Good lord, could any book be as obvious a first novel as this?

"Rickie, an obvious portrait of the author, debates philosophy with his set of brash, arrogant, lower-class, yet strangely enticing fellow students at Oxford. When his close friend Agnes becomes engaged to Gerald, Rickie's childhood tormentor and all-around dolt who nevertheless exudes a kind of golden, seductive, animal charm, Rickie is inwardly disturbed, but merely stumps around on his deformed leg, occasionally exchanging philosophic witticisms with Agnes's brother. Then Gerald is "smashed up" in a football match, and suddenly dies, stretching the reader's belief pretty far while still bringing up the question of just how bad medicine was in 1914, anyway. Rickie immediately pontificates to Agnes on how she can, nay, must grieve--must!--and somehow they end up getting engaged."

That's how far I've gotten, and that's where I have stalled. I didn't think I would ever say this about an E.M. Forster novel--although I could do without Where Angels Fear to Tread--but I think I'm going to have to put it back on the shelf and let it stew.

Definitely not my favorite of the E.M. Forster books I've read. It has neither the prophetic voice of Where Angels Fear to Tread's tightly crafted narrative, nor the burning vision of Howard's End By E. M. Forster's depiction of love. However, a powerful book in its own right.

This is the complex and meandering tale of one man's life: his hopes and dreams, his failures and disappointments, his growths and backtracks, his death. It is the story of how life (even when it seems rife with waste and disappointment) is always more than what it might seem, and how the mundane, broken world contains within it the spark of the miraculous. Forster, in his tales of manners and sedentary British life, yet continues to remind me of Charles Williams and the sacred breath which indwells all things.

Meh. This is fine. Probably better than most 2 star books, but it just didn't do much for me. All the exciting parts are really glazed over, which was probably a literary decision, but just didn't do much. I've like Forster in the past, especially for old British writing, and am disappointed this is the last novels for me (maybe that's actually for the best).

I did read a bit about The Longest Journey and it sounds like it's generally considered his most difficult, which I fully agree with. I will say, the themes are great and the characters are purposeful, but I just never really cared what happened to any of them, and the conflicts felt forced and awkward.

This was by far the most confusing of Forster's books that I've read, and also perhaps the most melodramatic, ultimately though I did feel as if the the underlying message was an incredibly important one. It just seemed an incredible pity to me that Rickie, having finally come to his senses and returned to his authentic path (thanks to Ansell) dies so dramatically and tragically. It's almost as if Forster is saying that truth and beauty are all well and good, but those who find it are unlikely to know happiness for long. That said, I suppose Stephen - who is portrayed almost as an honest and forthright freak-of-nature - survives, and what's more seems set to raise a girl child with a similarly straight and lucid mindset. I am curious about Ansell though, and what became of him and Maud.

Loved this novel. Convention and philosophy meet nature and spirituality. What is the right way to live and what the wrong? Can anyone ever tell us how to live our life?

Born into a tragic life, crippled by a hereditary condition, Rickie finds good company at Cambridge though always unsure of himself and his destiny. Guided too much by too little he falls, in the guise of love, into the manipulative clutches of Agnes and her brother and thence into the twisted manoeuvrings of his aunt. Once in the possession of a sordid family secret and manipulated by all around him, Rickie becomes just a pawn in life, until the intervention of an old friend makes him once again see clearly.

Beautifully written and interesting, E. M. Forster introduces us to a world of conventions and fakery just waiting to be spoiled. He takes us from the picture of respectability and politeness and shows us the rotteness beneath. It's a story of class and snobbishness, of love and philosophy, perhaps a warning to constantly be questioning and never just accepting.

I love E.m Forster's work and the style of his writing which draws you gently, gently in to a story that is far from gentle or benign.

I first read this novel when, like its hero, Rickie Elliot, I was an undergraduate at Cambridge. E. M. Forster’s descriptions of his love for his college rooms, the transience of student friendship, and even the Roman Catholic church on Hills Road, have resonated with me for the rest of my life. Yet, apart from this, the novel left no lasting impression on me. Having now reread it fifty years later I understand why. It is a highly negative and pessimistic novel, only redeemed by its upbeat ending. It deals with the tragedy of lives blighted by compromise and a failure to be true to one’s real self.

Forster’s college friends (the ‘fratribus’ of his dedication) thought the novel bad. More than a century on some of its basic premises, such as the scandal consequent on Rickie’s discovery he has an illegitimate half-brother, are hard to credit. The plot is marred by too many implausibly convenient deaths of major characters. Much of its language is so evasively euphemistic it can be difficult to follow, and there is a strong sense of self-censorship in its semi-autobiographical content. If only Forster could have found it in him so say what he meant plainly and directly, in the idiom of Stephen Wonham, the novel’s real (anti?) hero.

