She recalled the free, pleasant life of her home, where she was allowed to do everything, and where nothing ever happened to her. The road up through the pine-woods, the clean drawing-room, the view over the Sussex Weald—all hung before her bright and distinct, but pathetic as the pictures in a gallery to which, after much experience, a traveller returns.

Oh, to become a new person in the hills of Florence, in the burning blue of wavering violets, in the setting sun of what once was.

I had every intention of loving A Room with a View, and I did like it, but something always held me back from falling in love. I’m not fully knowledgeable about Victorian social mores, so some of the humor didn’t always land for me; I believe that is the main connection I failed to make.

Besides a humorous deconstruction of nonsensical social etiquette, we have a delightful tale of lost innocence and a widening of a young woman’s world-view. Got to love that.

Poderia ser um grande romance, não fosse a sua protagonista, nas palavras do senhor Emerson, uma moça confusa. E de facto Lucy é uma moça confusa. Um pouco parece que sabe o que quer e no minuto seguinte deixa de saber. Ainda simpatizei com o George Emerson, mas depois também me pareceu um pouco morcão, mas lá se entendeu com a Lucy.
No meio desta gente toda parece-me que a mais fina era a menina Bartlett.
Não deixa saudades.

A Room with a View by E.M Forster what a delight! This is a Wharton-like comedic piece taking a cynical look at the chattering classes, it is also a love story – a magnificent love story!

We start in the beautiful city of Florence in the early 1900s – where a small group of English well-to-doers are sharing a guesthouse – nattering, bickering, gossiping and drinking tea. It seems most of this group were held captive by the suffocating requirements of high-society and all its associated social mores of the times. Our main character Lucy is a likeable but flighty young thing and is being chaperoned by her cousin, Miss Bartlett. Now I found this cousin of Lucy’s particularly unlikable, she is a bit of a ‘stick in the mud’ and sounds like dreadful company and not a good influence on lovely Lucy at all.

To provide some insight into how the English upper crust viewed locals when overseas, read these comments which were particularly discomforting:

”I quite agree with you, Miss Allen, The Italians are a most unpleasant people”

”An Italian’s ignorance is sometimes more remarkable than his knowledge”

There’s a couple of religious blokes along for the ride – Mr Beebe (a rector back home) a good natured and harmless fellow, and then there’s Mr Eager an ex-pat, living in Florence who is particularly detestable. Uuuuurrrgghh – but the most disagreeable of all for me was the poisonous Cecil Vyse. This man, who ensnares the delightful Lucy into engagement – is rich, upper-class, negative, snide, a smart arse, a know all and boorish (and they are his better qualities!).

Any story like this needs a hero – and this spot is capably filled by the old Mr Emerson wonderfully assisted by his son George. These guys are great, particularly Dad – he speaks his mind, is generous of spirit and a very open book. But he tends to offend those around him, which is hardly surprising.

Oh my, what a suffocatingly proper bunch.

So for those who haven’t read this classic, this is a love story – like any good love story, the progression to the desired outcome and be bloody agonising, there were times I felt like jumping into the page and giving those concerned a good shaking (dangerous I know!!!) and making them stop, listen and see – and just follow your feelings and your hearts!

Sometimes love stories are the most suspenseful of all.

This was truly sumptuous. Not only does Forster describe the place of Florence (and Rome – see Baths of Caracalla pic – sorry I tend to relate everything to Rome!) beautifully, but he also creates the scenes making the reader feel like we are there. However, some of the depictions of the Italians were not so flattering. He describes the intricate dynamics between the stuffy characters brilliantly. Very tongue in cheek at times – not quite as biting/funny as Wharton though in my view. Forster also describes the inner-workings of women so well, (Disclaimer – see I am a fella…..”Mark”, so I cannot be 100% sure) and all of their associated dramas.



Lucy was lucky enought to visit the Baths of (that bastard) Caracalla - one of the nastiest Emperors of Ancient Rome, and a complete tool. But this complex was very impressive

This is a page-turner, it wasn’t unusual for me to go to bed at 1am, I read and enjoyed this slowly.

This afternoon I will shut the curtains and blinds, make a cup of tea (grab a couple of Oreos – not English I know), crank up the volume and enjoy. Oh boy the film had better do this story justice!

5 Stars

Movie comments to follow…..The Movie was excellent of course updated 22/05/2023

“'Life,' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.'”

