Beautiful language and prose. Honest. This was my favorite Forster I've read - I read A Room with a View and A Passage to India in 2022.

Forster doesn't hide what he's trying to say in any of his books; I just find his view of the world and marriage to be one that doesn't fit with mine. I also tire of too-all-knowing characters who don't explain their motivations or their understanding but just intuit without helping the reader along. The "Angel in the House" motif may have ended in the 1800s, but Forster's women are too perfect, IMO.

Margaret and Helen remind me in many ways of Austen's Elinor and Marianne - practical and emotional and Forster seems to be seeing what would happen to them in this more modern world of telegrams and automobiles.

The cultural distinctions of being German or British were interesting. The way place and places became characters themselves within the story was well done; the disorientation of space that Margaret expresses while traveling by train is part of this, too.

I can give it a clear 4 stars for many reasons despite disagreements. Forster's command of syntax and vocabulary is precise and a delight to be immersed in. I was able to listen to the book on a 10 hour drive and it was good company. I enjoyed watching the story unfold, even if, ultimately I profoundly disagree with much of it.

I understand why Henry Wilcox had to be broken entirely; but I wish Forster had returned a shred of dignity to him and his children. I'm surprised a jury convicted Charles of manslaughter when it was clear that he did not kill Leonard Bast. Margaret Wilcox was too-knowing and self assured and was never broken herself - her self assurance and pride surely, while different than Henry's - also deserved correction. Some of the story - Margaret's friendship with the first Mrs. Wilcox - seemed too unbelievable to me.

Howards End is the revered classic by E.M. Forster, thought by some to be his masterpiece. This novel shines a light on society and its norms and relationships at the turn of the century in the years before the Great War in England. What can I say, the prose and the dialogue were riveting. And one of my favorite places would have to be Great Britain, and this beautiful book gives us such beautiful passages about the joys of journeying through this enchanting country.

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"The water crept over the mud-flats towards the gorse and the blackened heather. Branksea Island lost its immense foreshores, and became a sombre episode of trees. Frome was forced inward towards Dorhester, Stour against Wimborne, Avon towards Salisbury, and over the immense displacement the sun presided, leading it to triumph ere he sank to rest. England was alive, throbbing through all her estuaries, crying for joy through the mouths of her gulls, and the north wind, blew stronger aginst her rising seas. What did it mean? For what end are her fair complexities, her changes of soil, her sinuous coast? Does she belong to those who have moulded her and made her feared by other lands, or those who have added nothing to her power, but have somehow seen her, seen the whole island at once, lying as a jewel in a silver sea, sailing as a ship of souls, with all of the brave world's fleet accompanying her towards eternity?"

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It is in the midst of this beautiful prose that we have a very engaging tale of three families from very different backgrounds and classes and world views. The lives of these three families highlight the ever-present social, gender, and class barriers. We become immersed in the lives of the Schegel sisters, the wealthy Wilcox family and the working-class Basts. The complexities of these relationships plays out in dramatic detail. We also ponder the meaning of home as we watch how Howards End becomes so important to many of these individuals, although perhaps for very different reasons. This was a wonderful book, perhaps a little dated in some respects but all in all, we are still grappling with many of these same issues today, namely the attitude toward women and sexual morality at the turn of the 20th century. I would love to read this again.

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"You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm benath our feet that we forget its very existence. It's only when we some one near us tottering that we realise all that an independent income means."

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And some of my favorite quotes:

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

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"How easily she slipped out of life."

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Howards End follows two families, the cultured and idealistic Schlegel sisters and a rich Wilcox family. Margaret and Helen are half German, half English, and they come across the Wilcox family who seem opposite to themselves as they are very conservative and bourgeois. Mrs Wilcox, however, develops a friendship with Margaret, the older sister, and when she suddenly dies, it comes out that Mrs Wilcox has left Howards End, a magnificent villa in the countryside to Margaret. I love how Forster plays with the caricatures of English middle class; the Wilcox family is utterly horrible in their way of treating the lower class people yet they can be pretty hilarious. I love the family dynamics of Schlegel sisters and find them brilliant characters. They made think about Eleanor and Marianne in Austen's Sense and Sensibility little bit in their temperaments. Overall, Howards End was all that I wished it to be; little bit more serious than A Room With a View but still very snarky and delightful.

The joy I received from reading HOWARDS END again. Over the years I have always read the hard cover, but this time I decided on the audiobook. One of our bookclub members suggestion the book when choosing from “1001”. What an opportunity to try a different format.

