less masterful here than in HE but all the more potent for its seeming conformation to the stereotypical "happy ending". True, Lucy running away from George to would have unequivocally demonstrated her refusal to be defined by a man, but in exchange she would be defined by a society with an inherently problematic view of relations between women and men. Love is a human thing that is only achieved through mutual respect and complete lack of defining the other party by their respective parts; Forster's awareness of this, as well as his acknowledgement of the efforts men need to make as consequence of their ideology based privilege, won the day.

Also, he did make me giggle a few times. That's always worth something.

Edwardian-era propriety meets Italian passion with entertaining results in E.M. Forster’s sunny, slight, but ever so charming comedy of manners.

Well-known from the sumptuous Merchant-Ivory adaptation (which I rewatched immediately after finishing the book), the novel tells the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a proper English girl who, while on vacation in Florence with her cousin/chaperone, Miss Bartlett, meets George Emerson, a handsome but odd philosophical soul, who’s travelling with his eccentric, truth-telling father.

All four are staying at the Pension Bertolini, and the others they meet there – the lady novelist Eleanor Lavish, the two older, unmarried sisters (dubbed the Miss Alans), and someone from Lucy’s village, the very accommodating Reverend Arthur Beebe – will cross paths with them later in unexpected ways.

As in the other books by him I’ve read, Forster’s narration is delightfully genial. He’ll remind us, for instance, that we haven’t really spent much time with a particular character, tell us that we know more about Lucy’s actions than she does herself, hint at plot developments to come, and generally treat his characters with a satiric, gently chiding tone. At times that tone can seem trivial; midway through the book I felt it was all just so much upper-middle-class flim flam.

(More quibbles: George’s physical treatment of Lucy, especially in light of today’s sensitivity around consent, seems less romantic than troubling. And I know we’re meant to be at a remove from the authentic Italians in the first half of the book, but I wish we got more than just clichés about tempestuous murderers and horny carriage drivers.)

But there is so much to enjoy in the book: the tart dialogue, the grand themes of love, country vs. city life, fate and coincidence… there’s even a comment on the idea of novels and writers themselves. Lucy’s mother, a fine comic creation, has a preposterous attitude towards female writers that I’m sure Forster, a friend and admirer of Virginia Woolf’s, for one, didn’t share.

I also like that the book’s stuffiest character, Lucy’s fiancé, the pretentious aesthete Cecil Vyse (a whole review could be written on the book’s beautifully suggestive names), comes across with his dignity intact in his later scenes.

If anything, of the main players only the character of George seems the thinnest, which is perhaps why he’s given some intriguing actions in the film (otherwise he might be a cipher). And I like how a significant scene near the end makes us reflect on the nature and motivation of Charlotte.

But above all, I’ll remember this book for its knowing glimpse into the life of a girl discovering her voice, freedom and strength – even in a restrictive society. It’s suggested early in the book that Lucy, a pianist, plays Beethoven in a way that is surprising; if she could apply that same passion to her life it would be quite thrilling to watch.

By the end of the book, we see her begin to do that, and yes, it’s quite something.

n   “It is fate that I am here," George persisted, "but you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.” n

Now, my art history-excursion to Italy hasn't been as life-changing as the one Lucy took, but it was definitely made better by taking this book with me. A Room with a View is a nice, sweet story about a young woman coming into her own, wherein she learns to stand up for herself, her rights as a woman, and her true love.
Take note, this story was written in 1908, but the lessons that Lucy learns actually translate pretty well to our age, which show the modern and progressive views of its author Edward Forster.

The story is divided into two parts: the first one takes place in the city of Florence, and the second part in London, a few months after the vacation. The first part is filled with great descriptions of the churches and streets of Florence (which brought back memories), and with soft-mocking lines about the upper-class English men and women vacationing in the city. They all walk around with their nose stuck in their guidebook and look down upon the Italian citizens, and admidst them we meet Miss Lucy Honeychurch.

Lucy is a naive, young woman who has an open mind, but who gets restricted by her overbearing older cousin Charlotte, and the stiff customs and social rules of English society. Out of that suffocating group of people old Mr. Emerson and his son George emerge, who live without faith (gasp!), polite words, and who have a strong believe in 'heart over head'.
George especially gives Lucy a lot of trouble when one day in the Italian hills, he gives her a passionate kiss. In distress and disarray over her own feelings, Lucy flees to London, where her boring fiancé Cecil Vyse is waiting for her.

