I have been trying to find and read all of Forster's books, and especially one that he took so long to publish. Now it is not remotely shocking as it would have been in 1914, but he still captures Maurice's feelings well on the page.

Maurice is a young man who is in love with a fellow student, Clive. Maurice tries to deny who he is, but can not stop how he feels. ( )

Spoilers follow. When I write a review, I often avoid discussing plot points, but in this novel, as in much of Forster’s work, the interest lies far more in the telling than the plot. In fact, it is interesting to see how much warmth and life Forster can impart to such a simple story. (Boiled down to the bare essentials: Maurice Hall gradually becomes aware of his homosexuality and enters into a chaste but loving relationship with Clive Durham; Clive reverts to (or purports to revert to) heterosexuality and marries; Maurice visits Clive at his estate, Penge, and sleeps with his gamekeeper, Alec Scudder, and after some more conflict between Maurice and Alec, the book ends happily.)

Much of the warmth comes from the typical Forsterian personality of the book, the tone often ironic but not cruel, critical but loving, and filled with poignant, lofty rhetoric. As another reviewer stated, Forster “captures the thrill of discovering your sexuality and capacity for loving another human being,” of coming to truly understand someone. “Love was harmonious, immense,” as Clive falls in love with Maurice; “He poured into it the dignity* as well as the richness of his being, and indeed in that well-tempered soul* the two were one.” When Maurice and Alec both panic and argue and threaten each other, it ends with Alec offering Maurice his hand. “Maurice took it, and they knew at that moment the greatest triumph ordinary man can win . . . He rejoiced because he had understood Alec’s infamy through his own—glimpsing, not for the first time, the genius who hides in man’s tormented soul.”

Forster also gives life to the story through careful and liberal use of symbolism and imagery. In Forster, objects and descriptions are never wasted, never exist in a vacuum, but always contribute to the power and emotion of the story. In the opening scene, young Maurice’s schoolmaster, Mr. Ducie, cringingly informs him about "the mystery of sex” (which Mr. Ducie finds to be “rather a bother”) as they stroll along a grey sea reflecting the colorless sky. He scratches diagrams in the sand, which bear no resemblance to any feelings or thoughts inside Maurice (who is not yet aware of his homosexuality, but cannot quite understand this uniting of male and female). Mr. Ducie waxes poetically and priggishly about Man and Woman and God, but it is silly and passionless rhetoric, and when Maurice says he shall never marry, Mr. Ducie invites Maurice and his future wife to dine with him “ten years hence.” Then they walk off and the tide erases the drawings behind them, and "darkness rolled up again, the darkness that is primeval but not eternal, and yields to its own painful dawn.”

This event is not wasted; Maurice alludes to it after he first sleeps with Alec, and Mr. Ducie’s reappearance (probably some ten years hence!) during the chief conflict between Alec and Clive gives force, irony, and clarity to the situation. The colorless sea, the drawings in the sand, erased by the tide, are the sort of descriptive symbols that take a simple, straightforward scene and impart an unforgettable mythic, resonant quality. The windows at Cambridge and Penge, the primroses and the boathouse at Penge, Alec’s gun, the imagined “crack in the floor” at the hypnotist’s, these are the lifeblood of the work.

Mirrors and echoes of characters and situations through the book provide further resonance and a pleasing sense of unity. Mr. Ducie’s appearances are one example. The interplay of the Clive/Maurice and Alec/Maurice relationships provide the most parallels: Clive and Alec being, respectively, upper and lower class; richer and poorer; chaste and physical; blue-eyed and associated with the Blue Room at Penge, brown-eyed and associated with the Russet Room. Clive is first presented as homosexual, then heterosexual; when Alec first appears, he is flirting with two young women, but he then sleeps with Maurice. At the beginning, Clive and Maurice argue before Maurice climbs into Clive’s window; they reconcile, and later part with a bang. In one of their first encounters, Alec and Maurice have a little tiff, then reconcile; afterwards, Alec climbs into Maurice’s window and they sleep together. This encounter is so forceful as to cause a sort of echo effect, as a major eruption and reconciliation follows, then another separation and reconciliation.