8/3/23: Listening to this 1908 E.M. Forster novel for the first time after having read it decades ago and (of course) having seen the lovely and hilarious film many times. I dedicate this reading to the wonderful and adventurous Julian Sands, a nature boy playing George, a nature boy! Rest in Peace. Julian! And I read this summer book to reclaim a bit of this frighteningly brutally hot summer back with Forster's gracious prose. Viva Italia! Viva the Emersons and Mr. Beebe!

Viva the life of the Emersonian spirit:

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv...

8/4/23: What I am noticing on this reread is the light under-current of acknowledging the homosexuality of Mr. Beebe, an "admirer" of women but best to "live alone." Forster writes Beebe, gay, in a 1908 novel; trying to claim a place for himself and his gay (and non-homophobic) readers in his text.

*I have no idea early on why the Emersons would have any interests in the shallow Lucy Honeychurch (the very Church of Honey!?), who never smiles or has an interesting insight for most of the book. Oh, I know, this is what the book is about, a coming-of-age novel, the awakening of Lucy, but it is amusing (but still disappointing) that she agrees readily to marry the smug fop Cecil (oh, Daniel Day Lewis, so wonderful). This is a satirical novel, a critique of social conventions where having a "view" in a hotel while traveling is seen as more important than having open, kind, generous views about others and each other. Maggie Smith as Charlotte! Deliciously vapid! What a fine (and light, not nasty) send-up of British snobbery, of upper class Brits failing to fully appreciate the Italians or the beauty of Italy. So much fun. And yes, we in this country, the US, have plenty send-ups of Ugly Americans, I know, my Brit friends. It's not dark satire, at any rate.

*I like the undercurrent of political/social commentary in the book. Emerson is an open atheist and an avowed socialist, in addition to being a clear sensualist.

*Speaking of Julian Sands playing George; as you know Sands died in a storm on a strenuous hike. In Room With a View George is also lost in a storm, and Lucy cries,"Lost? Lost? Oh but he might be killed!" A weird moment, a little chilling to read it now.

*I like the mildly homo-erotic (?) pond bathing scene where George, Freddy and Mr. Beebe get nekkid and splash around joyously together as their stuffy neighbors pass by, including Lucy and Cecil.

8/5: I had forgotten all the later chapter titles, "Lucy Lies to Cecil," "Lucy Lies to George," "Lucy Lies to Mister Beebe," and so on. She's in self-denial, and needs to come to self-awareness.

I love it that Miss Lavish, the novelist they all meet in Florence, writes them into her novel of Italy, including information Charlotte had promised not to tell anyone. Hearing Cecil reading scenes to the group without awareness that Lavish was describing the group is funny.

I have still been struggling to see why it is such an Emersonian sensualist as George might fall in love with such a victim of social convention such as Lucy Honeychurch, but it is through music that she betrays her passion, the clearest indication that she has the potential to be an independent spirt (which is the only foundation for a relationship that George would ever agree to). And that's the point, that this is a coming-of-age story for Lucy, who must break through the walls of conventionality to be her own person. music is part of the road she takes to self-discovery.

“Does it seem reasonable that she should play so wonderfully, and live so quietly? I suspect that one day she will be wonderful in both. The water-tight compartments in her will break down, and music and life will mingle.”

Maybe this gets spoilerish for anyone who has not yet read or seen this, but I love the break-up
scene, where Forster makes the good Cecil into an actual sympathetic character! Only a great writer like Forster could do that, but it's consistent with Forster's view about kindness and connection. Cecil is not good with people, and that is the most important thing in life, to care about each other, so we can't finally be mean about Cecil.

“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”

I love love love George's passionate declaration for Lucy; powerful and convincing.

“This desire to govern a woman—it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together.... But I do love you surely in a better way than he does." He thought. "Yes—really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold you in my arms.”

I love the final discussion between Mr. Emerson (“Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.”) and Lucy, where he confronts her on her self-deception and lies.

“It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal"--Mr. Emerson (hey, it's a romance!: “Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way.”)

“Do you remember Italy?” I do!

En realidad 3'5.
La historia en si no me ha gustado, de hecho ha habido partes que me han aburrido,..y sin embargo me ha gustado mucho el trasfondo, las ideas que el autor defiende de igualdad entre hombres y mujeres y la igualdad entre personas independientemente de su clase social.
El hecho de que parte de la novela transcurra en Florencia y las bellas descripciones que hace Forster, no hace más que inclinar la balanza a su favor.
Con ganas de leer Un Pasaje a la India :) .