Who to choose? Who is the right man for her? Or a better question: will Lucy allow herself to choose? Because although romance plays a major part in this book, it's main focus is on Lucy, who grows from an unenlightened girl into a mature woman.
For a male writer, Forster is a good understander of the doubts and troubles of a young woman, and with his sharp observations of old English behaviour, he shows his readers how wrong it is to ignore your own feelings.

Still, how nice and refreshing Forster's writing style and main character were, I wasn't blown away by the novel. At the end of the book, Forster tells us that he wrote Part One early in his writing-career, and Part Two much later.
This shows: in Part Two the lines and descriptions are much sharper and accurate. The character's actions make sense: for example, the romance between George and Lucy in Part One came out-of-the-blue and felt unrealistic to me.
You can see in Part Two how Forster has grown as a writer: he isn't writing something nice, he's writing because he has something to say. He wants us to learn something, just like Lucy does.

So if you want to read a short story about a woman discovering her own heart's wishes while living in 19th Century England, this book is certainly one for you. While not perfect, Forster shows with this novel his writing skills, and a promise that his later books will have the same class.
For myself, I enjoyed having "A Room" with me while I visited Rome, Ravenna and Milan, and made me curious to read more of Forster's work.

Rating: Good

Genre: Classic

A Room with a View is a story about classes. The first half takes place in Florence, Italy and the second half takes place in England. In Florence, Lucy Honeychurch is visiting Italy with her older cousin Charlotte. At their pension, they want a room with a view that looks into the river Arno. Mr. Emerson and his son George offer them their own rooms but Charlotte gets offended because they are from a lower class. Later Lucy has more encounters with the father and son before she leaves Italy and one kiss changes everything! When Cecil Vyse gets in the picture, he proposes to Lucy, and she accepts. But Cecil is not fond of Lucy’s family and the lower class people she knows. Lucy finds herself struggling between the free-spirited George and the snobbish Cecil, between a system where different classes are separated and a system where all the classes mix together.

Although this book is not long it took me longer than I thought to finish it. The language was not difficult but I felt so many words were used to describe so little. Sometimes things were confusing and I had no idea where the story was heading or what was happening. I appreciate what this might have offered to the world of literature back then but the talk of classes in our times is not that relevant anymore so I feel this classic will feel somehow dated. I remember watching the movie adaptation a long time ago but cannot say it stayed in my memory. The characters are well developed and Lucy’s character is the strongest one in my opinion. I expected to love this book more than I did but that does not change the fact that it is a good book even if it bored me at times.

This book was simply a jolly good time!!

Originally posted on A Frolic Through Fiction

n  Update: review bumped up from 4.5 stars to the full 5 stars!n

You know when you love a book but can’t even explain why?

THAT.

End of review.

No, I’m joking of course.

Although I really am going to have a hard time explaining what it is about this book that stole my heart so easily.

Because right from the first few pages I was in love. But it’s not even like anything really happens in the book. Like a lot of classics, the littlest thing is a massive drama of deceit, betrayal and humiliation in society. Meaning compared to the books/movies/TV shows/stories/news we hear of…well, they’re pretty uneventful.

But somehow, I adored this book. It honestly made my heart sing. Whether it was because I was suddenly in the mood for it, or because this is the sort of classic I like to read, or if it was just E.M Forster’s writing…but something just clicked in exactly the right place for me.

A lot of it was just the general atmosphere of the book. It made me feel like Lucy, wanting to travel to Italy and learn everything she can while there. It gave almost a whimsical glaze over the idea of travelling and discovering new things, and really hit that sense of wanderlust in me. Especially when the surroundings were described so beautifully. I’m telling you: this book is responsible for my future trip to Italy.

But it’s not just Italy. Even the little countryside style town Lucy lives in made me want to go rambling around amongst fields and woodland. I don’t know. I just wholeheartedly wanted to live inside this book. Everything about it was so lovely.

That’s exactly the word I’d choose for this book – n  lovely. n

It’s quaint. Charming. Picturesque. And just outright LOVELY.

The characters were all quite quirky too. There were certainly a fair few that annoyed the hell out of me. But just like Lucy – and most classic characters really – I learned to grin and bare them. Put up a front of civilities. It really did feel like I was inside this book, alongside Lucy Honeychurch. Everything was so genuine to the time, I loved it.

Anyway, I feel like this review is becoming more nonsensical as I write. But basically – I adored this book in a totally unexpected way, and it’s without a doubt a new favourite classic of mine.

