Мне стало трудно развернуто говорить о книжках; скажу только, что эта — самая честная и настоящая пятерка из всех, что я прочла за последний год.

It has taken me years, and I have finally met E.M. Forster through his classic novel Howards End. Written in the early 1900's when Britain was a colonial empire, suffragettes were beginning to march, and London's boundaries were encroaching into previously rural areas, this novel explores the themes of class and privilege, capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, and sexism. Forster also asks us to think about what contributions we make to our worlds.

The writing in this story is good; the dialogue sparkles. I think the characterization, though not nuanced is good too; I get a clear picture of each and can recognize all of these types. I find myself applauding the speeches that resonate with me and hissing at the words and actions that I abhor. In other words, I am quite caught up in the story.

A few quotes that provoke some thought for me:

"I don't like those men. They are scientific themselves, and talk of the survival of the fittest, and cut down the salaries of their clerks, and stunt the independence of all who may menace their comfort, but yet they believe that somehow good--it is always that sloppy 'somehow'--will be the outcome, and that in some mystical way the Mr. Basts of the future will benefit because the Mr. Basts of today are in pain."

"Charles had never been in such a position before. It was a woman in revolt who was hobbling away from him, and the sight was too strange to leave any room for anger."

"Now she understood why some women prefer influence to rights. Mrs.Plynlimmon, when condemning suffragettes, had said: 'The woman who can't influence her husband to vote the way she wants ought to be ashamed of herself.' "

"It is only that people are far more different than is pretended. All over the world men and women are worrying because they cannot develop as they are supposed to develop. Here and there they have the matter out, and it comforts them. Don't fret yourself, Helen. Develop what you have; love your child. I do not love children. I am thankful to have none. I can play with their beauty and charm, but that is all--nothing real, not one scrap of what there ought to be. And others--others go farther still, and move outside humanity altogether. A place as well as a person, may catch the glow. Don't you see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is part of the battle against sameness. Differences--eternal differences, planted by God in a single family, so that there may always be colour; sorrow perhaps, but colour in the daily grey."

There are a few passages in this novel that are opaque to me, and they do not interfere with my enjoyment of the story.

If you fancy a step back into late Edwardian era England, I heartily recommend that you start here.

Buddy read with Mark. Mark's review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Пропастта, която ни дели от нашето сравнително близко минало си е направо огромна бездна! "Хауардс енд" е поредната книга, която недвусмислено затвърждава това мое мнение.

Историята започва мудно, бавно и подробно се запознаваме с главните ѝ герои - сестрите Маргарет и Хелън Шлегел. Образовани, независими и напредничави за времето си особи, с един единствен грях - баща им е германец... Живеят комфортно и обезпечено, грижат се за по-малкия си брат след смъртта на родителите си и участват активно в лондонския социален живот. Съдбата им се изменя при запознанството им със семейство Уилкокс и малко по-късно с мистър Бакс.

Уилкоксови са от британската имперската порода, учени от столетия, че планетата съществува единствено за да бъде владяна от тях и че това е неизменно тяхно право. Дали го имат или качествата за това, изобщо не стои на дневен ред пред неутолимите им алчност и амбиция!

Нещастен флирт при гостуването на Хелън в имението им - Хауардс енд, отприщва редица събития. Някои от които са доста чудати от съвременна гледна точка.

Книгата не е обемна, чете се леко и авторът ѝ е чудесен разказвач и портретист. При всичките ѝ качества, тя е леко овехтяла и може би е по-добре да се изгледа някоя от филмовите адаптации по нея. Така по-бързо бихте се ориентирали, дали има шанс тази история да ви допадне.

Цитат:

"Там, където няма пари и склонност към насилие, трагедия не може да се породи."

The beginning started off slow but not boring. It was just trying to get into the plot but once it got into it was nice and flowing. Forster for being hardly into his 30s writing this amazing eye opening story is just incredible. His major understandings of society at that age are things people barely start to grasp in their 50s....