This is a period piece. One where everyone has manners. A very beautifully done practical romance. A breathtaking adventure into the beauty of nature surrounding HOWARDS END. I shivered while reading this book...I almost broke down crying on a few occasions...

Let your emotions run...

5 out of 5 stars

Ovo je previše engleska/londonska knjiga i mislim da mi se zato toliko svidela. Ima feminizma, filozofije, simbolizma i klasnih sukoba. Likovi su podeljeni između sebe i kad je reč o umetnosti, intelektu, poslu i novcu. Odlično su prikazane i razlike između muškaraca i žena koje mogu da se primene i danas. Moram priznati da mi je prva polovina bila bolja. Stil pisanja je predivan i ima toliko delova koji su za citiranje.
"Only connect."

Darwinism versus nature and nurture. Rigid class structure in a changing and evolving world. Helen trying to change Mr Bast. Margaret awaiting for Henry to change. The heart of the book for me is change both successful and unsuccessful.

Howards End and Mrs Wilcox wish is eventually granted. The contrast of Howards End idyll with the vibrancy and growth of London. The change in Margaret and her different path than Helen. Margaret retains her humanity but also is a realist.

Great story.

و باز هم در دورانی سخت و فکر های مشوش ام روی آوردم به رمان کلاسیک.

از این منظر ماجرای رمان هواردزاند نیز حکایت پیوند میان انسانهاست. داستان رمان از دید کلی داستان دو خاندان شلگل‌ها و ویلکاکس‌هاست. که از دل دیدار آنها در ابتدای رمان، نقطه عزیمت داستان شکل می گیرد، اما ماجرای پیوند و نامزدی شتابزده آغاز کتاب فرجامی غیر منتظره پیدا می کند. فاستر از دل این دو خانواده و شخصیت هایی دیگر، به صورتی نمادین طیف های مختلف جامعه بریتانیایی آن روزگار را گرد هم می آورد و رمانی را با پرداختی قدرتمندانه پیش روی خواننده می‌گذارد که روح زمانه خود باشد.

Me ha encantado esta novela. He disfrutado con cada página, con lo bien escrito que está, con los giros inesperados de guión que hacen que estés deseando leer más, y al mismo tiempo con las reflexiones sobre clases sociales, relaciones familiares, relaciones hombre-mujer... Parece increíble la postura tan progresista que muestra el autor en cuanto a la situación de la mujer ya en 1910.
Forster no deja títere con cabeza, y hace una crítica feroz a la sociedad inglesa de la época, pero lo hace de forma tan elegante, es tan divertido leerlo, que habría querido que siguiera otras 200 páginas más.
Y por supuesto tengo que mencionar Howards End, ese personaje principal de la novela que representa un refugio al que todos querríamos mudarnos, y que se va viendo cada vez más cercado por el 'progreso' de Londres. Sabiendo lo poco que faltaba para que estallara la primera guerra mundial cuando Forster escribió este libro (1910) todo cobra aún más sentido.
Seguiré leyendo el resto de sus obras, y estoy deseando ver las adaptaciones de esta novela.

I loved this book so much that I will never be able to do it justice in this review. I finished it several months ago, but still I think of it often and have recommended it to numerous friends. While reading, I used countless post-its to mark beautiful and thoughtful passages.

Howard's End was one of the novels I took on my visit to England earlier this summer. I wanted to read English authors while I was there, and I'm so glad I did. The specialized reading completely enhanced the trip, and it was especially true for this book.*

This was also a re-read for me. I first read Howard's End when I was in high school, after I saw the excellent Merchant & Ivory movie version. But that was 1992 and I was just an impressionable teenager. Reading it as an adult with more life experience made me better appreciate how amazing this novel is.

If you are unfamiliar with the story, we follow two sisters, Margaret and Helen Schlegel, in London around 1910. (More on the significance of that timing in a moment.) The Schlegels are well-educated, progressive, and love literature, music and art. They hold cultural discussions and like to talk about improving society. When they meet poor, intelligent Leonard Bast at a music concert, they see someone they want to champion. Meanwhile, the Schlegels have also crossed paths with the rich Wilcox family, and entanglements ensue. One of the key threads of the book is who will inherit Howard's End, which was the estate of Ruth Wilcox. Early in the book, Ruth wants to give it to Margaret Schlegel, but Henry Wilcox, Ruth's husband, refuses to oblige her wish. More entanglements ensue.