Love is in the air--or maybe anxiously repressed--in February and my romantic literature jag begins with A Room with a View, the 1908 novel by E.M. Forster. Like a candy store, this book offers a bounty of treats that I found irresistible. There's a holiday in Italy. There's a boarding house with much ado. There are young lovers Lucy Honeychurch and George Emerson. There are bridges, summer storms and a hillside covered in great blue violets. There's a return to the heroine's home in Surrey, England (dubbed Windy Corner) and intrigue to keep the lovers apart. Experts say that eating too much candy will rot your teeth out, but I left the store with a grin.

The story begins with Miss Charlotte Bartlett chaperoning her younger cousin Miss Lucy Honeychurch as they check in to their hotel, the Pension Bertolini, in Florence. Promised rooms overlooking the Arno River, the ladies are booked into rooms facing a courtyard. Charlotte's "peevish wrangling" gets the attention of an old man who announces that he has a view. He offers to swap rooms with the women and is immediately rebuked by Charlotte, who considers the man ill-bred and his proposal untoward. An Anglican clergyman named Mr. Beebe, who Charlotte recognizes from Lucy's parish of Spring Street in the countryside of Surrey, compels her to accept the trade.

Once Mr. Emerson and his son George exchange rooms with the women, the guests are seated for dinner. Recalling his parishioner's talent on the piano, Mr. Beebe finds himself much more engaged by Lucy, who only seeks to please, and maybe enjoy herself on her holiday, over the fussy Charlotte. At dinner, a little old lady drops into the conversation offering unsolicited tourist advice; her name is Miss Eleanor Lavish. The next morning, while Charlotte rests, Miss Lavish offers to escort Lucy on an adventure. The old lady demands Lucy shut her Baedeker guidebook, which she believes touches only the surface of things.

Accordingly, they drifted through a series of those gray-brown streets, neither commodious nor picturesque, in which the eastern quarter of the city abounds. Lucy soon lost interest in the discontent of Lady Louisa, and became discontented herself. For one ravishing moment Italy appeared. She stood in the Square of the Annunziata and saw in the living terracotta those divine babies whom no cheap reproduction can ever stale. There they stood, with their shining limbs bursting from the garments of charity, and their strong white arms extended against circlets of heaven. Lucy thought she had never seen anything more beautiful; but Miss Lavish, with a shriek of dismay, dragged her forward, declaring that they were out of their path now by at least a mile.

Lucy and Miss Lavish end up in the Basilica of Santa Croce, where the escort becomes distracted by her "local colour box" and abandons Lucy to gab with him. Lucy enters the Franciscan church and encounters Mr. Emerson, whose son George invites Lucy to join them. Mr. Emerson's theological opinions grow so boisterous that his voice drowns out a tour group led by a fellow guest, a curate named Mr. Eager. Lucy finds Mr. Emerson to be foolish, irreligious and the sort that her mother would not want her to associate with, and she is unnerved by the melancholy of George. Conversely, Mr. Emerson feels sorry for Lucy, so concerned with doing what she thinks will please others.

While Miss Lavish and Charlotte pair up, Lucy feels left out. She goes alone to the Piazza Signoria, purchasing photographs and other objects of beauty she comes across. Lucy stumbles into an argument between two Italian men which turns violent, with one stabbing and killing the other. As she swoons, George Emerson comes to her rescue. Escorting Lucy back to the pension, George returns to the square upon her request retrieve her photographs, which he awkwardly disposes of in the Arno, explaining that they had blood on them. Discussing the murder they've witnessed and how to move forward, George replies cryptically, "I shall want to live, I say."

Lucy agrees to join Charlotte, the Emersons, Mr. Beebe, Miss Lavish and Mr. Eager on an excursion by carriage to the summit of the Torre del Gallo. She learns that Miss Lavish aspires to write a novel about Florence. Lucy is pelted with questions by the little old lady about the murder she witnessed. Mr. Eager joins Charlotte in his contempt for the widowed Mr. Emerson, who the curate blames for the death of Mrs. Emerson. Since her brush with death, Lucy has begun to see through the pretensions of her fellow travelers. The carriage party splits up and when Lucy stumbles in a field of deep-blue violets, she is kissed by George Emerson. Her cousin witnesses the act.

"Well, I am no prude. There is no need to call him a wicked young man, but obviously he is thoroughly unrefined. Let us put it down to his deplorable antecedents and education, if you wish. But we are no further on with our question. What do you propose to do?"