Howards End is the beginning of the story and the end to it. The house is more like a metaphor of all rich and poor dying but structures will always be standing and mean more than any man alive. Forster incorporates class warfare through the Wilcox's, the Schlegel sisters, and the Basts. Helen upon meeting and introducing the Wilcox's to her family, sets off a chain of events that cannot be helped. Margaret is the most significant character in the story because she has the most obvious change in personality from beginning, middle, and end.

This is a clever drama that one cannot forget ever reading. It will make you mad and thoughtful and laugh and then think again about your own society. Just because he saw an English societal conflict in the 1910s doesn't mean it can't pertain to today to any other country. Forster tackles the errors and selfishness and hopeful love of humans. This story can be read over and over and will always feel relevant.

I am sorry if I am botching it but it is hard to explain. It's a book that makes you feel.

Howards End is Forster's attempt to explore the social, political, cultural, and philosophical changes that were in force at the turn of the 20th century. Using three families - the Wilcoxes, the Schlegels, and the Basts, he writes an intricate story expounding the changes that were slowly engulfing England during the Edwardian era.

The three families Forster has used for his story represent three sectors. The Wilcoxes are the solid, materialistic, and practical imperialists. They are the rich upper middle class who keep the economic wheel of England going and who control the working ethics. They represent more or less Victorian conventional rigidity. The Schlegels are the intellectual and cultural idealists. They are a different sector of upper middle class. They represent the modern visionary. And the Basts represent the underprivileged or rather "victimized" lower middle class who lack the wealth and culture to better them. Through his story, Forster forces these three families on one another and exposes the class difference and inherent hypocrisy of the conventional rich.

Forster favours the themes of class difference and hypocrisy and as I've already mentioned they play a major role in Howards End too. This is very much expressed through Wilcoxes' treatment towards the Schlegels and the Basts and at times Schlegels' treatment towards Basts. But the most important theme was the philosophical debate on what was life? Was it the outer world of "telegrams and anger" as Forster called it or the inner world of personal relations and emotions? Margaret Schlegel thinks life's glory is "only to connect" meaning the connection with people personally and emotionally while Henry Wilcox thinks that only "concentration" which is the rigid, conventional, and emotionally devoid conduct of the outer world is the "real life". This was quite an interesting and in-depth debate of which Forster chooses the winner to be the philosophy of "connecting".

One criticism against Forster is that the characters he brings into his novels are not likable. This was perhaps true in A Passage to India but in both A Room with a View and Howards End such criticism is groundless. In Howards End the personal growth of the characters developed and altered their personalities so much that at the end I was able to like them very much. However, out of all I favoured the Schlegel sisters - the strong but emotional and romantic Margaret and the emotional yet impulsive Helen. I also ended up liking the rigid, emotionally devoid hypocritical Henry Wilcox who was properly humbled by reason of personal tragedy.

There was a lot of symbolism at play in the novel. And so much importance was given to the different houses through which the personalities of the characters were expressed. Howards End, the property on which the novel derives the title, was practically a symbol for England. Written at a time when England was slowly coming out of convention and moving towards liberalism, Forster raises the question to whom England belongs? Howards End finally belongs to Henry, Margaret, Helen, and Helen's son from Leonard Bast. And symbolically this indicates a merging of classes obscuring the boundaries. This perhaps was Forster's prophecy as to the collapse of the class system in the future.

And it is also noteworthy to mention at this point that it was Margaret Schlegel/Wilcox who unites the opposing factions at the end. It is as if Forster saw a woman or rather women as being the deciding factor in changing the conventional English society into a more liberal and tolerant one. Forster was one of the early feminists and his feminist perspective is clearly displayed here.

Finally, it would be quite amiss if I don't comment on Forster's writing. It is exquisite. The poetic and flowery prose and the beautiful metaphors made it an exceedingly pleasurable read. The colourful and picturesque description made the writing more in line with Victorian times. I felt Forster's writing in the Howards End to be a tribute to the great Victorian literature.