As I read this novel, I appreciated how Forster was trying to recreate modern England with families from three classes: the rich capitalists (Wilcoxes), the liberal middle-class (Schlegels), and the downtrodden workers (Mr. and Mrs. Bast). There were so many good quotes about social class and the state of society, and I found it all fascinating and thought-provoking. Reading a great novel such as Howard's End reminded me of how much literature can enrich a life. It answers questions I didn't know I had asked.

On the chance that some Goodreaders don't want the ending spoiled, I'll hide the outcome: After Ruth dies, Margaret marries Henry Wilcox, and she eventually inherits the estate. Margaret decides to leave it to her nephew, who is the bastard son of Helen and Leonard Bast. So if there are any English majors working on essays and you want to read into the SYMBOLISM of that, it's like the working class finally got some land/wealth from the aristocrats, and in England, land equals power.

This novel was published in 1910. I found special meaning in this because shortly before reading Howard's End I read All Quiet on the Western Front, which is a novel about a German soldier in World War I. Reading Forster's novel and knowing that a real war was going to break out a few years after these characters were created, made their conversations so much more prescient. The Schlegel family was from Germany, so there was a lot of talk about the difference between Germans and the English. Again, prescience. [More below in Favorite Quotes.]

If you like beautiful and meaningful English novels, get yourself a copy of Howard's End with all deliberate speed. I will be treasuring my paperback for many years.

Sidenote
*I had a few reading and trip coincidences with Howard's End that were exciting. At one point in the novel, Leonard Bast was reading a book by John Ruskin. I turned to the back of my edition to read the detailed note about Ruskin. At this point in the England trip my husband and I were in the Lake District, specifically Keswick. The morning after reading that endnote, we were walking near Derwentwater and I noticed a memorial to John Ruskin. I think I cried, "Oh my god! I just read about Ruskin last night!" I realized if I hadn't read that endnote in the novel, I wouldn't have even noticed that memorial.

A few days later we were back in London and visited St. Paul's Cathedral. After nearly two weeks in England, we had seen many beautiful churches and abbeys. But I paused for an extra moment outside the entrance to St. Paul's, and not just because it's striking, or because Princess Diana had been married there, but because the characters in Howard's End had also frequented the church, which means Forster had likely been there, too. I love seeing historic places that are mentioned in literature -- it gives them a whole other life and meaning.

Favorite Quotes
"Do they care about Literature and Art? That is the most important when you come to think of it. Literature and Art. Most important."

"Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return ... And he is a chilly Londoner who does not endow his stations with some personality, and extend to them, however shyly, the emotions of fear and love."

"The poetry of that kiss, the wonder of it, the magic that there was in life for hours after it — who can describe that? It is so easy for an Englishman to sneer at these chance collisions of human beings. To the insular cynic and the insular moralist they offer an equal opportunity. It is so easy to talk of 'passing emotion,' and to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it passed. Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good one. We recognize that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere opportunities for an electrical discharge. Yet we rate the impulse too highly. We do not admit that by collisions of this trivial sort the doors of heaven may be shaken open."

"In their own fashion they cared deeply about politics, though not as politicians would have us care; they desired that public life should mirror whatever is good in the life within."

"Do you imply that we Germans are stupid, Uncle Ernst?"... /
"To my mind. You use the intellect, but you no longer care about it. That I call stupidity ... You only care about the things that you can use, and therefore arrange them in the following order: Money, supremely useful; intellect, rather useful; imagination, of no use at all. No, your Pan-Germanism is no more imaginative than is our Imperialism over here. It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven. That is not imagination. No, it kills it. When their poets over here try to celebrate bigness they are dead at once, and naturally. Your poets too are dying, your philosophers, your musicians, to whom Europe has listened for two hundred years. Gone. Gone with the little courts that nurtured them ... What? Your universities? Oh yes, you have learned men, who collect more facts than do the learned men of England. They collect facts, and facts, and empires of facts. But which of them will rekindle the light within?"
[Personal interjection: Imagine me reading this passage just weeks after finishing the WWI book, and crying OH MY GOD, FORSTER'S A GENIUS.]

"It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man." [I wrote this review with the 5th playing in the background. Most delightful.]

"To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it."

"Her speeches fluttered away from the young man like birds. If only he could talk like this, he would have caught the world. Oh, to acquire culture! Oh, to pronounce foreign names correctly! Oh, to be well informed, discoursing at ease on every subject that a lady started! But it would take one years. With an hour at lunch and a few shattered hours in the evening, how was it possible to catch up with leisured women who had been reading steadily from childhood?"

"Life's very difficult, and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged — well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in — to live by proportion. Don't begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed."