An idea rushed across Lucy's brain, which, had she thought of it sooner and made it part of her, might have proved victorious.

"I propose to speak to him," said she.

Miss Bartlett uttered a cry of genuine alarm.

"You see, Charlotte, your kindness--I shall never forget it. But--as you said--it is my affair. Mine and his."

Rather than speak to George Emerson, Lucy buckles under her cousin's will and departs for Rome in the morning. Three months later, she has returned home with a fiancé named Cecil Van Vyse. From her family home in the Surrey hills, a country district developed by her late father they call Windy Corner, Mrs. Honeychurch and Lucy's teenage brother Freddy discuss the engagement. Freddy doesn't hate Cecil, but doesn't much like him, while Lucy's mother finds her son-in-law "clever, rich and well-connected." A man of high ideals who sees through Lucy as if she were a work of art rather than a woman, Cecil is contemptuous of the local society affairs his bride drags him to.

Cecil decides to have some sport with a neighbor in Windy Corner who seeks to let a cottage. Though Lucy makes overtures to a pair of dear old English ladies she met in Florence called the Miss Alans to take the house, Cecil brokers the cottage for a father and son he meets in a London art museum, the Emersons. Freddy invites George Emerson for a swim in a hidden pond he knows well, with the vicar Mr. Beebe reluctantly tagging along. When she is reunited with George, Lucy struggles to keep her composure, even though her Florence affair is half-naked and wet. His relationship with Lucy known only to George and to Charlotte, Freddy invites George for tennis at Windy Corner.

The intrigue rises when Lucy learns that her mother has invited Charlotte down from London to repair at Windy Corner while her plumbing is being fixed. Cecil becomes obsessed with an awful novel he's discovered and as he reads the prose aloud, Lucy discovers it to be Miss Lavish's book. The account of Florence contains a thinly veiled version of Lucy's brief encounter with George, which she is forced to relive with George present as her fiancé reads it aloud. Lucy confronts her cousin about betraying her confidence to Miss Lavish and confronted by George alone, is again kissed by him. George urges her not to marry Cecil and Lucy is torn between who she will elect to disappoint.

The contest lay not between love and duty. Perhaps there never is such a contest. It lay between the real and the pretended, and Lucy's first aim was to defeat herself. As her brain clouded over, as the memory of the views grew dim and the words of the book died away, she returned to her old shibboleth of nerves. She "conquered her breakdown". Tampering with the truth, she forgot that the truth had ever been. Remembering that she was engaged to Cecil, she compelled herself to confused remembrances of George: he was nothing to her; he never had been anything, he had behaved abominably; she had never encouraged him. The armour 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.

A Room with a View is divided into two parts--Florence and Windy Corner--and I was twittering (in the 20th century sense) through part one. Lucy Honeychurch is such a passive character initially, bullied by her cousin, hounded by her mother's values and introduced to outspoken men she has been told to disapprove of. Forster devotes a great deal of attention to Lucy's henpecking and I was struck by how long the poor girl put up with it. The author's sumptuous prose and travelogue kept me engaged, and when he moves the story to England, it takes off. Freddy Honeychurch is quite a pinball, while Lucy's fiancé Cecil Van Vyse is a dickhead for all times.

He saw that the local society was narrow, but instead of saying, "Does this very much matter?" he rebelled, and tried to substitute for it the society he called broad. He did not realize that Lucy had consecrated her environment by the thousand little civilities that create a tenderness in time, and that through her eyes saw its defects her heart refused to despite it entirely. Nor did he realize a more important point--that if she was too great for this society she was too great for all society, and had reached the stage where personal intercourse would alone satisfy her. A rebel she was, but not of the kind he understood--a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but equality beside the man she loved. For Italy was offering her the most priceless of all possessions--her own soul.

While Lucy's thoughts and passions are masked in Florence, once the story moves to Windy Corner, Freddy and Cecil show no decorum and through those characters, Forster's wit is unbound. There's a wonderful comedy of manners in which the boys harangue Charlotte Bartlett to accept reimbursement for her cab ride over, with neither side willing to lose face by taking money when that is exactly what each side wants. Lucy does slowly assert herself and finds her own voice amid all the henpecking, but the young lovers are eclipsed by Freddy and Cecil and the novel, despite Forster's delightful writing and seasonable insights, comes up just short of complete satisfaction.