The reading was absolutely a pleasure. I enjoyed it very much. Many say that Howards End is Forster's masterpiece. And I heartily agree.

n  Forster is the Jane Austen of the 20th century. He clearly read her novels and fell in love. n

And this makes him rather unusual amongst his literary peers. He didn’t do anything new; he didn’t write with any particular passion or any attempt at breaking a literary boundary. His writing is relatively safe compared to the likes of Joyce or Woolf.

But in such safety a certain simple beauty can be found because Howard’s End is a novel about reconciliation; it’s about conflict and resolution; it’s about bringing people who are so radically different together. And I love this. I love the way he spends the entire novel showing how the two families (Wilcox & Schlegel) are so opposed in traditions and values; yet, for all that, he offers no comment on which way is right but instead brings them together in one big union at the end: it’s a celebration of life and love.

"Don't you see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is part of the battle against sameness. Differences - eternal differences, planted by God in a single family, so that there may always be colour; sorrow, perhaps, but colour in the daily grey.”

The house, Howard's End, is at the centre of the action. It’s bequeathed by Mrs Wilcox to Margaret who (unlike the Wilcox’s) is the only one capable of seeing, and feeling, it’s true value. The remaining Wilcox’s decide to destroy the evidence and rent the house out because they want the money. And with this begins a discussion about the importance of death and life, about respecting wishes and understanding the importance of sentiments.

So the plot was immediate; it didn’t mess around and started flowing from the first page. And that’s kind of important with novels like this, novels that are largely about domestic life and the complications of class and money. The Wilcox’s are overly concerned with money and status (and acquiring more of it.) The Schlegel’s care about education, art, books and the passions of the soul. The two families become unlikely acquaintances and eventually friends (though not without an early embarrassment over an impromptu and insincere marriage proposal.)

It’s a nice easy read (a little lacklustre) but one is quite clearly content with its calm and subtle evocation of the variety of life.

Bundan önce E. M. Forster'dan Manzaralı Bir Oda'yı okumuştum. Tabirimi mazur görün; ancak Howards End'in Manzaralı Bir Oda'nın bir üst modeli olduğunu söylemem mümkün. Her iki kitapta da farklı sosyal sınıflardan insanlar ve bu "sınıflar"ın ilişkilerini okuyoruz. Bu kitapta ise bunları daha ayrıntılı bir şekilde okumak mümkün.

Howards End'de şu üç aile üzerinden 1900lerinden başındaki İngiltere'ye hâkim olan (ve aslında dünyaya hâlâ hâkim olan) sert sınıflı toplum yapısı başarıyla anlatılıyor: Hem parası olan hem de sanata ve kültüre önem veren, üst sınıf mensubu Schlegel ailesi, sonradan zengin olan ve Schlegel ailesinden farklı olarak hayatlarının merkezine daha fazla para kazanmayı alan Wilcox ailesi ve parası olmayan, çalışıp çabalayarak bir yerlere gelmek için uğraşan, aynı zamanda da bulunduğu sınıfı daha çok okuyarak ya da konserlere giderek atlayabileceğini uman Bast ailesi. Forster işte bu üç aile üzerinden toplumu oldukça gerçekçi bir şekilde resmediyor. Sadece sosyal statüleri de konu edinmiyor; aynı zamanda kadın ve erkeğe nasıl farklı muamele edildiğini de başarıyla gösteriyor.

Schlegel ailesi sanata değer veren, birikimli üst sınıfı temsil ediyor. Helen ve Margaret Schlegel, iki kız kardeş. Ailelerinden kendilerine kalan mirasla İngiltere'de iyi bit hayat sürdürüyorlar. Konserlere gidiyorlar, okuyorlar, kadınların kendi aralarında düzenledikleri tartışmalara katılıyorlar. Bu iki kız kardeş etraflarında maddi açıdan kendilerinden daha "talihsiz" olanlara karşı kendi çaplarında yardımcı olmaya çalışıyor; fakat maalesef içindeki bulundukları sınıftan çıkıp o acıdıkları kimseleri anlamaları mümkün değil. Hal böyle olunca da o "yardım etmek istedikleri" insanların durumlarını kötüleştirmekten başka bir şey yapamıyorlar.