And yet, understanding so well the social pressures to conform that Forster, as a closet gay, was under in his day, I find it hard not to love the novel nevertheless, for all its shortcomings - after all he considered it the novel he was most glad to have written.

The second of Forster’s six novels, and by his own admission his favourite, The Longest Journey is a bildungsroman focusing on the unsteady life of its protagonist, beginning with his time at university and following his growing cynicism towards the world. Having read Forster’s five other more well-known novels, I have developed an ascetic appreciation for his work, with each book having a strong sense of nostalgia for a world long since lost. This sense of romanticism was, however, conspicuously missing from The Longest Journey. Whilst Forster’s budding mastery of the English language is clear in this novel, as only his second published work, it is perhaps understandable that it fails to reach the heights of his later works. Moreover, I found myself regularly confused while reading this novel, often feeling myself loosing my grasp of the lack-lustre plot. Quite why The Longest Journey was his favourite work is unclear to me, although I presume it was down to his personal identification with its protagonist.
tGiven its shortcomings and inability to distinguish itself from the multitude of other formulaic works of early 20th-century English literature, this novel is likely to be most valued by those with an interest in Forster’s development as one of England’s finest modern writers. To those seeking a stand-alone read, I would instead recommend any of Forster’s five other novels.

The Longest Journey is Forster's second novel which he claimed was his favourite. In this book we follow the characters mainly Rickie Elliot who is lame, through different periods of his life.

Cambridge, Sawston and Wiltshire....in unversity, in the villages of Sawston and Wiltshire. He was very happy at Cambridge, had friends and loved having a room by himself. In the villages he taught at a private school, married, and was told the truth about his half-brother, Stephen.

Sometimes I had to backtrack to make sure who was actually talking....Forster would have a conversation take place over several pages so then I would get confused over which person spoke. He also introduced another one or two speakers into the conversation without telling that they had arrived. He was very detailed on some parts of the story but then also not detailed enough about other parts of the story. Those he later would mention in a paragraph that had nothing to do with that subject.

I have found his writing interesting...now have "A Passage to India" to read.

Disappointing bildungsroman of a disabled man whose life ressembles 'Pip' from 'Great Expectations' with characters akin to Miss Haversham and Estella, in a setting reminiscent of 'Brideshead Revisited'. And, the title speaks of tedium, which this reader certainly experienced during most of the first 2/3 of the book, which was only slightly reduced by the latter third. However, the ensuing death was too contrived to be credible & reduced the rating from a 3* to 2.25*.
Only recommended if you wish to complete the author's oeuvre!

Muitas vezes as obras-primas são descobertas por acaso. Comprei esse livro há quase 15 anos, num antigo sebo de Salvador, o Berinjela. Havia visto filme Retorno a Howards End, comprei o livro, e achei esse do mesmo autor. Nesse ínterim, li Howards End, Passagem Para a Índia, e, pra mim, o até então melhor livro de Forster, Um Quarto Com Vista.

Há uma semana, depois da experiência desastrosa de um romance nebuloso de um fluxo de consciência incrivelmente mal escrito - O Ocaso dos Pirilampos, de Adriano Mixinge - lembrei da limpidez absoluta do texto de Forster e tirei esse livro da estante.

O Que A Mais Longa Jornada tem a oferecer é muito mais do que um texto de primeira qualidade. O livro é uma bela meditação sobre a nossa passagem nesse mundo, o conceito de legado e obra, e o quanto vale a pena dedicar o único tempo que temos à construção de algo que fique para a posteridade.

Os pólos dessa meditação são dois irmãos, um legítimo, outro bastardo, que não sabem da existência do parentesco. Há certamente intriga nesse drama familiar clássico, mas Forster dedica muito mais que metade das mais de 300 páginas do seu livro às ruminações das suas personagens a respeito de cada momento da vida.

Lugares, tempo, costume e pessoas são descritos com um indolente e arguto senso de observação. Fatos importantes que mudam as peças de lugar nesse jogo vêm sempre abruptamente, em cortes secos, como um choque deliberadamente calculado para refletir as surpresas da vida e a sua falta de lógica.

A oposição entre os irmãos, antes de um antagonismo, é sobretudo o abismo de diferença entre dois pontos de vista. De um lado, um acadêmico de filosofia obcecado em escrever ficção, que cede às convenções da vida e enterra os seus planos justamente por aderir a instituições que refletiriam a segurança da existência: Deus, o casamento, um emprego, dinheiro. Do outro, a explosão sensorial e anti-convencional do bastardo, bêbado, libertino, impulsivo, ateu convicto.