The furor stirred up by a woman simply kissing a man on holiday was difficult for me to relate to, but by the end of the book, I came to appreciate the awakening Lucy experienced. E.M. Forster wrote six novels, five of which have been adapted to film, including A Room with a View in 1986, which was nominated for eight Academy Awards. Produced by Ismail Merchant and directed by James Ivory, it features Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy Honeychurch, Maggie Smith as Charlotte Bartlett, Julian Sands as George Emerson, Daniel Day-Lewis as Cecil Van Vyse, Denholm Elliott as Mr. Emerson and Judi Dench as Miss Lavish. Forster's character names sing and so does this novel.

حكاية كلاسيكية تقليدية، ترتسم بهدوء وبطء في زمن ينتمي إلى الحقبة الفائتة، أما شخوصها فمعتادة وشبيهة بكل روايات المجتمع الإنكليزي.

" لقد توسعت مداركها؛ أحست أنه لا يوجد أي شخص لا يمكنها أن تحبه، وأن الحواجز الاجتماعية كانت عصية على الإزالة دون شك، ولكنها ليست عالية على نحو خاص. يمكنك القفز من فوقها كما تقفز إلى حقل زيتون لفلاح في جبال الأبنين الإيطالية، ويكون هو سعيداً برؤيتك. لقد عادت بعينين جديدتين. "

لكن - ودون أن يتناقض ذلك - مع سلاستها وهدوئها الظاهري، فباطنها يخبئ الكثير من الزوابع والصراعات المكتومة؛ بين محاولات الثبات والنهوض مجدداً من أجل الاستقلالية الأنثوية، والتشتت بين ما يمليه المجمتع وما تميل إليه الروح، تدور أحداث القصة المعروفة .. وعلى الرغم من ذلك فقد اسمتعت بها واستهوتني بساطتها كما كل كلاسيكيات القرن الماضي.

" كم من النادر أن يُرد على الحب بالحب ... هذه واحدة من اللحظات التي صُنع العالم من أجلها. "

This was interesting.

A little reminiscent of Jane Austen, this was about Lucy--a woman caught between one guy she loves but who doesn't belong to her social class (George) and one wealthy guy who she doesn't care for (Cecil). The bigger struggle, naturally, was whether to quietly respect the social conventions of her day or to rebel and do her own thing.

I must say I enjoyed the first 45% of the book much more than the rest. It became boring halfway through, and I found that I didn't really care much for George and only partially liked Lucy. Overall, it was enjoyable enough, I guess, and some quotes were pretty cool.

n  “Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?”n

When I first tried an audiobook version of this a few days ago, I found it boring and hard to understand. Then I switched and tried another, and it was so much better. I finally grasped the difference that a voice actor can make when it comes to audiobooks.

E.M. Forster had me sighing with pleasure as I read A Room with a View for the very first (but certainly not the last) time when I was a naive teenager.



I also loved the 1985 film adaptation with Helena Bonham-Carter. (I've watched bits of the 2008 Masterpiece Theatre version starring Elaine Cassidy, but only Sinead Cusack's performance held my interest. The 2008 version was not very good, and the screenwriter changed the ending! Sacrilege!) The 1985 movie had a stellar cast, remained pretty faithful to the novel, and the colours and scenes were glorious!



This novel had everything: upstart tourists in Florence, Italy complaining about not having a room with a view, a bloody altercation in the market square, and two young people destined to be in love despite the odds and their respective social classes.



I think it is time once again for me to dig out my old copy of this fabulously lyrical masterpiece. I loved the grandiose emotions set loose amongst a group of unsuspecting tourists. Highly recommended!

Teria dado as quatro estrelas se não fosse por uma primeira parte muito ao estilo da opera bufa. Muito exagero, muita teatralidade que não me pareceram reais nem deixaram as personagens fluírem.

A nossa heroína foi bem contruída, mas a sua mensagem não passou inteiramente devido a estes pretensiosismos. Na sociedade eduardiana em que as mulheres eram para serem vistas e não ouvidas, Lucy atreveu-se a querer ser vista e ouvida e mais: casar por amor com quem lhe apetece e imagine-se! ser correspondida.

Depois, temos todos os elementos dessa sociedade: o clérigo coscuvilheiro, a prima solteirona, uma mãe condescendente e um irmão muito agarotado. Uma coisa de que gostei: uma familia amorosa, que se apoiam e compreendem mutuamente.
Não desisto do Sr. Forster, mas não me agradou inteiramente.