JAN 2026 "Maurice" discussion: Final thoughts

Links to all Maurice threads in this group read:
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR (end of novel)
FORSTER'S TERMINAL NOTE
Final Thoughts (This thread)

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Thank you for reading with It's A GoodThing Group Read.

What did you think? Share your closing thoughts. And if you'd like, you can also attach your final review.

I found a fascinating podcast episode about the writing of Maurice and the history of its manuscripts. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p057tpn8

Oooh! Looking forward to perhaps dipping into that this weekend, during which I'm hoping to play the recluse. (Touch wood, since so far this year has thwarted every opportunity to step away from the daily grind.)

>2 amanda4242: Oh yes, you bet I'll be listening to that, too. I'm just letting the novel digest a bit, then I'll be ready for the deserts.

>3 elenchus: Boo! I do hope you can step away. It's vital to our well being. And I'm selfishly supporting it because I look forward to your reading thoughts.

>2 amanda4242: I just listened to this, Amanda. Quite fascinating! It put so many things in perspective. I had no idea Isherwood was so instrumental; I have his A Single Man and it's just zoomed up the TBR ladder. Thank you a BUNCH for sharing that.

I wish I had known (or cared) about Forster long ago, in 1975-1976, back when I lived in Alexandria; I even took the trams many a time. But, that would have been the past, the long past for me, Mohammed el-Adl died in 1922 and Forster had returned to England even before that. Still, I would have dug his Alexandria: A History and a Guide. I was interested in Alexandrian history, who wouldn't be? Everywhere one turned, it was historic with a capital H. Sigh, I also was young, too interested in playing the guitar, studying for my O levels, reading poets like Kahlil Gibran and listening to Cat Stevens. And boys, I was much interested in boys. A thing I did have in common with Forster.

@GregM3 you will love the BBC program, I'm sure. And you too @elenchus! It gives us more insight into the Forster personality--Maurice is indeed partly based on real-life events. Greg, I also get an extra charge out of how the dots can connect to poet Stephen Spender. Remember the black and white picture of the 3 of them together, fresh-faced Spender, Auden, and Isherwood?

I will be sorry when we are done with this novel. It has really gotten to me.

>2 amanda4242: Yes, so many additional thoughts introduced.

An epilogue in the original draft!
The real-life example couple!
The samizdat history of the typescript!

But really, it's the intentional search for a believable Happily Ever After for Maurice. That is as hopeful and heart-inflating as anything in the book itself.

I can see why you've read the book multiple times, Amanda. And elenchus, too--reading and participating in our comments although you read the book earlier. I can see why this book deserves that careful attention. It's one of those books that a second time would very much reveal more than the first time around.

I have got a couple of biographies of Forster that I have coming and hope to read while the iron is hot. I most especially look forward to My Policeman in the May group read here on GoodThing. It would be grand if we all can make it for that one too. This was a great experience, my first group read on LT! Thank you @TonjaE for the idea and implementation of this group.

I hope you all will add your reviews, if you like. Here's mine (though there is nothing here you don't already know very well).

>8 DebiCates: *takes bow* my pleasure, I've enjoyed this first read too.

>10 TonjaE: Glad you enjoyed it Tonja!

Here's my review, I still may go back and append some thoughts now that we've had this LT book club to enrich my appreciation of all that is the novel! I especially am reconsidering my ideas of Clive as semi-stand-in for Forster himself. Hmmn.

I wrote my review years ago, and it still holds true for me.

>12 elenchus: Dr Barry! We didn't talk much about him in our comments, but he was a disagreeable fellow. Seemed to me like he was towing the line for society. Not exactly pleased with the task, as if he had some of his own beefs with it, even it wasn't the same as Maurice's.

So now you lean less toward Clive is Forster's doppelganger? I think there was Forster in them all, and also not Forster in any of them. ha What he had in common with each character was the outward imperative to deny a natural variation of love and sexual needs, and thus battle with feeling ashamed because that's what "good men" didn't do, and yet know deep in their hearts and souls they knew they were not bad.