"The German is always on the lookout for beauty. He may miss it through stupidity, or misinterpret it, but he is always asking beauty to enter his life, and I believe that in the end it will come."

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

"Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people — there are many of them — who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a definite name for such behavior — flirting — and if carried far enough, it is punishable by law. But no law — not even public opinion, even — punishes those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as intolerable."

"Can what they call civilization be right, if people mayn't die in the room where they were born?"

"Their grief, though less poignant than their father's, grew from deeper roots, for a wife may be replaced; a mother never."

"Looking back on the past six months, Margaret realized the chaotic nature of our daily life, and its difference from the orderly sequence that has been fabricated by historians. Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes."

"To speak against London is no longer fashionable. The Earth as an artistic cult has had its day, and the literature of the near future will probably ignore the country and seek inspiration from the town."

"Oh, hang it all! what's the good — I mean, the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on day after day, same old game, same up and down to town, until you forget there is any other game. You ought to see once in a way what's going on outside, if it's only nothing particular after all."

"I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a place."

"What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? ... Haven't we all to struggle against life's daily grayness, against pettiness, against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicious? I struggle by remembering my friends."

"The age of property holds bitter moments even for a proprietor. When a move is imminent, furniture becomes ridiculous, and Margaret now lay awake at nights wondering where, where on earth they and all their belongings, would be deposited in September next. Chairs, tables, pictures, books, that had rumbled down to them through the generations, must rumble forward again like a slide of rubbish to which she longed to give the final push and send toppling into the sea."

"I was thinking of Father. How could he settle to leave Germany as he did, when he had fought for it as a young man, and all his feelings and friends were Prussian? How could he break loose with patriotism and begin aiming at something else? It would have killed me. When he was nearly forty he could change countries and ideals — and we, at our age, can't change houses. It's humiliating."

"If Welcomes hadn't worked and died in England for thousands of years, you and I couldn't sit here without having our throats cut. There would be no trains, no ships to carry us literary people about in, no fields even. Just savagery. No — perhaps not even that. Without their spirit, life might never have moved out of protoplasm. More and more do I refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it."

"Margaret had often wondered at the disturbance that takes place in the world's waters when Love, who seems so tiny a pebble, slips in. Whom does Love concern beyond the beloved and the lover? Yet his impact deluges a hundred shores."

"A younger woman might have resented his masterly ways, but Margaret had too firm a grip of life to make a fuss. She was, in her own way, as masterly. If he was a fortress she was a mountain peak, whom all might tread, but whom the snows made nightly virginal."

"By all means subscribe to charities — subscribe to them largely — but don't get carried away by absurd schemes of Social Reform. I see a good deal behind the scenes, and you can take it from me that there is no Social Question — except for a few journalists who try to get a living out of the phrase. There are just rich and poor, as there always have been and always will be."

"Love and Truth — their warfare seems eternal. Perhaps the whole visible world rests on it, and if they were one, life itself, like the spirits when Prospero was reconciled to his brother, might vanish into air, into thin air."

"Why has not England a great mythology? Our folklore has never advanced beyond daintiness, and the greater melodies about our countryside have all issued through the pipes of Greece. Deep and true as the native imagination can be, it seems to have failed here. It has stopped with the witches and the fairies. It cannot vivify one fraction of a summer field, or give names to half a dozen stars. England still waits for the supreme moment of her literature — for the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still, for the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk."

"Nothing matters, except one's self-respect and that of one's friends."

3.5 stars. I like the symbolism in E.M. Forster’s novel ‘Howards End’. Houses seem to symbolize the different periods: Howards End, described as “the old and little red brick” which represents the old rural England in contrast to new flats in London “expensive – with cavernous entrance halls, full of concierges and palms” which are a sign of modern times to come. E.M. Forster portrayed skillfully the three main families and their houses, symbolizing three different social classes at the beginning of the 20th century and the social and economic changes they were facing: the idealistic and literary upper class Schlegels, the opportunistic and materialistic Wilcoxes and the deprived lower middle-class Basts. “Only connect” was Margaret Schlegel’s motto - unfortunately, I was not able to connect either to her family or to the Wilcoxes (or the Basts). I am aware that this is a well-written novel from one of the great English novelists, but throughout the book I did not get engaged enough with the story or the characters. Halfway through the book, I set it aside and started reading Charles Dickens ‘Great Expectations’. And there it was, this feeling I missed while reading E.M. Forster’s story – the feeling to immerse into a story, as to be surrounded by the smell, dirt and chaos of mid 19th century London. I resumed the reading of ‘Howards End’ after this experience and, fortunately, the second part of the book was more engaging. I also would like to point out that all through the book there were very remarkable quotes worth reading. I would have loved to give the novel four stars and I regret that the book was not captivating enough for me. Nevertheless, I will read another E.M. Forster, most probably ‘Maurice’, which was published posthumously and which is said to be Forster’s most sincere novel.

