Originally published in 1908 by Edward Arnold
My edition: the gorgeous 2012 Penguin
English Library edition (above); I want them ALL.
What’s
it about?
A sunny tale of love and
liberation, A Room with a View is the story of Lucy, on holiday in Italy with
her conservative cousin when she meets George Emerson, an unusual young man not
of her class. Although drawn to him, on her return home she becomes engaged
instead to Cecil, a comically dull gentleman from her own background.
Sundrenched and optimistic, and
including many issues which trouble the Edwardian public – radical thinking,
women’s suffrage, the constrictions of English social rules – this is a
brilliantly witty love story.
Why
now?
I’ve always wanted to read this;
it was one my mum loved. It was a rather vague want until I caught sight of
this edition during a regular Amazon scour and I fell in love. I had to have
it.
The
verdict:
I’ve wanted to read EM Forster’s
most famous novel for a very long time. I envisioned sun-drenched rolling
hills, the cultural delights of Italy being scrutinised by the rigid English
and florid declarations of love. And that’s exactly what I got!
Initially, I struggled to get
into A Room with a View. I think this
may have been partially the fault of my unfamiliarity with the time period – I don’t
think I’ve ever read an Edwardian novel before. It wasn’t the strong, lovable,
satire of Regency or the stolid, dense prose of Victoriana or the sparseness of
Modernism – it was a wonderful blend of all of them, and the cast of characters
reflected that amalgamation. Lucy is the young girl finding her voice and
fighting against the values of the older generations; Miss Bartlett is the
older thorn in Lucy’s side, who maybe understands a little more than first
realised; Miss Lavish is the crazy maiden with big ideas and the ultimate
freedom and then we have the Emersons. The Emersons are a lower class than the
rest of the characters and their outlook on life is startlingly different to
every other character in the novel.
One of the things that most set
George Emerson and his father apart is their support of feminism. They feel
that a woman should be a man’s partner, with their own thoughts, opinions and
feelings, and Lucy experiences that when she is with them. They challenge
everything she has been taught by her mother and Miss Bartlett about how to
conduct herself to ensnare a husband and run a successful home.
George himself is such an
unlikely hero. He’s not a hero: he’s shy, has a tendency towards emotional
darkness, he panics and he feels. He’s the opposite of the dreadful Cecil. I hated
the way that the man that Lucy had agreed to marry was so eager to improve her,
to replace her words and ideas with what he thought they should be, to increase
her knowledge of history and literature. And yet the story wasn’t a struggle in
choosing between George and Cecil; A Room
with a View is about Lucy’s struggle to decide who she is and what she be
defined by.
I ended up being completely swept
along with Lucy’s story and the charming cast of characters. This is the
perfect read for a miserable, rainy Sunday when all you want is shorts, sun and
an ice cream.
Still
not convinced?
- It was listed as one of
Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels
- This quote: ‘It isn’t
possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, 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.’
- The feminism! From a book
published in 1908! By a man!
Do you think Forster was ahead
of his time? Is Cecil a bad person, or just the product of his upbringing and
society? Are Lucy and George examples of the ‘new woman’ and the ‘new man’, or
are they just anomalies?
Sophie