Or something like that. ha It created a complexity I found Forster plumbed so well. That may be why Isherwood and others thought it was so important, even though "dated." It records that anguish that still very much goes on even now in our more so-called enlightened times.

>13 amanda4242: I agree with everything you wrote and feel. I can see why it's a multi-re-read for you. I think I could easily do the same. But if it wasn't for the ending, the POSSIBILITY in that ending...I don't know if I could let my heartbreak on that level, twice.

Which reminds me, the copy I read didn't have the famous dedication, ""to a Happier Year." The dedication and the ending made twin bookends.

What about you? If the ending was different, darker, would it change your affection for this book?

>15 DebiCates: If the ending was different, darker, would it change your affection for this book?

That's a question I've never considered. Forster was so dedicated to the story not ending in tragedy that I don't think the book would even exist without that hopeful ending.

>16 amanda4242: True. I didn't know how it would (could) turn out, going into it mostly blind, so I fretted over it while reading. I'm glad he wrote it the way he wrote it, the way he *wanted* to write it, making it a hopeful, visionary work.

>15 DebiCates: and >16 amanda4242:"What about you? If the ending was different, darker, would it change your affection for this book?"

I think it would have lessened it for me.

Tragic stories on this topic are much more common, and even at the time when it was finally published, I think that was true. But having a book written when it was originally written with an ending like this that's hopeful without being pure wish fulfillment is something special and rare. It's both hopeful and true.

This is a quick 2023 article that I think has a lot to say about why Maurice is important in spite of its many obstacles. And--this is nice--the article's author agrees with our reading enjoyment of it.

https://themillions.com/2023/06/to-a-happier-year-on-e-m-forster-and-maurice.htm...

>19 DebiCates: Thanks for sharing! An interesting read, even if I did flinch every time the author put an apostrophe in Howards End.

>20 amanda4242: I'm sensitive to casual misplaced apostrophes too. But, I confess, I was unaware Howards End didn't have an apostrophe. I understand the flinch, though. (And I will always know now it doesn't have an apostrophe!)

>21 DebiCates: It's a common mistake, but in an article (an article about Forster!) it means both the author *and* the editor missed it.

>22 amanda4242: I didn't know either Amanda, and I am just finishing reading it! A really great book, I thought, though completely different than Maurice. I knew it was a place, but my mind saw the apostrophe in the name even though it wasn't there.

>22 amanda4242: Kind of funny, when I just googled it, I got:

"Howards End has no apostrophe because it refers to a place (the house) rather than something belonging to a person named Howard, following a literary convention for place names, even though E.M. Forster found the lack of apostrophe slightly irritating."

>22 amanda4242: Anyway, thank you for the correction! Nice to know the correct way to write it so I can stop making a fool of myself! :)

>23 GregM3: It should be there, we want it to be there, but it's just not there.

>26 amanda4242: Haha :)

Does everyone know Nancy Pearl's Four Doorways approach to categorizing a book no matter its genre? I just learned about it. If you aren't familiar you can google it or watch her 18 min TedX talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjDMbixPSeQ&t=21s

Yes, it's a bit simplified, but I think she's on to something: getting readers to identify what they love and how to articulate that. And also embrace it! (Life is short and there are so many books.)

I'm curious how each person in this group would categorize Maurice into the percentages of Pearl's four primary doorways: Story, Character, Setting, and Language?

This is my first time to try this approach, but here goes my assessment:

45% character
30% story
20% language
5% setting

I think the lowish language percentage is why this felt different from Forster's other novels to me. And although there is definitely an important setting (Edwardian England) the physical setting wasn't strongly important. The politics of the setting (again Edwardian England) fell more into the story (plot) aspect, I thought. That was my thinking, anyway.

What about you? How would you divide the Four Doorway percentages in Maurice?