3 Stars for A Room With A View (audiobook) by E. M. Forster read by Frederick Davidson.

It’s hard for me to get my mind around how different a time this was. It’s almost like a fantasy story about a place that you’ll never get to visit and a people with customs that you’ll never understand.

This is a very pleasant (I almost wrote "relaxing") read, for all of Lucy's muddle. Once again, I'm almost ashamed that I didn't read it years ago.

Considered by many to be Forster's sunny day, and most optimistic novel, would start off in Italy, an Inn in Florence to be precise. Two sweet Edwardian females, Miss Lucy Honeychurch (adorable name) and her cousin, Charlotte the chaperone have a bit of a dilemma whilst holidaying, the silly Inn keeper promised them rooms with a view looking out onto the Arno River, but they end up facing the courtyard. (I would have gladly faced the courtyard if it meant being a Tuscan tourist, would have even bedded down in the cellar come to think of it, rats and all). But as luck would have it, two budding hero's come to the rescue. Mr. Emerson, an old man seated with them at dinner suggests that Lucy and Charlotte trade rooms with him and his son, George, which, after first being rather offended at the proposal are advised to do by the Reverend Beebe, a clergyman staying in the same place, who is soon to become the vicar of Lucy's Parish back in Surrey, England.

The early part of the novel really showcases Forster's use of dialogue, that finds a good balance between beauty and delicacy, between honesty and propriety. When Lucy ventures out into Florence with the romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, she runs into the Emersons at the church of Santa Croce. Speaking bluntly, Lucy is torn between accepting kindness and taking offense of the attention, when asked by Mr. Emerson to befriend his son George, Lucy becomes uncomfortable, and hides any emotion, could it be that she is already prematurely in love with someone she only recently met? Especially after she witnesses an altercation, which ends up with her falling into George's arms after a fainting episode.

The novel's second half picks up some months later in Surrey, in a house named Windy Corner. The house belongs to the Honeychurch family. And it now appears Lucy has gained entry to an even better society, with that of the sour Cecil Vyse, who has been granted Lucy's hand in marriage (no, Lucy, don't do it!!). Cecil is an imbecile, and sees Lucy as nothing more than a work of art, something to show off, like a fancy antique painting. At heart he is a snob, he just doesn't realize it.
It also becomes apparent Cecil has two so called friends, yes, the Emersons!, who arrive back on the scene after a property becomes available on Summer Street, all to the fury of Lucy, who would go on to call off the engagement (good girl!), but not for the love of George. Er..of course not my dear.

The acutely observed characters feel so real in this novel and he breathes life into them in such a humane way, although I didn't like them all, it was a pleasure to be in their company. Lucy is quite possibly the most fully fleshed, so much so that even when she lies to herself and to those around her, I found myself sympathizing with her situation instead of condemning her actions. Among many things, A Room with a View is a coming of age story about one young woman's entry into adulthood, and the struggles that face Lucy as she emerges as her own woman, growing from indecision to fulfillment. She is torn between strict, old-fashioned Victorian values and newer, more liberal morals. In the tussle her own idea of what is true evolves and matures.

George, troubled by an existential crisis at such a young age, doesn't understand how life can be truly joyful and fulfilling, and seemed shadowed by a dark enigma and a has a question mark above his head. The two are united by a shared appreciation for beauty, which might be captured in their love of views: Lucy adored the view of the Arno, whilst George remembers a time of with his parents gazing at a view. Each possesses what the other needs, it just takes some soul-searching for them to realize it. George finds simple pleasure in the company of the Honeychurchs, Lucy finds an inner courage to recognize her own individuality through time spent with the Emersons.

The story did meander here and there in places, but the novels strength definitely lies in its vivid cast of characters, especially the deep exploration of Lucy's attitude towards life and love. With some great humorous dialogue, and a playful nature, I was very impressed indeed!

Without trying to sound completely melodramatic, this book changed my life; well a chapter from this book, in fact it was a single paragraph! In the chapter entitled Lying to Cecil, the penultimate paragraph exposed me for the fool I had been. Following a horrible divorce, I vowed never to allow myself to be that vulnerable again, so that I could never again be that hurt. It wasn't until I read that paragraph that I realised what I was doing to myself. Years later, I'm happily married to a wonderful woman whom I trust and hold nothing back from. And this book, because everything that lead up to that paragraph played a role, was the chief instigator of my current joy. So how could I not give it 5 stars!

It's amazing to think that the words penned by a man who died over 50 years ago still have the power to genuinely change a complete stranger's life. You gotta love books

˗ˏˋ 4 ˎˊ˗ ★
﹂ slight spoilers ahead.

