This is hardly Forster’s best, but I wanted to read it to complete a collected works edition I have of him (which, inexplicably, leaves out A Passage to India). It’s an early novel (possibly first?) and it shows quite plainly. There are moments of the matured, developed Forster, but not quite enough. I think the most true and believable character is actually the rather invidious Mr. Pembroke. He's a wretched man, but he's perfectly drawn in a way that only further demonstrates how unperfectly developed most of the other characters are.

And being that Forster wrote this, I tended to read quite heavily between the lines when it came to Rickie and Ansell’s friendship and the failure of Rickie's marriage. It's irritating to feel like you know something the character hasn't realized himself; but, perhaps I didn't and I was just unfairly imposing too much of the author's life unto his characters. Either way, I had a difficult time deciding quite how I was going to go about reading this one, if that makes sense.

All in all, this one is probably one to be skipped, but there were some interesting moments where you could see the excellent author Forster was going to become. I suppose this should be a lesson to me about the perils of buying omnibus editions.