Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Oct 25, 2007

Jessica rated it:

A beloved college professor used this novel as his starting point for a glorious Humanities lecture on "The Unspeakable Vice of the Greeks." Except for the time I fell down the stairs of the lecture hall and dislocated my shoulder, that's pretty much the only morning I remember from my freshman year.

I love Forster's attitude toward his characters, which is similar to one a social worker might have towards his clients: he doesn't romanticize them and sees all of their faults More...

6 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2010

Mike rated it:

I took the damned "Spoiler Alert" alert out--I think it keeps people from reading the actual review. That said, some of the following comments might be considered Spoiler, but I prefer to think of these comments as what Forster could have done better, should have done better, and any image of Hugh Grant spread-eagled on a table deserves to be noticed, IMHO.

At first, I thought rereading Forster’s gay novel for a group discussion would be fun. I liked it first time around and

More...

11 comments like (12 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2007

Lin rated it:

One of my favourite novels, and incidentally the one I wrote my MA thesis on. Maurice is, for all intents and purposes, a dime-a-dozen love story and a period piece. The only twist is that this love story concerns two men, which was unheard of in the time that it was written (1913). Forster wrote it mainly as a therapeutical effort, having grown tired of not being able to write about the kind of love that interested him the most, as a homosexual male. Published 60 years after it was written, Mau More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jun 06, 2007

graycastle rated it:

It's not a secret that this is one of my favourite novels of all time. My reason for loving it so much is this: it blends together questions of sexuality, nationality, imperialism, masculinity, and class into this amazing matrix that questions every single one of those categories. At the end, the retreat into the English greenwood shows two homosexual men attacking/questioning England from a space outside England that is also, paradoxically, the heart of England...really, the thing I love best More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 09, 2011

Christy rated it:

I wouldn't call this a review post, mainly because I doubt I'd be able to write a suitable one. However, I couldn't just let it pass without writing something about the book that will most likely end up being one of my all time favorites.

Written in the 1910s, but not released until 1971, after the author's death, Maurice is an Edwardian story about love, class, and finding oneself. The title character is a young man who comes to understand that he is homosexual. We see him through two More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 13, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

I consumed this book in one sitting. From the time I bought it last night at 7pm to when I licked the last bits of the epilogue at 2am. I first came across this story when I caught bits of the Merchant and Ivory production on tv. What? A British period piece where a man climbs into a gentleman's window for a night of sex? Isn't that Freddie from A Room With a View? This can't be Jane Austen. Ah, it's Forster! This books takes that one homoerotic scene of the pond from A Room With a View More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 01, 2008

janet rated it:

Forster is one of my favorite English novelists and I have always meant to read this book. The writing of it was probably very personal for him, and it is a very strong argument for the fact that people don't choose to be gay. He strongly suggests that society must accept it, or at the very least not outlaw it. I was interested to learn that it wasn't published until after his death.

In classic Forster form, he deals with class and social criticism through love and sex in this book More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 01, 2007

Falkor rated it:

Maurice Hall is a thoroughly average middle class English youth--not too wealthy, not too handsome, not too intelligent--muddling through life, doing what social convention requires of him. That is, until he meets fellow student Clive Durham at Cambridge, and is forced to accept what he previously kept from his conscious mind: his homosexuality. The two begin a long affair that is emotionally passionate but sexless, as Clive is unwilling to risk the potential penalty for their sleeping togethe More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2007

Jamie rated it:

favorite quotes:

a slow nature such as maurice’s appears insensitive, for it needs time even to feel. its instinct is to assume that nothing either for good or evil has happened, and to resist the invader. once gripped, it feels acutely, and its sensations in love are particularly profound. given time, it can know and impart ecstasy; given time, it can sink to the heart of hell. thus it was that his agony began as a slight regret; sleepless nights and lonely days must intensify it int More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 29, 2011

Lord rated it:

I sort of think this book should be required reading for everyone. I mean, I could potentially turn evangelical about how great I think this book is. It's gorgeously written, inspiring, passionate, multi-layered, and deals with classism as well as homophobia...oh and it was written in 1914. It had me at the dedication which is "Dedicated to a Happier Year", and after I read the final page I was so full of joy that I immediately turned on "Dancing on the Dark" by Bruce Springs More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 15, 2007

Austin rated it:

Total cream. I've never read any Forster, I think because all the film adaptations of my youth made me think he was starchy, stuffy, Oxbridge-y. And I suppose it is but has such a beating heart. This book, for the fact that it's from 1913, may not exactly be "modern" on the subject of homosexuality but it's definitely subtle and precise enough to be appreciated now. I loved the short chapters, each built around a smart little pivot of feeling. And the romance itself was surprising and More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2012

Utie rated it:

Menceritakan tentang pemuda yg bersekolah di Cambridge University bernama Maurice Hall, dia bersahabat dengan teman sekolahnya Clive Durham (kalau di film yg main Hugh Grant, ouch!). Maurice ini anak dari seorang pengusaha stock broker (yg pasti keluarganya kaya raya), dia pintar. Tapi gara-gara Clive menyatakan cinta pada Maurice, Maurice jadi bingung sampai berkata "You talk rubbish!" ke Clive. Clive tersinggung dan meninggalkan dia ditempat. Maurice jadi bertanya-tanya sebenarnya ap More...

0 comments like

May 12, 2011

Bembo rated it:

Maurice follows this privileged young man from public school, through Cambridge and on into his mid twenties; and the two men with whom he becomes intimately involved. It also provides an interesting insight into the lives of the middles classes of the period and their attitudes, particularly towards those of lower class, and the prevailing attitude towards homosexuality.

Forster is not sparing in his depiction of Maurice, at times being quite blunt about his character and his shortcom More...

0 comments like

Jan 29, 2011

Tancredi rated it:

"La lussuria appare trascurabile quando è assente."

Maurice non avrebbe bisogno di presentazioni: romanzo scandalo e capolavoro di uno dei più brillanti scrittori inglesi del primo Novecento, Edward Morgan Forster.
Romanzo sofferto, scritto nel 1914, rimaneggiato più volte negli anni successivi, sempre tenuto nascosto nel cassetto, finché la morte dello scrittore l'ha liberato, nel pieno, ormai, degli anni Settanta. Eppure, dopo tutto quel tempo, era ancora un romanzo capace di More...

0 comments like

Jun 15, 2010

Katherine rated it:

Special for Pride Month: the posthumously published Maurice, written by E.M. Forster in 1913, concerning a rather unremarkable bourgeois Englishman whose life changes forever when he accepts that he is homosexual. The plot follows several years of Maurice's youth, chronicling much of a two-year relationship with a classmate, Clive, a blue-blooded rebel with a secret bottomless pit of self-loathing. Forster sticks close to his characters with a psychologically astute eye, assigning them histories More...

0 comments like

Jun 04, 2011

Matthew rated it:

From spoilersliterature.blogspot.com-

I have just finished E. M. Forster’s originally controversial novel Maurice (255 pages). If you are not familiar, it is an early 20th century novel (wrote between 1913 and 1914 but only published until 1971 when the author died) that follows the life, from boyhood to early adult life, of a homosexual man by the name of (you guessed it!) Maurice!

Coming from a very accepting-of-everyone family, thankfully, I naturally wasn’t ‘shocked’ by th More...

0 comments like

Jul 23, 2010

Edan rated it:

This was such a beautiful and moving book, and felt particularly modern for Forster--and not just because of the gay relationships depicted therein. There was something spare to the writing here, it felt less embellished to me than the prose in his other novels. It also did away with the comedy of errors and parlor room dramatics of A Room with a View or Where Angels Fear to Tread, and that felt modern, too.

I appreciated how Maurice could be quite frustrating, and that he wasn't al More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Ivana rated it:

First something about the publication- this book was not published when it was written, but considerably later- due to its controversial nature. I always felt that books that have not been published in their time are almost like organisms that never lived. By that I mean that they never get the change to live in the present, be reviewed, and be put into context. Even those who read them upon publication probably had seen them as a thing past or at least belonging to another time. There is somet More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 29, 2010

~Sara~ rated it:

***Mild Spoilers***
Maurice was a good book but there were a few spots that I found confusing. I would've given it 4 stars if I understood it better. There were times were I didn't get what the author was saying because a word didn't seem to fit. Maybe, since the book is nearly 100 years old, the word's meaning has change so is no longer used the way Forster did? Also, there were a few places where it felt like he was leaving too many things out and I'm not used to reading between the lines More...

