A Room with a View

Slighter than Forster's later work, this still-engaging story covers similar ground. It investigates how the social mores of turn-of-century England ran contrary to the exchange of human emotions and equality among classes. Lucy is a young lady being chaperoned on a trip through Italy. She chafes against the oversight when romance blooms between herself and a young man from her country. Back home, she's confronted with falling back on her own resources to figure out the morality of her feelings. The plot thickens when she becomes engaged to another man.

The finest accomplishment here is Forster's accurate capturing of the feeling of being engaged to the wrong person. Lucy reads her unease as a personal failing, something she needs to show more correct in herself. Any longing she feels for an escape, an alternative, she also rationalizes away. Pressure to marry the right person in the eyes of others clashes with personal desire, and her struggle exhibits all the inner turmoil of a real person in this situation. The only portion I doubted was her final decisiveness, but in this George acts as her catalyst, arranging her thoughts for her. Which is a bit ironic when you think about what she says to Cecil, but then I suppose they really were her thoughts, they were just in a muddle.

Mr. Emerson's chapter towards the end ought to be framed in a gallery of Greatest Discourses on Love of All Time. show less

Lucy Honeychurch and her cousin Charlotte are visiting Florence when they meet Mr Emerson and his son. Later in England, when they encounter the Emersons again, they both have private reasons for wanting to avoid them.

I was delighted by much of this; it is astutely observant and gently humorous. Much ado is made over a kiss, which is baffling from a modern perspective, but I suspect this not only reflects attitudes common at the time but that Forster is intentionally showing that his characters are being a bit ridiculous.

I would be even more enthusiastic if the final chapters had not unfolded as they did. There’s an irritating scene where a man lectures Lucy, telling her what she should do. His motives aren’t unsympathetic, and his show more advice isn’t unreasonable -- but it is uninvited and he persists even when she becomes obviously upset. Moreover, the story then jumps in time, skipping over Lucy deciding what to do next and how she goes about it. I’m pleased with the final result, but why must you diminish her agency like that?

It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, “She loves young Emerson.” A reader in Lucy’s place would not find it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome “nerves” or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed? show less

An immaculately written little book, full of mocking the comfortable class in the British society in the beginning of the previous century. One has to take it in the historical context however. If you read with the contemporary set of principles as your valuation metrics, this will fail miserably on most counts.

The language is exquisite, it is an improvement on Dickens, if that is at all possible. It may even be an improvement on George Eliot in some aspects. The construction of the novel is where the weakness lies in my humble opinion. The trajectory is clear from early on and this trajectory is never in doubt. The way we finally arrive at the destination is unnecessary melodramatic. Those two final chapters could conceivably prompt an show more annoyed reader to slam a one-star rating. show less

Reread-Started as a 5-star, and absolutely remains a 5-star. I have only one nit to pick, and for me that is pretty amazing. Said nit: Why does Cecil suddenly become human, and not just human but certifiably humble, after Lucy shares her reasons for ending the engagement? Okay, back to work. I do not doubt that I will be thinking about this issue all day despite back-to-back meetings that actually require my focused participation. Full rtf

Back for the review --

It is easy to forget E.M. Forster was a radical, but he most definitely was. He hung out with Virginia Woolf, he was (obliquely) public about being a homosexual at a time when that was a dangerous choice, he championed gender equality, and he rejected the strictures of upper crust show more British life in theory if not always in practice. His chafing under societal pressures is so central not just to this book, but to his next, the beautiful Howard's End, and the frustrating and touching Maurice. When I read this in my 20's I don't think I realized how revolutionary some of this was. That may be in part because discussion about the rights of workers and women gets mashed up with overly romantic somewhat nauseating messaging about how love is the answer to all things. Anyway, reading this many years later I was astonished by how ahead of its time much of this was. George says that the future must be one in which men and women are equal. This is really quite shocking. More shocking though is the subtle way in which Forster conveys Mr. Beebe's homosexuality, and hints at Cecil's in the early part of the last century. Most shocking perhaps is Lucy's rejection of money and family to run off and find passion with a socialist aesthete. Could anything have been a more clear rejection of the tenets of 1920's British mores? And Forster makes the reader feel good about all this, casting the horrid Charlotte and the effete Cecil as the exemplars of things proper and English and casting the sweet, shy, depressive George and his loving and defiantly innocent father as the exemplars of modern thinking. How could anyone root for Charlotte and Cecil in that matchup?