Apesar de estruturar o seu romance como uma oposição clássica austeniana (razão e sensibilidade, orgulho e preconceito), Forster ambiciona mapear o que une os irmãos, não o que os separa, os pequenos detalhes indispensáveis que fazem do mundo um lugar muito mais cinza do que os extremos de uma discussão existencial.

No fundo, sobra a santidade dos sentidos, a terra sagrada, a aproximação possível entre a finitude ("quando um homem morre é como se nunca houvesse existido") e o caráter milagroso desse pequeno intervalo de vida que existe fragilmente, e que pode acabar a qualquer momento, e de forma aleatória, como frequentemente acontece no livro.

Entrando na esfera da especulação, não deixa de ser um resumo da vida do próprio autor bem antes que ela tivesse se desenvolvido. Forster escreveu o seu último livro 46 anos antes de morrer. Segundo os seus diários, perdeu a inspiração logo após perder a virgindade, já perto dos 40 anos, com um soldado ferido na I Guerra Mundial (apesar disso, ainda publicaria, anos depois, Passagem Para a Índia).

O desfecho do livro, portanto, parece antecipar a vida posterior do autor, que largou a ficção e escolheu a militância humanista secular ateísta e uma intensa vida sexual pelos bas-fonds de Londres. No entanto, ao contrário do seu protagonista, cujos contos são recusados por deixarem claro que quem os redigiu não viveu a vida de verdade, Forster foi capaz de entender e escrever sobre a existência antes de usufruir dela com plenitude. E quando a plenitude chegou, sobrou o silêncio na arte.

The Longest Journey is, surprisingly, an unusual novel written by E.M. Forster. It is neither plot-driven, since the story is a product of some disjointed episodes, nor character-driven, since there's no character development. At most, it is a bildungsroman of sorts, but a poor effort at that. I was perplexed at first and couldn't fathom why Forster created such a story with its insufferable characters. Even the ones I liked were barely pleasant. We know Forster for his love of metaphor and symbols. So, I looked beyond what was said and read what wasn't written. Ego Illuminatus!:) The whole story was symbolic. Forster had a unique vision for English life and was hugely critical of class inequity and hypocrisy of Victorian conventions. He wanted to show how intellectual and social progress was stifled by these rigid conventions. And this disjointed story of Rickie, Ansell, Pembrokes, Failings, and Stephen is Forster's attempt at symbolizing his views.

Rickie Elliot, the protagonist of our story, makes an undesirable match when he marries Agnes Pembroke. The young Cambridge graduate full of unconventional views and ideals is mocked, tyrannized, and bullied by Agnes and his brother, Herbert until he submitted to the accepted conventions. Rickie feels stifled but is too weak to fight. Through this submission, however, he loses himself, his identity, and his creativity. The tragedy that follows is the culmination of this surrender. The snobbish Pembrokes are the upholders of Victorian conventions and morals. Adultery, illegitimacy - the results of human weakness and passions, are taboo for them. They judge and condemn while themselves being full of vices, and in so doing, keeps two brothers apart, denying them acknowledging and accepting one another.

Stewart Ansell is the hand of progress. He is fearless in his unconventional views, even if they work detrimental to him, and upholds them strongly without yielding to any form of social pressure. He fights on behalf of Rickie to free him from the grip of the Pembrokes and eventually succeeds. Ansell's triumph is Forster's way of showing that England will progress towards a more sympathetic and less hypocritical age. And when this age finally dawns, it is people like Stephen, a product of two classes, that would tear off the barriers and create true human brotherhood. A similar theme was taken up by Forster in his Howard's End written a few years later.

The title, The Longest Journey, derives from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Epipsychidion which I quote:

"I never was attached to that great sect
Whose doctrine is that each one should select
Out of the world a mistress or a friend,
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend
To cold oblivion? though 'tis in the code
Of modern morals, and the beaten road
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread
Who travel to their home among the dead
By the broad highway of the world? and so
With one sad friend, and many a jealous foe,
The dreariest and the longest journey go."

Forster was critical of the cold isolation of society, of people making divisions among them based on class, religion, and morals. He saw this living in a bubble with few close friends and family as injurious to human progress, and only disaster and tragedy could come about, as was seen from Rickie's life.

Symbology is what makes this novel fascinating. Otherwise, the episodic story with unpleasant and insufferable characters will exasperate you. The beauty of Forster's writing is nothing new for those who've read him. It always adds colour and decoration to his stories. And here too, there is no exception. I indulged myself in the beauty of his words and let myself be carried by his symbolism. And so, The Longest Journey was not a dreary read to me, but an engaging and interesting one.

Heart-breaking and thought-provoking, this is vintage Forster.