E. M. Forster - C or D, s&d, etc.

'sincerely dire' is a backhanded compliment if ever I heard one Daniel! What can you mean?

I enjoyed them all very much, with the possible exception of A Passage to India: its social comedy/satire is wonderful, possibly his best writing, but the attempt to broaden his range by introducing symbolist/modernist elements is a resounding dud. D H Lawrence he isn't. I agree the female characters in Howard's End are wonderfully written, and I think it's his best book overall or did at the time I read it. The description of Beethoven's
Fifth (the goblins at the end of the world!!) sticks in my mind. Shows how much attitudes to music have changed that an intellectual and connoisseur like Forster could without reserve or self-consciousness declare Beethoven's Fifth to be the greatest piece of music ever written. But of course the hoi polloi couldn't get itno the concerts in those days and there were no recordings: from there to Abigail's Party is a long journey (no pun intended).

Was he a great writer? I'm tempted to think he was over-rated because he was very posh, but he's too enjoyable a writer and likeable a man for me mind or to want to argue that his reputation should be less than it is.

Aspects of the Novel is also classic.

"Dire" not as in bad, but just sad and morose. What I mean is, some writers use self-pity as some sort of weapon (I am TORTURED because I have DEEP THOUGHTS and am BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE!), or just purposefully set out to make things as terrible as possible. Forster often feels endlessly bleak and awful to me, but it always seems to me that with Forster it's really just the way he sees the world, and there's not an ounce of vanity or indulgence about it. In other words, he's not the whiny drama queen that you just want to fuck off, he's this good friend you have that is just genuinley sad all the time, and you genuinley wish you could make him happy, especially when so many of his troubles are (to the light of current society) due to "flaws" that either aren't actually flaws.

(I realise this argument's a bit rockist, resting as it does on sincerity, but it's the best way I can put it.)

I've only read "The Longest Journey" and "Maurice".

I think the reason I love Howard's End the most is because it offers a glimmer of something beyond the sadness, almost shows us what we need to do to transcend our awful human limitations... but then doesn't quite make it. Which is the saddest thing of all.

My girlfriend says you cannot get to grips with Forster's writing unless you know his background. I'm not sure. You'd probably work it out from Maurice, anyway.

Wasn't Forster himself closeted? In a way that Gide or Sackville-West weren't. Publication of Maurice would have been an admission of something Forster seems to have felt as "guilt" -- or perhaps he just wanted to "protect" family or his reputation. There have been no shortage of reasons to stay closeted...

man, howard's end bugged the shit out of me

i mean, leonard bast gets killed but he got to go for a walk on the moors once, so it is alright

I suspect when I do die, it'll be in the same way as Bast. THere are a lot of overstacked shelves round here...

I need to marry a male Margaret Schlegel.

Has anyone read "Maurice"? How is it?

Terrible -- a fantasy written by a novelist who should have known better. Which doesn't means you shouldn't read it.

i have a copy but i'm going to attempt 'a passage to india' and possibly 'the eternal moment' first

His homosexual stories, collected in The Life to Come, are much better than Maurice (I felt so sinful reading them before I came out).

I loved Room With a View and Passage is a masterpiece. I'll skip Maurice and get Howard's End next.

I don't think I've ever read a novel by him but I love the stories in The Celestial Omnibus.

His homosexual stories, collected in The Life to Come, are much better than Maurice (I felt so sinful reading them before I came out).

His other stories are pretty ace, too, including SF classic 'The Machine Stops'.

'eternal moment' appears to be a collection of these, with introduction on how he is "unlikely to attempt anything further along this line"

Rereading The Longest Journey sounds like a good idea.

https://newrepublic.com/article/163578/em-forster-afterlives-maurice-alec

I read the Galgut novel (solid) in May after rereading Maurice, which seemed more moving and also sillier than my college experience w/it. I did note how Forster does not make Maurice a paragon of sensitivity: he grows up to be Charles Wilcox, a theory helped by James Wilby playing both characters

And the triad he enjoyed with Buckingham and his wife was impressively ahead of its time.

i think there is something in the closed, anal, tight, furled dryness of it

― anthony, Tuesday, October 11, 2005