Wilcox ailesi ise paraya sonradan sahip olan ve Schlegel ailesinden farklı olarak kültürel ve felsefi açıdan gelişmeyi çok da önemsemeyen zengin kesimi anlatıyor. Wilcox ailesinin babası Henry, hayatında duygulara yer olmayan bir adam. Hayatta onu en çok ilgilendiren şey para. Aşka, sevgiye hayatında pek fazla yer yok. Kadınlar hayatına bir hoşluk getirdikleri, birtakım ihtiyaçlarını karşıladıkları müddetçe önemli. Henry'nin çocuklarının hayata bakışı da babalarından pek farklı değil. Kapitalizmin bir aileye yansımasını okuyoruz Wilcoxlarla.

Bastlar ise kitabın alt sınıf temsilcisi. Leonard Bast, kazandığı az miktar parasıyla daha fazla okumaya çalışan ve bir gün bulunduğu sınıfı atlayabilme, o hayran olduğu Schlegel ailesinin düzeyine gelebilme umudunu taşıyan bir adam.

Çok sürükleyici bir kitap değil. Olayın bol olduğu bir roman istiyorsanız Howards End, sizin için pek iyi bir tercih olmayacaktır. Hem dönemin İngilteresini okuyayım hem de günümüzde varlığını hâlâ devam ettiren şu sınıflı toplumu bir de edebiyatta göreyim diyorsanız Howards End, tam size göre. Çeviri, Hasan Fehmi Nemli'ye ait. Çevirmenle ilgili hep olumlu yorumlar okudum; fakat ben bu kitabın çevirisinden pek tat almadım. Bazı yerler çok fazla motomot çeviri hissi uyandırdı bende, bazı cümlelerde anlatım bozukluğundan ne denmek istediğini tam kavrayamadım. Yine de keyifle okuduğumu söyleyebilirim.

Son olarak birkaç alıntı da paylaşmak istiyorum:

"Gerçek hayat yanlış yollarla ve hiçbir yere götürmeyen trafik levhalarıyla doludur. Çok büyük bir çabayla, asla yaşanmayacak bir bunalım için kendimizi yer bitiririz. Mesleklerin en başarılısı, dağları yerinden oynatabilecek bir enerjiyi boşa harcamış olmalıdır ve en acınası durumsa olan, hazırlıksız yakalanan değil, hazırlanan, ama beklediği şey hiçbir zaman olmayandır" (s: 129).

"Zenginler bir işte başarısız olunca başka bir işi deneyebilirler. Benim için böyle bir şey söz konusu olamaz. İçinde yaşadığım bir mağaram vardı, ben oradan çıktım. Belirli bir maaş karşılığı, belirli bir büroda, belirli türde sigorta yapabilirim, hepsi bu kadar. Şiirin önemi yok, Miss Schlegel. İnsanın şu ya da bu konudaki fikri önemli değildir. Paranızın bile önemi yok, beni anlıyorsanız eğer. Demek istediğim, insan, yirmisini aştıktan sonra, bildiği tek işini kaybederse, onun için her şey bitmiş demektir. Bunun başkalarının başına geldiğini gördüm. Dostları onlara bir miktar para verdi, ama sonra uçurumdan aşağıya yuvarlandılar. Yardım fayda etmez. Dünya bütün ağırlığıyla sizi aşağıya çeker. Her zaman zenginler ve yoksullar olacaktır" (s: 279).

"Miss Schlegel, gerçek olan şey paradır; geriye kalan her şey bir rüyadır" (s: 293).

"Erkek savaş için yaratılmıştır, kadınsa savaşçının eğlenmesi için, ama kadın dövüş gösterisi yaparsa, erkek bundan hoşlanmaz" (s: 320).

"...ve edebiyatla, sanattan başka hiçbir şeyin cereyan etmediği, hiç kimsenin evlenmediği veya nişanlı kalmayı başaramadığı kendi sakin sularından hiç dışarı çıkmamış olmayı yürekten diledi".

