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My argument for reading this book is in quotes like these:
"There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain amount of light,' he continued in measured tones. '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, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”
If for nothing else, even if you don’t read the book, look up some quotes, because you will find little lessons to keep.
When I think of this novel, I inevitably think of violets, and of a roaring river beside an Italian city that I have never been. It’s windswept vistas and the palpable confusion between who we think we are and who we want to be; it’s the color purple and the earthy fragrance of woods after rain. I can see it clearly, because Forster's way with words is truly a window into another space. This book provides a view of places unseen and truths unspoken.
I’m not going to say much about the plot here, as I think what is going on internally is so much more important than the external plot. Loosely, A Room with a View is about Lucy Honeychurch’s life changing trip through Italy, and the ramifications of that trip when she returns home to England. It illustrates the importance of travel, how it can open us up to different views.
"She might be forgetting her Italy, but she was noticing more things in her England."
It has the essence of travel, the yearning to explore and learn, that yearning to explore the world in general. It is a feeling most of us can relate to. DON’T, READ THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE A NAGGING ITCH TO GO TO ITALY.
Forster worked on what he called "The Lucy novel" for over six years, returning to it in between other projects. He was strongly influenced by Jane Austen, and married her romantic novel of manners style with the traditionally male tourist novel. And thus, A Room with a View was born. His focus was on the tension between characters understanding things going on internally and being able to do anything externally with their understanding. A lot of what Forster writes about here, and in his other works, is closely tied to his own view and struggles in life. As Moffat says in the introduction of my edition, "Forster sorted out paths in fiction, and discarded them in life." This is something we can do too if we are wise.
"He has the merit—if it is one—of saying exactly what he means." "It is so difficult—at least, I find it difficult—to understand people who speak the truth.”
The inequity between what we feel and what we say is a major theme, and I feel that it is well done here because Forster struggled with this in his own life. He was a gay man in the wake of the “Wilde trials” and he knew that to be honest with himself would be certain doom. To this end, his novel “Maurice” wasn’t published until after his death, because it focused on a homosexual relationship. With this knowledge, you can read A Room with a View through the same subtext. At its core, the plot is focused on Lucy’s dilemma between two men, one upper class, while the other is lower class. She struggles with her feelings because they are completely against what the society that makes up her worldview believe in. Forster likely suffered similarly with his own feelings. Forster was enamored with this idea of natural disposition versus societal predilection towards rigidity. One of my favorite passages illustrates this:
"Don't go fighting the spring." "War not with the may." "Do you suppose there's any difference in spring in nature and spring in man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both”
Spring here is s a metaphor for the natural change in humans, the evolution we all experiences as we move through the seasons of our life, especially in terms of a seemingly positive change. We are all so excited when the dregs of winter dissipate into the warmth and sun of the spring, yet it is not always celebrated when people emerge from their own personal winters into their spring.
The story is set in the Edwardian era, in the shadow of modernity. It is an interesting setting, in which the older people are set in rigid social constructs, while the young people such as Lucy are beginning to question why these boundaries exist in the first place. Theres a great section where the characters debate this amongst themselves:
"It makes a difference, doesn't it, whether we fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?” This is a great conversation, still relevant today.
The idea of feminism was becoming popular around this time, and that was another layer to all of this, amidst all the class divide. Lucy is plagued by strange flights of rebellion, feelings pulling her towards places and ideas traditionally withheld from women.
"Why? Why were most big things unladylike? Charlotte had once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, them despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been written to illustrate this point.”
"There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have gone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She reigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was queen of much early Victorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business, sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well. But alas! the creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are springing up strange desires. She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea. She has marked the kingdom of this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and war—a radiant crust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the receding heavens."
This book while written by a man, so succinctly peels back the layers of what it means to be a woman in this time. Further, he explores what a woman and a man should be to each other. Lucy is grappling with this throughout the novel. Forster describes her as “a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling room, but equality beside the man she loved." Something so simple, a desire to be seen as equal, is completely groundbreaking in the era Lucy lives.
From the very beginning, there is a focus on the difference between the medieval and the modern way of thinking about socialization. Again, A Room with a View is in this between time, a time where the older generation is fixated on social decorum and rules, while the youth are beginning to challenge these ideas. One of the dearest quotes to my heart is this, from our recently Italy initiated Lucy:
"have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?" "She was determined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than delicate," Remember: delicacy and strict adherence to boundaries does not always endear. beauty is often indelicate and honest.
