Howards End (1910)

What is it about Howard's End? This small house, a farm imperfectly gentrified sits at the center of this Edwardian novel. The artistic and spirited Schlegels, the staid Wilcoxes and in their own sad way, the miserable Basts come together to make up an unusual story that dissects the social structure of England at the time. This is the world smashed by World War I, certain people held head and foot above the waves of poverty on islands of money watching others drown.

The Wilcoxes don't think about this, the Basts would like nothing better than to build an island of their own. The Schlegel siblings, Margaret, Helen and Tibby and consider this truth and respond to it in their own way.

The plot involves love affairs, clandestine and imagined, surprising friendships, a marriage and the privilege wealth confers. The book is hard to grasp, especially as I've waited so long to comment on it, but there's something about the era that grabs me. Merchant and Ivory have much to answer for. ( )

Nothing too remarkable. ( )

This was a really deep book, full of insight and theories on the world, society and people as individuals. Its quite a wordy book, but it was surprisingly captivating and wasn't a chore to read or hard to get into. I found once I channelled into the voice of the writing it all flowed very well, and it all made sense. A lot of the concepts and ideas Forster had about property and class are still kind of relevant. I particularly liked the fact, especially given when it was written and the fact that Forster was man, that women aren't patronised to the scale I have come to expect from similar books (though it isn't totally free of don't-worry-your-pretty-little-head-isms). I loved that the book is based around a range of different female characters with different roles in society, with different ideas and approaches to life, women that are not ridiculed or pushed to the side. At the time it was written, women still hadn't been given the vote and weren't really seen as having much of a place in social debate or whatever, but Forster gives some of his female characters agreeable ideals and strong convictions. I was also really pleased with the way he approaches a part of the story which, for the time, was a very scandalous issue, without laying blame or demonising anyone by taking the mainstream point of view of the time. It was a wonderful book and I'll definitely be looking to read more of his work. ( )

By far my most personal Forster. I felt written about. I was in terror through the second half of the story at what he was doing. But he was doing pretty truly, and he came through at the end with optimism not punishment.

This is amazing writing about women. To have a women’s friendship told so well and be the motor of the plot – in the first half, and one might argue in the whole.

I hovered between the sisters in what I thought about events and whose philosophy to live by at a given moment. They are not two types like the Sense and Sensibility sisters, but are nicely contrasted and close/conflicting.

Then, Mrs Wilcox (the first). Miss Avery.

Sisterhood wins in this one. There’s a moment of women’s rebellion and comradeship as exciting as Thelma and Louise, although in an English garden against stuffy gentlemen. It has the escapist clause of Maurice, arguably more rationally stated (hey, I don’t need rationality. But Forster does).

This is so much about ‘the sexes’; and written in 1910. It’s a wonder it is so recognisable. At the price of being cruel to its men, except for one. Unless you can stomach Mr Wilcox better than I can – I’m with sister Helen, not sister Meg, there.

It talks of Imperialists a lot, in at least a faintly critical spirit; there is a running argument about the English Imperialist. Meanwhile, I don’t quite know what Forster understood by ‘cosmopolitan’ at this point in time, but it isn’t good.

His style is strange. This time I liked it, complete with philosophising and foreshadowing; I thought he almost never put a foot wrong, although his moves are his own. It has a slight non-realist symbolism of structure, which I enjoy (the disapproving call this too much coincidence).

I thought it a near-perfect novel. ( )

[Howard's End] seems a study of the various classes and mind sets of England, the rich and poor, the artistic and the businessman. It's not clear in the end whether they've come to any better understanding of each other. ( )