OMG I'M FINALLY DONE LET ME CRY

“Discussion keeps a house alive. It cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone.”

Howards End is a 1910 novel about three families of different social classes, their unexpected connections with each other, and their affiliation with an English country house known as Howards End.

The Wilcox’s (Henry & Ruth, sons Charles & Paul) represent wealth and imperialism. The Schlegel’s (siblings Margaret, Helen, Tibby) embody literature, idealism, and the upper middle class. The Bast’s (Leonard & Jacky) are of the impoverished working class who lack the education to improve their standard of living.

I think it is best to know little about the characters before reading the book. Finding out how people of differing social classes are connected was my favorite part of the story. This irony highlighted prejudices and inequalities present in English society in the early 20th century.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Colleen Prendergast. The voices were distinct and pleasant, but the pacing was a little too fast for my preference. I tried slowing it down to no avail. This may not concern most readers as I prefer slower paced narrations than I believe is the norm.

Prior to listening to the audio, I watched the 1992 film adaptation of the book. It followed the book’s version of the story with only minor exceptions. If you are curious about the book but do not wish to read it, the movie is an equivalent substitution. Given the notable cast of the film (Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter), I had expected to like Howards End more than I did. Instead, I just found it pleasant. I attribute this to Forster’s knack for crafting unlikable characters because I found the 1989 film Remains of the Day delightful, which also stars Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson and has a similar pacing and setting.

Although I lacked sympathy or connection with the characters, I was intrigued by Howards End, the country house passed down through Ruth Wilcox’s family, as a symbolic character. Despite the Wilcox’s ignoring Ruth’s last wish, Howards End eventually belongs to the person(s) with the spirit to appreciate the house and grounds as Ruth did herself. Miss Avery, an elderly, long-time caretaker of Howards End understands this notion also; It is evident by what she does with the Schlegel’s belongings.

Overall, it is a languidly paced drama about societal conflict that is enjoyable and clever. I can understand why this book is on Boxall’s 1001 Books to Read List.

The title refers to a British country home, not a mansion like a Downton Abbey, but a small comfortable home with charm. (Although it seems that the story is set at about the same time as Downton Abbey.) The story revolves around two sisters who, on separate visits, fall in love with the home and in a very round-about way end up living in it.

The main there of the book is British class structure. The two sisters are ‘liberal,’ using modern terminology. They attend meetings of progressive women’s groups where one of them gives a presentation and shocks her audience by arguing that such groups need to help the poor not by giving them free libraries, museums and concerts, but by giving them money. A kind of introduction by Lionel Trilling on the back cover tells us that “Howard’s End is about England’s fate. It is a story of the class war…[the plot] is about the rights of property, about a destroyed will and testament and rightful and wrongful heirs. It asks the question, who shall inherit England?’ “



Both sisters are aging (their parents have died) and they are ‘heading into spinsterhood.’ However the older one marries and she marries the owner of Howards End who is a Darwinist. His attitude, to be concise is, (I’m paraphrasing) “there will always be poor; nothing we can do; they are not like us; if you give them money they’ll just blow it because they’re re too stupid to know what to do with it.” And, this is a quote: “The poor are poor, and one’s sorry for them, but there it is. As civilization moves forward, the shoe is bound to pinch in places, and it’s absurd to think that anyone is responsible personally.”

The sisters are not wealthy but they are comfortable from an inheritance and they hang out in upper-class society. So this is a second theme: the sisters have an inherent cultured grace that comes from being part of the aristocracy. “…the instinctive wisdom that the past can alone bestow had descended upon her – that wisdom to which we give the clumsy name of aristocracy.” A married, struggling poor young man that the sisters take under their wing is trying to improve himself and become cultured by reading. But he eventually realizes that “…he could never follow them, not if he read for ten hours a day… Some are born cultured; the rest had better go in for whatever comes easy.”