Between the mirrors and echoes of Clive and Alec lies a void in which Maurice falls into despair over the end of his relationship with Clive. I find this to be the weakest section of the book, as the energy slackens and the structure becomes a bit fuzzy. But there were still plenty of moments that kept my interest and attention, such as the oddly touching scene in which Maurice’s grandfather dies, which leads to character growth in Maurice, the cessation of suicidal thoughts in favor of a struggle for life. “Yet he was doing a fine thing—proving on how little the soul* can exist . . . He hadn’t a God, he hadn’t a lover—the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease, because dignity* demanded it. There was no one to watch him, nor did he watch himself, but struggles like his are the supreme achievements of humanity, and surpass any legends about Heaven.”

In two of the quotes above, I starred the words “dignity” and “soul.” Widely separated in the book, the recurrence of these words is another example of Forsterian unity, the repetition of words, themes, phrases in a new context. There are many more examples of this sort of thing in the book, and this is one reason why I find rereading Forster to be rewarding—there’s always more to connect. (Much of what I have written above was heavily influenced by my understanding of the final chapter of Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, in which he discusses his notions of “pattern and rhythm”—I highly recommend that you read at least that chapter.)

For a book in which our eyes are averted from physical encounters, no detail provided, the prose crackles with sexual energy. When Maurice first meets Clive (in Risley’s room, as Maurice is unconsciously drawn to the homosexual Risley), the sentences are peppered with innocuous uses of words and phrases like “come,” “want,” “kneeling,” “flushed,” “under me,” “firm,” “roughly,” and so forth. And I hardly think it is a coincidence that in this meeting, Clive has come to Risley’s room to borrow some piano rolls to “play on Featherstonhaugh’s pianola,” or that Clive rebukes Maurice when he reaches for the roll on the pianola, saying that Maurice would be too rough with it.

As you can probably guess from the above, I developed an immediate and visceral love for this novel. I felt, pleaded, hoped for the characters. I can admit that it’s not Forster’s finest work, and that there are potential flaws—the characters not as finely drawn and fleshed out as they could be, occasional lapses into sentimentality, the ending perhaps improbably happy—but the last is a choice of idealism over realism that I’m ready to defend. The sense of liberation that it provides is an antidote to all that homosexuals in Edwardian England had to suffer, and that many people must still suffer in many parts of the world today. Go Forster. ( )

Maurice is an excellent book; it gives a glimpse into what life must have been like for homosexuals back in Edwardian England. It allows to reader to feel the empathy with the characters and truly gives the reader the opportunity to ingest some of the deep oppression felt by social conventions. Forester also goes deeply into his characters, giving us andecdotes for each one, allowing for more dyanamics between them. Interesting and complex characters as well. Overall, an amazing book that is truly provocative and captivating. ( )

Sweet and sad, a poignant reminder that there was a time -- within living memory -- when some kinds of love dared not speak their name in polite society. ( )

Just finished reading Maurice by E. M. Forster. Originally written during 1913 and 1914, this inspiring and courageous novel was not published until 1971 after Forster's death. Why? Maurice was gay. As was Forster. Britain did not decriminalize homosexual sex between men over twenty-one if conducted in complete privacy until 1967.

Forster was inspired to write Maurice during a visit to Edward Carpenter at Milthorpe, Sheffield, England, in 1913. He was touched by Edward's lover George Meredith on his "backside -- gently and just above the buttocks."

"The sensation was unusual and I still remember it, as I remember the position of a long vanished tooth. It was as much psychological as physical. It seemed to go straight through the small of my back into my sides, without involving my thoughts. It if really did this, it would have acted in strict accordance with Carpenter's yogified mysticism, and would prove that at that precise moment I had conceived."

Forster understates Edward Carpenter as someone whose "prestige ... cannot be understood today." Among many aspects to Edward's complex personality was an ethical socialist vegetarianism.

The Grumpy Vegan highly recommends the film Maurice produced by Merhcant Ivory Productions as a faithful and sympathetic dramatization. Of course, read the book! Learn more about Edward Carpenter, a colleague of Henry Salt. ( )