Una novela deliciosa, inteligente y feminista.

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

Uma história surpreendentemente progressista para a altura em que foi escrita, com ideais fixos sobre a emancipação e individualidade femininas na sociedade edwardiana.

Lucy é uma jovem limitada pelas restrições sociais da altura que, numas férias em Itália conhece George. Este oferece-lhe uma perspetiva diferente sobre si mesma, e a obra debruça-se sobre a aceitação da mesma. Fiquei surpreendida com os temas e gostei particularmente da escrita despretensiosa do autor.

truly a book that i have read

I imagine that in the early twentieth century, this book could have been marketed as a "beach" read. It's fast-paced, romantic, endearing, funny, dramatic and even fulfills a little bit of that wanderlust feeling we all get in the summer months.

Frankly, I couldn't stop smiling throughout this entire novel. This is one of those books in which the setting (though it may be as stunning as Florence, London, or the English countryside) takes a back seat to the vibrant and highly entertaining characters. Miss Lavish, Mr. Emerson, Miss Bartlett, Freddy (!!!), Mrs. Honeychurch, Mr. Eager, Mr. Beebe - all such unique and large personalities. I absolutely adored this novel and really recommend it to anyone who finds the idea of reading classics in their spare time daunting or tiresome... this book reads like a fancy YA novel, and apparently that's exactly my cup of tea.

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I actually went looking for the six star rating. This was perfect, exquisite. EM Forster at his very best. Drama, lightness of touch, beautiful settings, fascinating characters. This has everything. And it has old Mr. Emerson and Reverend Beebe. Glorious

Despite being a relatively short and straightforward book, I found A Room with a View surprisingly entertaining. It has several memorable scenes, the characters have recognizable personalities, and several quotes were striking enough to write down.
I think my favorite description was when Lucy called her fiance a room without a view. It was a particularly illustrating insult that obviously also fits with the overall themes of the book. (See the title!)
I was left wondering, though...did we ever find out what George does at the railroad? I thought that would swing around as some sort of vindication for the lovers but I don't think it did.

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.

Страхотна класика. Фино написана и забавна, страшно забавна. Героите са интересни, а авторът те оставя сам да прецениш качествата и недостатъците им; оставил ги е да живеят в книгата без изобщо да се меси във възприятията на читателя. Това е роман, който може да се обсъжда с часове - и историята, и постъпките на героите.

Засичал съм в есета на Вирджиния Улф, както и в дневника ѝ, да пише с възхищение за Е. М. Форстър. Сега разбирам защо тези два ума са си били така близки. И двамата са извор на истинска литература.

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.

I mentally confused this with Woolf's "A Room of One's Own"-- completely different (or so I imagine as I haven't gotten to that one yet) and thus set the tone for my reading relationship with this book.

I loved the initial Italian setting of Florence filled with museums, artwork, and mischief. Lucy Honeychurch (easily my favorite fictional name) and her cousin Charlotte Bartlett enjoy the trip and part 2 finds us back in England at the homestead of the Honeychurches. Mayhem ensues and the true point of the book finally comes to light. I struggled with the writing and the plot of this book. At times it made absolutely no sense and I found myself scratching my head. I rooted for Lucy and George to get together and had a hard time understanding the vitriol of the times.

Glad that I read this one and happier that it is over.

The Pensione (pension) Bertolini in Florence, Italy has everything for the visiting tourists, Miss Lucy Honeychurch and her older poorer cousin Charlotte Bartlett a rather overbearing chaperon, fine food, (not really) wines not too bad this is Italy and a room with a view. Unfortunately not for the cousins, their promised accommodations went to Mr.Emerson and his quiet gloomy son George. If you can't trust the Signora Bertolini, the Italian owner of this establishment more English than one in London, the late Queen Victoria's picture is still on the wall, with a strange Cockney accent who can you? But chivalry is not quite dead, in the early 20th century the ill mannered Mr.Emerson, offers in front of all the other British tourists while they consume their dinner, to exchange rooms two for two , the men don't care as long as they have a good bed, after hearing Charlotte's complaints. Of course Miss Bartlett turned it down, the unseemly idea such a vulgar man, he is not a gentleman no English reserve . Looking around, she sees that confirmed on the faces of the other boarders. Then again, Florence is so beautiful the Arno River flowing nearby, (not too dirty ) the Apennine Mountains, Cypress trees of San Miniato, she will never be here again ... A half- hour later the two cousins open the windows, ( the British love to do this) in the new rooms... with a view. A great country to stare at the exotic attractions, if only the Italians were more civilized Charlotte thinks, but all is well with the world now. Miss Eleanor Ravish a new flighty friend, at the pension and future bad novelist, takes Lucy on a sightseeing trip of the real Italy. And promptly deserts her for an old friend, on the streets of the city, she enters the church alone, they both were to view. How is she to get back to Bertolini ? Not to worry the Emerson's are there, Mr. Emerson the old "Gentleman" quickly annoys, then disrupts a visiting British clergyman's lecture inside with his loud disagreeing voice, the unhappy perturbed flock leaves, yet Lucy does get back home safely. Feeling brave and wanting independence and excitement, she receives more than Lucy can handle, Miss Honeychurch goes out by herself. While looking at a palace tower, she is a witness to a gruesome murder, the stabbing of one Italian man against another at close range, blood on her photographs, she just had bought in a shop and faints ...George in love and in the same vicinity, spying ... Picks Lucy up, revives her and takes the lady to safety, the Arno river is near, throwing the messy photos in the stream. She can't believe he did it ... At a later date, descending a mountain road after viewing gorgeous Florence from above, the weather turns bad, the two carriages full of the British visitors from the pension, including Lucy, Charlotte and the old Mr.Emerson, even Miss Lavish. George the cad had kissed Lucy, when she fell on the ground full of exquisite violets, Charlotte luckily comes to the rescue before who knows what George would do next. He runs away the coward and vanishes, nobody knows where. But soon Lucy will meet the perfect, ideal, respectable man, Cecil Vyse... In the wet darkness, the rains heavy, lightning strikes, women scream, slowly the party travels, more flashes of lightning, the clouds coming down, the road a liquid mess, the storm gets more violent, they stop for a short rest. A lightning bolt hits the road just below them ...