It is undoubtable that E.M. Forester's writing is beautiful. So many scenes and passages had me holding my breath they were so beautiful; I could vividly imagine the locations Forester tenderly created.

However, I struggled to immerse myself in the first, third of 'A Room with a View'. Predominantly, I found Lucy Honeychurch extremely difficult to connect to and found her particularly unlikable at certain points. She was fickle, easily swayed, arrogant at times, whilst also seeming insecure and unsure of herself and opinions. I frequently found myself getting extremely aggravated with her changing opinions towards other characters, especially undeservedly.

Though during the early stages of the book, I hadn't realised this was likely Forester’s intention because as the story progresses, Lucy slowly realises her easily mouldable nature and takes pains to form her own opinions. The second and third acts of this book were much more enjoyable and I flew through them.

The romance within the story painted an interesting perspective on changing attitudes towards femininity, tradition, and modernity; with the two suitors vying for the protagonists' love and attention representing the different stances. Moreover, I appreciated Forester's nuance and willingness to allude that such opinions were not black and white and both perspectives did not exist in a vacuum.

‘A Room with a View’ was a charming read, full of care and love about the coming of age of a young woman, and illustrates the importance of finding a place in the world that is true to you.

Some emergency teacher I had one day between the ages of twelve and fourteen told the class about a thing called ‘active reading’. From memory, she engaged us in exercises for predicting and anticipating what is ahead and hence we read both faster, and fuller, absorbing more of the text in this way. Now, I’m not sure what kind of prose she based this idea on, but her ideas came back to me while reading Room with a View. But I realised the opposite of what she was saying. I realised that predictable sentences and action suggest the book isn’t worth reading. I mean, why do you need to read a book if it sets out to fulfil your expectations? Shouldn’t a book (of some literary credibility) aim to introduce something fresh and new and provide an expansive experience?

I realised then why I toss books aside or glance at pages of new books in a bookshop only to abandon them. And until now I couldn’t put a finger on what it was that made me discard a book quickly – it was the predictability of the author’s writing. I realised too, that this applied as much today to award winning books as it did to books of genre where predictability is intended. Perhaps writing schools teach this sort of thing, to give the reader what they want, that way you satisfy them. And the common denominator of consumer satisfaction is achieved. So, a $25 book can only give you its cover price value. It can't give you any more than that.

I had disregarded EM Forster for years based on how much I didn’t like A Passage to India and how his books were caught up the Merchant-Ivory film experience. (That and he seemed like yet another English toff member of a Bloomsbury group, something I heard about but ignored in my modern literature studies years ago).

I ended up reading A View because I was reading Jacob Burckhardt’s Civilisation of the Renaissance (1860), the book that gave the world the term Renaissance and a book Forster would’ve known. I thought I had read this book years ago, but couldn’t be certain.

But I was wrong about Forster. I love the writing, though, it’s not an easy read, Forster does something interesting with his syntax and the rhythm of his sentences. They are full of detail, building on details and internally and externally allusive. Good writers like Forster keep me going over the sentences and thinking backwards and forwards through the book for its meaning and the possibilities of the destination (or no destination at all). Forster writes unpredictable sentences, takes my reading experience to places I didn’t expect, works language intelligently and dramatically, and offers more than the price of the book sale. So, the book is no candidate for active reading in the sense my teacher tried to teach. But you do need to read with all your senses and an open mind.

A View is expertly structured. Florence first part, rural-suburban England second part. There are doublings and couplings everywhere (a kind of Shakespearian technique). There’s the Miss Alans, the sisters referred to in singular form, though you know there are two. Pairs of travellers – Lucy Honeychurch and her elder cousin, Miss Bartlett, two Emersons, father and son. Two rooms each in the pension Bertolini. Miss Lavish appears as herself in Italy and with a nom de plume in the second part. There are two sides visible in people, the one that polite society thinks of you and the part you actually are. So, Mr Henderson is both a wife murderer in the eyes of the ridiculously opinionated Beebe because he can easily define and categorise a man with a working-class background. On the other hand, Mr Emerson is wise, polite and considered. Lucy Honeychurch is told what to think of him and his son. But she seems capable from the early pages to see more in people. She has a more direct route to understanding people. If only she was left alone to have and explore her own reactions to people. She has a passion stirring in her that we see in her playing of the piano. Perhaps she is the woman emerging from the constraints of Victorian England, too. Though this direct path to her emotions, clearly evident to the reader early on, will be thwarted by class, circumstances and the inability for people to know what they want in the society she grows up in. And Florence has two sides, too. On the one hand it is considered by our English tourists as the place of culture, art, a high point in human development. Yet its people are venal and base (according to these same English), violent (there is a significant murder in a square). And as I recently learned reading Burckhardt, all this high culture of the 15thC was earned after the violent, tyrannical 14thC where individualism was borne off the back violent ascensions to power on the Italian peninsula.

