Review- A room with a view

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I very much enjoyed this novel. The central character, Lucy, is engaged to the dull Cecil, but cannot quite forget a lower class man she met in Italy, George Emerson.

Lucy's family and group of friends are narrow minded and their snobbery is satirized with subtlety and wit. There are many memorable scenes around Cecil in particular. In one instance, he is described as feeling that:

"... he must lead women, though he knew not whither, and protect them, though he knew not against what."

Despite the confidence of Lucy's group, their behavior and social practices seem absurd in a way that is obliquely evident to the characters themselves. A sense of boredom and fear of losing position is strong amongst them. I could not help but contrast them with depictions of the upper middle classes and minor gentry in nineteenth century authors such as Charlotte Bronte, which were sometimes satirical, but also depicted confidence and dignity. By contrast, when Lucy and Cecil squabble over whether Cecil should play tennis, or when Cecil is boring his friends by reading passages from popular fiction, the reader can only see a social class in decline.

This tendency is further highlighted by the characters' attitudes towards money. Lucy's cousin, Charlotte, is a socially conservative spinster who is shocked by Lucy's interactions with George. However, in one revealing scene, she is desperate to pay back a pound she has borrowed from a member of the group, desperate to avoid the truth that she has financial problems. Embarrassment ensues when the group argues over change, and it seems that Charlotte is too poor at arithmetic to understand what the others are saying. A 'gentlewoman' in an Austen novel who was facing hard times might be forced to become a governess, but would certainly avoid the vulgarity of talking about money in this way. Charlotte's problems highlight the economic uncertainty that is haunting the group, making their snobbery tragic in addition to absurd.

The novel also works well as a romance, with scenes both elegant and awkward involving Lucy, Cecil, and George. There is a strong sense of realism when Lucy decides to become engaged to Cecil, the sensible choice, and a pervasive sense of the ennui that results from a relationship that neither party is quite committed to. It is never obvious who Lucy's final choice will be, meaning that the most straightforward aspect of the plot, a love tangle, always engages the reader.

Overall, 'A room with a view' is a short novel that feels like a weighty novel, in a good way, written with elegancy and grace.



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