Where Angels Fear to Tread
by E.M. Forster
published
February 18th 1992
(first published 1905)
by Vintage
edit
binding
Paperback, 192 pages
characters
isbn
0679736344
(isbn13: 9780679736349)
description
"Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what she doesn't understand! Look at this letter! The man who wrote it will marry...more
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
Where's the love? Add this book to your favorite list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 974)
Read in September, 2008
E. M. Forster is easy to read, almost too easy sometimes. Delighted with his nearly faultless prose, I read his thin first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), all in one afternoon. Forster tells the story of a young English widow who is seduced by her romantic vision of Italy and Italians and yearns to escape her controlling and snobbish in-laws in England. Her hasty marriage to a member of "Italian nobility" sets her English relations aflutter, leading to all sorts of sad...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Cultures collide in Forster’s first novel, which reads in many ways like a thematic rough draft of A Room With a View (in fact several sentences are even repeated verbatim in RWAV!). But it’s a great story in its own right. When an English widow goes to Italy and then, in what could only be a fit of madness, marries an ITALIAN, her respectable in-laws are scandalized. That she should discover her husband is a bounder and then subsequently die in childbirth is no more than can be expec...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
those who wish to laugh, then double up with pain (in a good way)
Though I still think A Passage to India is his cumulative masterpiece (I haven't read Howard's End yet), both this novel and A Room With a View are absolute gems. Forster is a master of pithy, quotable lines, thrown out almost with casual ease. I re-read many passages, savoring the wit of the prose. * ("Why should she not be transfigured? The same had happened to the Goths.") He is also one of the few authors to combine truly humorous setpieces and a satiric voice with characters ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 1998
This is probably not the best-written of Forster's novels. In fact, it has many of the same faults as "Room with a View," which was written at around the same time: "orientalitst" sentimentality (with Italy serving as the "exotic" counterpoint to staid middle-class England) and a third-person omniscient narrator that seems to insert his thoughts to tell the reader how to interpret the characters' actions.
But this is my favorite E. M. Forster novel so far. I, ...more
But this is my favorite E. M. Forster novel so far. I, ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
literary people
My favorite quotation from the book: "He had known so much about her once -what she thought, how she felt, the reasons for her actions. And now he only knew that he loved her, and all the other knowledge seemed passing from him just as he needed it most."
I like Forster, and his portrayal of small people living in a small world, suddenly expanded by travel and exposure to people living passionately. Not as heartbreaking as some of his other novels, not as emotionally gripping as s...more
I like Forster, and his portrayal of small people living in a small world, suddenly expanded by travel and exposure to people living passionately. Not as heartbreaking as some of his other novels, not as emotionally gripping as s...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
1 comments
Read in January, 2007
My absolute favorite of the E.M. Forster novels I read. This one blew me away. When I turned the last page, I felt like I'd been catapulted out of the novel's world to find myself surprisingly in my own house with my own children around me. It absolutely sucked me in and had me crying and caring and wondering what would happen to each of the characters.
One of my favorite novels of all time.
One of my favorite novels of all time.
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
add a comment
Read in May, 2008
Other people have written that this book is short, and that is like a sketch for a Room With a View. However, it is considerably longer than that other book, covers more time, and has more action, including violence and exciting carriage accidents in the rain, as well as love triangles and meddling spinsters.
This book involves various contemptible and/or pathetic people, acting in an officious and/or careless way, with surprising and tragic results. Equally tragic is the fact that lessons ...more
This book involves various contemptible and/or pathetic people, acting in an officious and/or careless way, with surprising and tragic results. Equally tragic is the fact that lessons ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
Fans of Forrester or J. Austen
A good read and quite action packed at the end. I wasn't expecting as much activity based on the first few chapters of the book. There was even an "unexpected" twist in the final pages. The author well portrays the typical reserved and "proper" condition of the privileged in British Society. As Philip awakens to his own situation and potential, you are at once both startled and encouraged. I'll read it again sometime in the next few years. I'm a fan of "A Room with...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 2008
Between the stiff, class-conscious British and the passionate, hyper-masculine Italians, I'd go for Italy. Among other things, I was highly amused about people running around, screaming in the streets for to find someone for a caller. I don't fault Lilia for marrying Gino... but I was so sad reading the doomed result. Maybe I'm dense as a brick but I failed to read this as a comedy- a social comedy supposedly, I'm guessing about British and Italian stereotypes? Um. haha, Forster?