>28 DebiCates: I'm not sure what I would put the percentages as, but yours don't seem unreasonable to me. I like your choices. I think you're completely right that Maurice has a strong character emphasis. And considering setting, I also agree that compared to this book, both Howards End and Room with a View have a larger percentage of setting, each for different reasons. In Howards End, England itself becomes almost one of the characters! But it's hard for me to figure out percentages because I keep changing my mind on how to think about the categories. Probably that's my own unfortunate tendency to overthink things!

>29 GregM3: I can't tell you how many times I tweaked the Maurice percentages until I felt mostly satisfied...and that it also added up to 100! ha I'm a bit of an over-thinker too (over-fretter, more like).

Tim Spalding just sent out his monthly newsletter which I forget how I signed up for. I hope you get it. In it is this (it's mesmerizing)

https://proquest.syndetics.com/news/2025/12/16/top-syndetics-unbound-titles-of-2...

Wish all those books had Nancy Pearl's Pie chart on them somewhere. I might join in with some mega popular reads.

Wait, like I need more books I to want to read? Why am I wishing for that? ha

The Four Doorways are interesting to me, I'll have to watch the TED Talk later.

Just based on your description of what the Four Doorways are, I think I'd rank them as:
55% character
20% story
20% setting (as in the setting of social mores/standards of the day not so much physical setting)
5% language

And I think this exercise has helped me clarify some of my final thoughts. Because, unfortunately, I feel like I appreciated the book but didn't like/love it on a personal level.

One reason is that I feel like I never warmed to any of the characters. I feel like I could appreciate them, their development & (possible) motivations but I never felt truly connected to them as people. (Honestly, most of the characters, major & minor, seemed unlikable throughout the book.)

And maybe my lack of connection to the characters is a result of the writing/language (which I rated quite low overall) because, to me, the writing felt choppy & uneven, sometimes hard to parse. The language did not sing, rather it plodded. Not every book needs to sing but this one felt so uneven to me that it pulled me out of the story more than once. Mostly, I think I attributed that aspect to it knowing the book was a draft that was mostly hidden away for decades, not published until after Forster's death. So while it may have been occasionally polished &/or revisited through the years, it likely also languished at various times through the years. At least that makes sense to me as to why the story may feel uneven in parts. I don't know, though.

I do very much appreciate the transgressive nature of this book, Forster's directness at times, & I love that Maurice & Alec get a happy ending. While I respect the book, I don't feel like Forster is likely to become a favorite author for me.

>31 StaciaV: Very well said. I agree, the characters were all rather difficult, and the primaries were not at their best because of the circumstances.

Hm, would they have been more likeable, "better," if they were not under those circumstances? Actually, now that I think about it, probably not. Outside of their natural desire for love, Clive was a Lording politician at heart, Maurice was a misogynist based on how he abominably treated his female family, and Alec displayed rather flexible morals.

Makes me wonder now if Forster intended that and somehow that was a point, too: one doesn't have to be an extra likeable human to desire or, even, deserve love.

I appreciate your comments, Stacia! I feel like I just got another insight into my reading. I was invested in these characters because of their unfair struggles against outside forces, not because I found them deserving in some special way.

>31 StaciaV: I think this exercise has helped me clarify some of my final thoughts

I feel the same way, about this book and about books I read in general. I suppose it's not an earth-shatteringly new concept (the four parts are the standard building blocks), but the putting them together in percentages is new to me and as an exercise it got me really thinking.

Sadly, I don't think the idea has taken off. I would love to see a reader aggregated Pearl Pie chart on book sites to help me determine the "flavor" of book I'm considering.

It reminds me a bit of Myers Briggs Type Indicator.

In fact, that makes me think how certain societies could be described as having an MBTI type. Edwardian England's middle and upper class would be something like an ESTJ (like Dr Barry). When your own personality fundamentally rubs against your society's general type, it's an added challenge to your fitting in, and your happiness.

@GregM, what overall type do you think the novel would be if it were an MBTI personality?

US ebook sale: A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster by Wendy Moffat is on sale for $2.99.

>34 amanda4242: Thanks Amanda!