“[We] stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence.” [money]: there’s no nourishment in it. You pass it to the lower classes, and they pass it back to you, and this you call ‘social intercourse’ or ‘mutual endeavor,’ when it’s mutual priggishness…”

There’s not a lot of plot other than that of the older sister coming around to marry the wealthy older man, and after they are married she struggles to get his family to accept her. And both sisters get involved with helping the poor young man but ‘the road to hell…’ The younger sister gets more involved with him and a person ends up getting killed (manslaughter).

Another theme of the book, or more appropriately, motto, is ‘only connect.’ The sisters are good at it; the wealthy aristocrat is a disaster.

There is good writing. Some passages I liked:

On the poor young man looking ill at ease in his best clothes: “[She] wondered whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a tail coast and a couple of ideas.”

“The church itself stood in the village once. But there it attracted so many worshippers that the devil, in a pet, snatched it from its foundations and poised it on an inconvenient knoll three quarters of a mile away.”

“Their interview was short and absurd. They had nothing in common but the English language, and tried by its help to express what neither of them understood.”



E. M. Forster (1879-1970), the author, is best know for A Room With a View with Howard’s End and A Passage to India about equally well-known after that. You can tell that the author loved London and the growth and dynamism of the city at that time. I enjoyed the book very much.

Top photo from tbn0.gstatic.com
Photo of the author from bl.uk/britishlibrary

Reading this at the time I did is an event I can only describe as 'lucky', seeing as how both my reasoning and the circumstances hardly heralded how much I would love this work. The facts: Carson's The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos left me with a craving for something white and male and English, a rare beast these days that has made this the seventh work out of 45 read this year that fits that all too often ubiquitous combination of characteristics. I turned to the stacks, thinking on the days of Maugham and James and pondering the latter's The Ambassadors as the likely candidate before remembrance of the author's hate for feminists dampened my mood. Then I remembered Forster and his A Room with a View, filmed but never read, and pulled out my combined edition that despite never having wished to read Howards End I had never seen fit to replace. I flipped to the front and lo! the cover had lied, and HE proceeded ARwaV. After muddling through the Listopia lists left me scoffing yet intrigued by HE's place on 'Best Feminist Books' (ha!), I began to read.

This is not Middlemarch, or Shirley, or some flavor of androgynous voice, but of the same strain of warm insight that paints a picture of privilege without pretense. There is acknowledgement of classism, anti-intellectualism, Imperialism, even the overarching sexism that initially drew me on to testing these waters, and yet here are humans that I feel for utterly. Forster must have read his Hugo to have such a taste for daydreaming digressions on Place and Time and the usual Big Ideas, but not too much, else the politickings would have been more in evidence in both composition and biography. He also made a wonderful effort to portray the Female Voice, something that the French master for all his overt empathy never quite achieved.

Where Hugo rhapsodizes on war and justice, Forster contemplates domesticity and the everyday, less admirable in his lack of stridency, more appreciated for his keen insight into what powers these lives of ours when the climax is through and we're left to ride out the rest. I've stolen the phrase "soap opera with brains" from an unfortunately forgotten individual for a review before and I'll steal it again, for a world in which we denigrate our humble to's and fro's as not fit for "quality" entertainment is a sad world indeed. As often as I speak of social justice, I would go mad if I were to live in the mindset forevermore, the strain of dwelling on idealism too long in this reality of ours being what it is. Sometimes, I must rest my hat on the guarantee that I'll be coming back to it for the rest of my life, and go off to a place where the need for equality is recognized without forbearing the sentiment of simple pleasures.

Although Forster has his moments of naive whimsy that forbid me from declaring this a favorite, I will admit to loving this book, balancing as it does action with thought, practicality with philosophy, efficiency with insight. Best of all, letting each side appeal to the other with the necessary determination to see the attraction through without sudden windfall or other poor excuses of deus ex machina. Also, scenes of women ferociously ripping apart double-standards of gender, mental health, and love, setting forth to develop their own sense of things and given the capability to achieve their vision? Yes please.

And now, off to the long intended A Room with a View!

Video with some thoughts, pairing this with On Beauty by Zadie Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F-3w...