I know this is primarily a love story, passion over propriety and all that. I love a love story, but honestly reading this as just a love story it doesn't really do it for me. There is, literally, not a single conversation or interaction between George and Lucy that would indicate why he loves her. It is hormones. At least Cecil loved her for her music. George thought her beautiful most definitely and in need of his protection (to save her from ugliness like the blood covered postcards) but they never exchange any other information. Lucy loves him in part for his awkward decency shown in the ceding of his rooms and their view and the postcard incident, and for his honesty and spontaneity in expressing his feelings, and hormones too. There is something there, but George, no. There is not a lot to root for when boiled down to romance. Luckily the book is so much more than that. It is a wonderful and witty slice of life, it is a call for a new day in England, it is an ode to Forster's beloved Italy, and it is a coming of age story (as regards Lucy.) A joy to (re)read. But yeah, I still don't get how the scales fell from Cecil's eyes. I really want to understand that better. show less

Without a Baedeker, indeed. That nightmare of every conventional tourist overtakes the deliciously-named Lucy Honeychurch on her first outing in Florence. Her companion, an outlandish spinster novelist, Miss Lavish (yes, Forster does overdo it a bit with naming—but to my taste, with good effect), runs off with the indispensable guide book. From that point on, the grand tour of Lucy, an English maiden with inchoate stirrings suggesting there is something more to life, goes off-script.
Lucy is not fully formed. Throughout the book, she tends to borrow the opinions of the last person she was with whenever she tries to voice her own. Only when she sits at the piano does she express, perhaps inadvertently, the depths of possibility within show more her. The point is humorously made by another guest at the Pension Bertolini, Mr. Beebe. She fascinates him (he is one of many who would like to mold her to his ideal). When she embarks on a dubious outing (still without the reassuring guidance of a Baedeker), he ascribes it to “too much Beethoven.”
Beebe is that classic stock figure of British fiction, a vicar. True to form, he does at times add a comic note, yet he seems the most humane and sensible person in the group at other times. Early on, Lucy remarks: “He seems to see the good in everyone. No one would take him for a vicar.” One vicar is standard in a British comedy; Forster doubles this by adding another, Mr. Eager. He has installed himself in Florence, where he shows tourists the sights, glorying in medievalism (as yet untainted by the Renaissance), exemplified by the Giotto frescoes, “untroubled by the snares of anatomy and perspective.”
Eager is what Beebe is not (yet): a pious humbug. Yet he is also more: a fount of slander, which helps generate nearly all the plot complications this slim novel needs. His victim once lived in Brixton, where Eager had a parish before embarking on his current career as a cicerone. The victim’s name is Emerson (no relation, except spiritually, to the American transcendentalist). Emerson, with his son George, is also staying at the pension.
The first part of the book ends when Lucy and her chaperone, her poor relation Charlotte, precipitously decamp for Rome (for reasons I won’t reveal here).
In part two, Lucy has returned to Surrey, where she lives with her widowed mother and her younger brother, Freddy. Lucy, after twice refusing, finally agrees to marry Cyril Vyse (he and his mother had been in Rome). Lucy gamely submits to Cyril’s efforts to mold her until her eyes are opened to what it would be like to be married to him (Vyse/vise, get it?). Just who opens her eyes would probably require a spoiler alert.
One who could have provided the service, but didn’t, is Beebe, who soon recognizes that Cyril shouldn’t marry anyone, least of all a woman. Indeed, celibate characters, male and female, abound in the novel.
A room with a view—that’s a standard request from tourists seeking accommodations. This book opens with a comedy of errors about who gets such a room and who doesn’t. The awkward social transaction (with possible social obligation) of rectifying the situation helps the plot get started.
Yet a room with a view implies more. It is shelter yet lets in light and affords a broader world perspective. It is worth paying attention to scenes involving windows throughout the book: who is near them and whether the drapes are drawn. Fittingly, the final chapter takes place once again in Florence; its title, “The End of the Middle Ages,” expresses the culmination that has been achieved. For Eager isn’t the only one enamored of medieval times. Lucy, in her unformed way, yearned for her own heroic knight. What she gets isn’t exactly that.
I’m a fan of Forster’s books. Perhaps this one isn’t as perfect as Howards End, but it’s an excellent read nonetheless. show less

Every time I try to write a review about this small book something holds me back and I end up writing nothing about it. It has been 5 months since I read this so I will most likely depend the review on my memory of emotions.

I shall start by telling a personal story about that one time when an old lady from church visited my mother's house for some house-to-house prayer related to the Virgin Mary. She greeted me with a "Why are the windows closed?" which I mindlessly answered with "Why should they be opened?". Apparently, she perceived my response as rude while I wondered what was there to see outside these closed windows other than my grandfather's kitchen and cats stretching their bodies along the pavement. As absurd as this story was show more I can't help but make a connection of these windows to E.M. Forster's A Room with a View. Short and semi-sweet. A story of a lady torn between a dull, pretentious man of high class who she did not feel the least bit in love with and another man of lower class without the expected societal upbringing. Like finding a room with a view, it was, for her, a breath of fresh air, this another man, and made her realize that another perspective of things existed. Unfortunately, although it had made some of its point on happiness and the uncertainty of the future amidst the promise of love, the story unfolded much too quick for my taste and left no room for the right kind of development and romance. I honestly would have liked this better if it was longer, polished, more room for love to breathe, blossom, and grow. show less

I won’t be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult.

Preach sister!

Awakenings abound in this fantastic short novel! I loved reading about Lucy's growing conflicting feelings on society's expectations that women are to be protected and informed on how to behave, and her emerging confidence in her own judgement and desire for self determination. I wasn't wooed by the romance in the book. To me, it was Lucy's journey that was captivating. I also absolutely loved the final reveal about a supposedly ‘dreadful frozen Charlotte’. A book filled with sumptuous writing and wonderful symbolism. A must read.

It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, show more ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal. show less