0 comments like

Aug 10, 2010

Greg rated it:

I wish I could say I loved it, but I didn't. It was a tedious read. I was ready to abandon it many times, even 3/4 of the way through it. I'm glad I persevered because it became more compelling, more emotional, in the final pages.

Otherwise, it was very British, very staid, and I am no Anglophile. It was perhaps an interesting portrait of the haute bourgeoisie of early 20th century England. But all of the characters were rather unlikeable, much like watching a Seinfeld marathon. Earl More...

0 comments like

Apr 24, 2009

George rated it:

This was the second time I've read this, it being one of my first forays into a particular theme. It was, undoubtedly, a mildly edited first draft, but that being said, it is also perhaps the most tightly-plotted, well-written first draft in the history of man plus pen. I found myself a little more sympathetic to Alec this time, but I'm still voting for Clive/Maurice OTP. (someone write a sequel?!)
Mostly, I think, this provides some very interesting insights into perspectives of the time pe More...

0 comments like

Dec 19, 2011

Donna rated it:

I never knew that this book existed until I saw it on Listopia in the category of Best Gay Fiction. I pretty much read it in a day and thoroughly enjoyed it. I did not not know when I picked up that it would delve so deeply into the psychology of what is it to be gay in a repressive society. It was a pleasant surprise. One of the themes running throughout the book was the battle of truthfulness versus deception, not only in relation to others, but to oneself. The book begs the question of wha More...

0 comments like

Jan 06, 2011

Marlee rated it:

I just sat around and read this book in today. It's fairly short and I knew every scene because I saw the movie a few weeks ago, but I still loved it. I've read that scholars consider this to be... not one of E. M. Forster's greatest, I guess. I can see how it's not necessarily something I'd want to write a research paper on. At the risk of slipping into New Historicism, I suppose it's interesting from a historical viewpoint (it was written while homosexuality was illegal in England and publishe More...

0 comments like

Nov 13, 2011

Rebecca rated it:

I love Forster so I expected nothing less than bliss whilst reading Maurice. Whilst its perhaps not quite as polished as some of his other books, it is intensely personal and really makes you feel Maurice's mixed emotions. There isn't as much social comedy in the book- again, it is focused almost entirely on Maurice (even Maurice was almost entirely focused on himself and his loves) and I did miss the surrounding cast of bumbling middle upper class snobs, but oh well.... One other thing that did More...

0 comments like

Jul 10, 2011

Kristina rated it:

This is an utterly beautiful book. I have little else to say. Sure, there are criticisms to be made. But overall, I this is a novel that brings out the unabashed romantic in me. (I say "unabashed," not the typical "hopeless," because this is a novel all about hope, and all about throwing off shame and committing fully to love.) Forster's depiction of Maurice's development is utterly convincing, and his prose style, as always, impeccable. It really makes me feel like not readi More...

0 comments like

Aug 14, 2011

Michelle rated it:

Written in 1913-14 but published posthumously in 1971, because it did the unthinkable: wrote about homosexual men and gave them a happy ending. Maurice, the protagonist, starts out as a quintessentially normal member of British upper-crust society. At Cambridge, though, he meets Clive and begins a passionate (though Platonic) affair that lasts three years, until Clive decides to pursue heterosexual respectability. Maurice is left alone with his realization that he is irrevocably queer.

More...

0 comments like

Sep 01, 2010

Charlie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Aug 04, 2011

Androcles rated it:

Yes, I know, this book has been reviewed and praised ad nauseam, and far better than I could ever do. Notwithstanding, it remains a highly significant and important book and an absolute must on my inspirational bookshelf. I read Maurice at a particularly sensitive cross-roads in my life when I was still far from being at ease with my identity - with who I was and whom I wished to become. Maurice's story; his confusion and anguish, his uncertainties and passions and his love for Alec Scudder reso More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 25, 2010

Andy rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like

Dec 10, 2011

Esdaile rated it:

Ihe best argument for censorship is the fact that while trying to hide his homosexuality, so it is disguised as for example in Rickie's club foot in "The Longest Journey" we have the masterpieces that are "Howard's End", "The Longest Journey" and "A Passage to India". When left free to write with complete honesty, we are offered this limp biscuit, a story with only biographical interest, if that.
It is most strange that Forster, writing openly here ab More...

0 comments like

reviews