One of the last and most important lesson Forster leaves us with is this: “Beware of muddle.”
"It isn't possible to love and to 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.”
It is easy to confuse things, because it can be hard to be truthful. I loved this quote and this is something I’m going to remind my children as they grow up, beware of muddle! Muddle only makes things more tangled than it needs to be.
"We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice.”
If you haven’t noticed by now, this is one of those classics that everyone should read. There is so much to learn in these pages, and it is a breeze to read because dramatic tension and comedy interlace the pearls of wisdom. I took the time to pause and underline so many quotes, and transferred them to a document of my favorite quotes, many of which I’ve already included, a few other dear pieces I’ll leave here:
"I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them."
"It is so sad when people who have abilities misuse them, and I must say they nearly always do." pg 33 ( a humorous anecdote on Miss Lavish and her author-escapades)
"She had been in his arms, and he remembered it,”
"It was not exactly that a man had died; something had happened to the living: they had come to a situation where character tells, and where Childhood enters upon the branching paths of Youth."
"She contemplated the River Arno, whose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody to her ears."
"For a moment she understood the nature of ghosts"
"And as they frightened her she had, strangely enough, ceased to respect them. They were tried by some new test, and they were found wanting. It might be possible to be nice to her; it was impossible to love her."
"we residents sometimes pity you poor tourists...their one anxiety to get done or through and go on somewhere else.”
on only living in one place, and the importance of travel + immersion "In this circle one thought, married, and died. Outside it were poverty and vulgarity."
"It is fate. Everything is fate. We are flung together by fate, drawn apart by fate—flung together, drawn apart. The twelve winds blow us—we settle nothing—"
“Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.”
And perhaps my favorite, and maybe my new mantra: "Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice."
"There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain amount of light,' he continued in measured tones. '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, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.”
If for nothing else, even if you don’t read the book, look up some quotes, because you will find little lessons to keep.
When I think of this novel, I inevitably think of violets, and of a roaring river beside an Italian city that I have never been. It’s windswept vistas and the palpable confusion between who we think we are and who we want to be; it’s the color purple and the earthy fragrance of woods after rain. I can see it clearly, because Forster's way with words is truly a window into another space. This book provides a view of places unseen and truths unspoken.
I’m not going to say much about the plot here, as I think what is going on internally is so much more important than the external plot. Loosely, A Room with a View is about Lucy Honeychurch’s life changing trip through Italy, and the ramifications of that trip when she returns home to England. It illustrates the importance of travel, how it can open us up to different views.
"She might be forgetting her Italy, but she was noticing more things in her England."
It has the essence of travel, the yearning to explore and learn, that yearning to explore the world in general. It is a feeling most of us can relate to. DON’T, READ THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE A NAGGING ITCH TO GO TO ITALY.
Forster worked on what he called "The Lucy novel" for over six years, returning to it in between other projects. He was strongly influenced by Jane Austen, and married her romantic novel of manners style with the traditionally male tourist novel. And thus, A Room with a View was born. His focus was on the tension between characters understanding things going on internally and being able to do anything externally with their understanding. A lot of what Forster writes about here, and in his other works, is closely tied to his own view and struggles in life. As Moffat says in the introduction of my edition, "Forster sorted out paths in fiction, and discarded them in life." This is something we can do too if we are wise.
"He has the merit—if it is one—of saying exactly what he means." "It is so difficult—at least, I find it difficult—to understand people who speak the truth.”
The inequity between what we feel and what we say is a major theme, and I feel that it is well done here because Forster struggled with this in his own life. He was a gay man in the wake of the “Wilde trials” and he knew that to be honest with himself would be certain doom. To this end, his novel “Maurice” wasn’t published until after his death, because it focused on a homosexual relationship. With this knowledge, you can read A Room with a View through the same subtext. At its core, the plot is focused on Lucy’s dilemma between two men, one upper class, while the other is lower class. She struggles with her feelings because they are completely against what the society that makes up her worldview believe in. Forster likely suffered similarly with his own feelings. Forster was enamored with this idea of natural disposition versus societal predilection towards rigidity. One of my favorite passages illustrates this:
"Don't go fighting the spring." "War not with the may." "Do you suppose there's any difference in spring in nature and spring in man? But there we go, praising the one and condemning the other as improper, ashamed that the same laws work eternally through both”
Spring here is s a metaphor for the natural change in humans, the evolution we all experiences as we move through the seasons of our life, especially in terms of a seemingly positive change. We are all so excited when the dregs of winter dissipate into the warmth and sun of the spring, yet it is not always celebrated when people emerge from their own personal winters into their spring.