Quotes by E.M. Forster I liked: “Discussions keep a house alive. It cannot stand by bricks and mortar alone”, “It is those that cannot connect who hasten to cast the first stone”, “Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him”.

I know I would have enjoyed this story more if not for what is occurring world-wide today. Instead I lost my patience with several characters, found the misunderstandings irritating and was miffed with the biased attitude of Henry Wilcox. I understand the atmosphere of this story was probably typical of the era but I could’t get over the snobbish air that went alongside with wealth.

I remembered this as an enjoyable bit of Edwardian fluff, not unlike A Room with a View. Yes, it does have that lightness and deft touch, but Howards End is also a lot more complex and forthright in its dissection of male-female roles, the English classes, and to a lesser extent their chauvinism towards foreigners.

What is so engaging about Forster is the way he consistently doesn’t take sides; so there are devastating take-downs of pretensions - of both the progressive, “merely” well-off Schlegels and the conservative, moneyed Wilcoxes – as well as affectionate portraits of both.
However, Forster’s treatment of class divisions isn’t entirely successful: when he’s writing about the working-class Basts he becomes much more cautious. I think the reason is, while his observations on the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes are simply brilliant and timeless, the lower classes are just unfamiliar enough to him that he comes across as maudlin and patronizing much of the time.

But apart from that, Forster’s voice still sounded pitch-perfect to me, well over 100 years later. Though you do have to ignore a bit of archaic personifying (and Capitalizing!) of the Abstract – as in,
“Family Pride flounders to the surface, puffing and blowing and refusing to be comforted; Theology, vaguely ascetic, gets up a nasty groundswell”. (!)

Anyway, the story … no, I can’t do it! without Forster’s dialogue and pithy observations, it will just come off like one of Shakespeare’s sillier comedies. Instead, I’m just going to list the characters:

Howards End: an old farmhouse whose charm captivated the Schlegels, though it’s too inconvenient for the Wilcoxes who own it; they value it mainly for its proximity to London.

Henry Wilcox: the self-satisfied, paternalistic and thoughtless face of conservatism; principally responsible for and main beneficiary of England’s wealth. After his wife dies, he marries Margaret – not surprising, says Helen, “those types always remarry one of their wives’ friends.” Good natured but emotionally-crippled and congenitally incapable of recognizing his privilege.
I loved this observation about him:
“He came and sat down beside her, improvising emotion”.

Charles Wilcox: his son, the suspicious and contemptibly cruel face of conservatism. Works for pater and is wealthy only through his inheritance.

Evie, Dolly Wilcox: the vacuous faces of conservatism, spouting views borrowed from father Henry or husband Charles

Ruth Wilcox: wife of Henry, peacemaker and the more acceptable kindly face of conservatism. Forms a brief friendship with Margaret and wills Howard’s End to her, but is thwarted by her family.

Margaret Schlegel: 30-ish liberal, independent and practical. Parents were German-English so family thought to be “not quite English enough.” Despite Henry being obtuse, hypocritical and patronizing, marries him because she doesn’t see those qualities as particularly problematic when set against his position in society. Sees him as a “project” wherein she will connect him to her own world view. Doesn’t learn about the Wilcox’s double-cross until the end of the book.

Helen Schlegel: younger sister of Margaret. Art-loving, passionate and somewhat flighty face of Liberalism. Prone to taking on Good Causes, including the Basts. Although initially enchanted by the Wilcoxes, quickly becomes repelled by their actions and behaviour.

Tibby: the youngest Schlegel, the rational and dispassionate face of Liberalism. Although he has a minor role, is important as a sounding-board for his sisters and as a foil to Charles.

Aunt Juley: Comic relief and unwitting instigator of the early discord between the Wilcoxes and the Schlegels.

Leonard Bast: ambitious and intelligent working-class clerk; would love to discuss Art with the upper classes if he could only connect. Career and ultimately his life destroyed by the Wilcoxes.

Jacky Bast: Leonard’s significantly older wife, with a rather unexpected connection to Henry. An even less successful portrait bordering on caricature where I thought Forster’s prejudices against lower-class women were showing. But hey, this was 1910.

Tom: son of Helen and Leonard who is responsible for the rather twee ending to Howards End, for which I should deduct half a star, but won’t because I really did love this book.