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in September, 2007
This is definitely a book of its time especially with it's male Anglo-centric views of the world. If you read it as a period piece though, it is amazingly well constructed with fairly deep characters. One thing you really take away is the authors affection for Italy and rather damning attitude toward English society.
If you're a fan of turn-of-the-last-century literature this is certainly one of the canonical examples and a pretty good book to boot.
If you're a fan of turn-of-the-last-century literature this is certainly one of the canonical examples and a pretty good book to boot.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2007
I wasn't crazy about this one. It's pretty heavy on the stereotypes of the day, and the characters are so cookie-cutter (stuffy but wise and practical Englishman, dim-witted, passionate, hot-tempered "Mediterranean" type...the English are too restrained; the Italians too barbaric!) that it was difficult to become emotionally invested in the storyline. It was just a little too dark and a little too tragic, but self-consiously so.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 2008
More tragic and profound than A Room With a View. I enjoyed it just as much. Quick, vivid, insightful. Maybe because now I'm a mother and have just had a new baby, the parent-child scenes and relationships were especially poignant for me. The evolving value system of that Post-Victorian age intrigues me. And, I love his writing.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in December, 2006
recommends it for:
those who want to read a classic in three days
Short and sweet...well, not really. Short it may be, but this novel has very little that's sweet about it. Forster writes again about the English high society in a way that makes me never want to be a part of it! But it's certainly worth reading. Good descriptions of Italy and the Italian way of life in that time, as well.
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
A short read from EM Forster. I really enjoyed it, even though many of the people in my book club didn't as much. The characters, while having very little to redeem them, are still sympathetic in that they are obvious victims of their own hubris. I saw a lot of very human flaws in them, failings that are easy to scorn and critcize from the outside, but that we've all been or will be guilty of at one point or another.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
I picked this up largely because it was about Italy and I had just returned from Italy and was nostalgic. It wasn't what I was looking for in terms of italian commentary (I think I was looking for something along the lines of Under the Tuscan Sun...), but it was still beautiful and maddening and poignant. In fact, it turned into the perfect backdrop for a paper on feminist literary theory and character foils.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Very good. The story is both funny and terribly sad. My favorite character is the horrible British sister-in-law who is a xenophobe to end all racists. She's SO awful she makes you realize how stupid she is.
I don't often recommend a movie instead of a book, but if you don't feel like reading the book, check out the movie with Rupert Graves and Helena Bonham Carter. Lush and beautiful.
I don't often recommend a movie instead of a book, but if you don't feel like reading the book, check out the movie with Rupert Graves and Helena Bonham Carter. Lush and beautiful.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This is one of those books that makes me think that no one is ever fit for marriage. While a Room with a view seems to celebrate caprice and love, Angels seems to believe in the possibility, but also revel in the blundering process of following the heart and suffering as a consequence--although there is beauty and redemption in the relentless march of life.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 1999
recommends it for:
Anyone interested in the whole "clash of civilizations" notion
There is so much wisdom packed into this short, first novel. Forster's commentary on the misunderstandings and missed opportunities between people of different cultures and religions is still so relevant today. I read this book after seeing the movie and before I set to work on my own remixed version of the whole "stranger in a strange land" experience.
Like this review?
yes
1 comments
Read in May, 2007
Read this one for book club. All I knew of E.M. Forster to this point was the movie version of "Room with a View." Reading this novel was a nice window into Forster's written style. It is a biting indictment of the culture of its time; very interesting. This one was not the "happy ending" type; in fact, I'd call it a tragedy. But very well written.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
EM Forster has been my latest classic discovery. I’d never read anything of his before last year, and I’m completely in love. Where Angels Fear to Tread is a short book that made me linger over every word, to my tremendous delight.
Read the rest here:
[http://superfastreader.com/where-angels-fear-to-tread-by-em-forster.htm]
Read the rest here:
[http://superfastreader.com/where-angels-fear-to-tread-by-em-forster.htm]
Like this review?
yes
2 comments