The story is set in the Edwardian era, in the shadow of modernity. It is an interesting setting, in which the older people are set in rigid social constructs, while the young people such as Lucy are beginning to question why these boundaries exist in the first place. Theres a great section where the characters debate this amongst themselves:
"It makes a difference, doesn't it, whether we fence ourselves in, or whether we are fenced out by the barriers of others?” This is a great conversation, still relevant today.
The idea of feminism was becoming popular around this time, and that was another layer to all of this, amidst all the class divide. Lucy is plagued by strange flights of rebellion, feelings pulling her towards places and ideas traditionally withheld from women.
"Why? Why were most big things unladylike? Charlotte had once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, them despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been written to illustrate this point.”
"There is much that is immortal in this medieval lady. The dragons have gone, and so have the knights, but still she lingers in our midst. She reigned in many an early Victorian castle, and was queen of much early Victorian song. It is sweet to protect her in the intervals of business, sweet to pay her honour when she has cooked our dinner well. But alas! the creature grows degenerate. In her heart also there are springing up strange desires. She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea. She has marked the kingdom of this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and war—a radiant crust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the receding heavens."
This book while written by a man, so succinctly peels back the layers of what it means to be a woman in this time. Further, he explores what a woman and a man should be to each other. Lucy is grappling with this throughout the novel. Forster describes her as “a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling room, but equality beside the man she loved." Something so simple, a desire to be seen as equal, is completely groundbreaking in the era Lucy lives.
From the very beginning, there is a focus on the difference between the medieval and the modern way of thinking about socialization. Again, A Room with a View is in this between time, a time where the older generation is fixated on social decorum and rules, while the youth are beginning to challenge these ideas. One of the dearest quotes to my heart is this, from our recently Italy initiated Lucy:
"have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time—beautiful?" "She was determined to be gracious to them, beautiful rather than delicate," Remember: delicacy and strict adherence to boundaries does not always endear. beauty is often indelicate and honest.
One of the last and most important lesson Forster leaves us with is this: “Beware of muddle.”
"It isn't possible to love and to 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.”
It is easy to confuse things, because it can be hard to be truthful. I loved this quote and this is something I’m going to remind my children as they grow up, beware of muddle! Muddle only makes things more tangled than it needs to be.
"We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice.”
If you haven’t noticed by now, this is one of those classics that everyone should read. There is so much to learn in these pages, and it is a breeze to read because dramatic tension and comedy interlace the pearls of wisdom. I took the time to pause and underline so many quotes, and transferred them to a document of my favorite quotes, many of which I’ve already included, a few other dear pieces I’ll leave here:
"I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them."
"It is so sad when people who have abilities misuse them, and I must say they nearly always do." pg 33 ( a humorous anecdote on Miss Lavish and her author-escapades)
"She had been in his arms, and he remembered it,”
"It was not exactly that a man had died; something had happened to the living: they had come to a situation where character tells, and where Childhood enters upon the branching paths of Youth."
"She contemplated the River Arno, whose roar was suggesting some unexpected melody to her ears."
"For a moment she understood the nature of ghosts"
"And as they frightened her she had, strangely enough, ceased to respect them. They were tried by some new test, and they were found wanting. It might be possible to be nice to her; it was impossible to love her."
"we residents sometimes pity you poor tourists...their one anxiety to get done or through and go on somewhere else.”
on only living in one place, and the importance of travel + immersion "In this circle one thought, married, and died. Outside it were poverty and vulgarity."
"It is fate. Everything is fate. We are flung together by fate, drawn apart by fate—flung together, drawn apart. The twelve winds blow us—we settle nothing—"
“Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.”
And perhaps my favorite, and maybe my new mantra: "Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice."