Chapter fifteen is so brilliant, bringing together so many elements of the story, pairing incidents, referencing itself expertly, as the story approaches its comedic resolution. (Not a funny ending, but comedy in the sense of Shakespeare’s comedies where all the elements are brought together in happy conclusion.)

That’s just one little element I noticed in the story. There are many others. A good read. An active read, but not in the way my teacher explained. You want to read a book like this for the depth of its thinking and style. Thankfully, I’ve had the chance to see it for what it is. Like Lucy sees who she loves more clearly (Shakespearean play on words intended).

I have a copy of Where Eagles Fear to Tread on the shelf for the future.

There is a great line in A Room with a View about a book that has been abandoned in a garden: The garden was deserted except for a red book, which lay sunning itself upon the gravel path.
The author then describes what the main characters are doing in various locations adjacent to the garden, but meanwhile the red book is allowed to be caressed all the morning by the sun and to raise its covers slightly, as though to acknowledge the caress. The description of the book seems very innocent but the reader’s attention is immediately caught. What is the significance of this book within a book, we wonder, and why does it have a 'red' cover.

As it turns out, the immediate purpose of the red-covered book on that sunny English morning is to move the story along, quickly and dramatically. The red book causes certain things to happen that wouldn't otherwise have happened as if it were in fact a character in the novel with a voice of its own. The plot is really very neat and makes for an entertaining read. The backdrops Forster uses for the action are interesting too: the shifting class structure and the new ideas on religion and politics which were emerging in England in the last decades of the nineteenth century. But my favorite aspect of this beautiful novel is 'Art'. Even when everything else is in flux, Art is a constant and reliable reference which Forster returns to again and again.

The first half of A Room with a View takes place in Florence. The characters meet and avoid each other in a number of locations throughout the city: at the Santa Croce church adorned with frescos by Giotto; in the Piazza Della Signoria where Michaelangelo's David stares across at Benvenuto Cellini's bloody Medusa under the Loggia dei Lanzi; at the San Miniato church, its beautiful facade visible from the very room of the title. Practically every scene in the Italian half of the book features some work of art or another, directly or indirectly. When the characters take a trip into the hills, landscape artists are recalled. When they view Giotto's frescos, their different reactions mirror their approaches to life and living. Forster continually uses the adjectives 'michaelangelesque' and 'leonardesque' to describe the opposing facets of the characters. Once I began to notice that pattern, I recorded it in the status updates but there were more examples than I've listed there.

All of this is by way of explaining that Forster creates a juxtaposition of two modes of being in this novel, the cool and sedate versus the sublimely passionate, as if he himself is involved in some balancing act between sedate predictable prose and wildly unpredictable romanticism, between his own rational leonardesque qualities and his more michaelangelesque tendencies, between the English half of the novel and the Italian half.

Two of the characters are symbols of those two extremes. Lucy Honeychurch's entourage, especially her cousin Charlotte Bartlett, would like to keep Lucy on the side of the sedate. George Emerson and his father would like Lucy to step over into their own more dynamic world. I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's Night and Day which offers similar contrasts and challenges and a similarly nuanced resolution.

I was unsure about what destiny Forster actually wanted for his main characters. According to the introduction, he wrote two different outcomes though only one exists today. However, in the end, it is as if the characters resolve the situation for themselves. Charlotte Bartlett emerges as a curious and unlikely deus ex machina, and the title of the innocent-looking book, sunning itself in the English garden, turns out to be ‘Under a Loggia’, nicely connecting the two halves of the novel and helping to resolve the dilemmas of the characters.
.........………………………………………
I've chosen two images that I think illustrate Forster's adjectives 'leonardesque' and 'michaelangelesque'. Leonardo's 'Annunciation' (in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence):


and one of Michelangelo's unfinished 'imprisoned slaves' (now in the Academia Gallery, Florence):


For some further thoughts on how Forster merges his story with the art of Florence, see my review of The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.
I read both Forster's and Cellini's books while visiting the Tuscan capital last month and found interesting parallels between them.