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A Room with a View
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May {2011} Discussion -- A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
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May 15, 2011 04:32PM
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I enjoyed the book. But I must say I was glad that the book was not very long. It was funny and silly and that held my interest. I didn't like "A Passage to India" and having read this book, I don't plan to read another E.M. Forster.
I liked it alright. The ending surprised me though, I'm sure conservative parents didn't let their daughters near this book when it came out at the beginning of the 20th century!
I have seen the movie a couple of times. I just started an audio version of this book yesterday.Yes, it's kinda' silly, but it moves along ok.
(Passage to India ... I think I did read that - and liked it)
I loved it! The movie is one of my favorites, too. I didn't mind having the actors in my head as the characters in the book. Forster does such a great job setting up the characters whom he plans to skewer-- poor Charlotte and Cecil! But he does it so well. And as in Passage to India, the British abroad who are looking for an 'authentic' experience-- e.g. Ms. Lavish-- are just terrible snobs. Forster must have really been rolling his eyes at the other Brits on his travels.
I loved the movie as well. My favorite was Daniel Day Lewis as Cecil - he was wonderful and hilarious. I read the book long ago. Tried to get into it for this discussion but other obligations interfered.
In Room With a View, she is flirted with and kissed by their driver - very romantic and exciting. How frustrating it must have been to hear her cousin hysterically calling to her.Just think about it - everybody has at least one memory of an about to blossom romance when Mother starts calling out the door - ha ha!
I think I'm enjoying this more than the movie - and in audio more than I would the book. The reader does the characters so well. Especially the exasperating women and their silly do's and do not's, etc.I just went through the movie, available online, of Cold Comfort Farm - that book's on for discussion here at Goodreads soon. That particular story is supposed to be very funny - but I didn't laugh once. Just don't find it funny at all.
But R W A V is hilarious.
Must say that I wasn't very impressed with A Room With a View. Found it more silly than humorous. Thankfully it was a short read because due to lack of interest it took me forever to finish.
I'm on the third disk - 3 to go.I'm past the part where she was kissed.
(I was a bit mixed up there about who had kissed her)
Anybody think about this - why would the narrator say she/he believed that congratulating the bride's mother on the engagement would be a social blunder?
Finished!The ending's kinda' contrived. It needed at least 50 more pages or so to properly end.
I think the author should have taken her to Greece, having him follow - then had a good rip snortin' romance there - then come home to announced they're married.
Carly wrote: "Anybody think about this - why would the narrator say she/he believed that congratulating the bride's mother on the engagement would be a social blunder?"Traditionally one does not congratulate the bride nor her female relations. It makes it seem like you are saying she might have had some difficulty finding a husband. One only congratulates the groom, and says to the bride something such as "you look beautiful".
Loafingcactus wrote: "Traditionally one does not congratulate the bride nor her female relations. It makes it seem like you are saying she might have had some difficulty finding a husband. One only congratulates the groom, and says to the bride something such as "you look beautiful"."Yes. Also, "best wishes" for the bride is acceptable. (Not that I'm really the expert or anything.)
My thoughts:Reading this time is very different from when I read it in college. In college I was trying to understand which sort of person I would like to be. I didn't see myself as identifying with the main character; I _was_ the main character. Now I read it and think how glad I am to not be 20, just as 10 years ago I might think how glad I am to not be a teenager.
It is not just the reminder of the confusion of that age, but also the reminder of the strains of trips with relatives when you have no assurance or power. Also the way the lives of the young are the gossip of the old as if they were dogs or racing horses or some kind of hobby. I am reminded that the young do not need their peers to build their insecurities; their elders fill that role quite well!
What I find unrealistic about this story is that this confused young woman was such a prize. Why would Mr. Emerson been glad for his son to fall in love with her?!
Loafingcactus wrote: "It is not just the reminder of the confusion of that age, but also ..."I love how you put that!
I read this book many years ago for my book club, and I remember we were all so frustrated by the fact that the characters couldn't be honest with themselves or each other. So many of the problems they had simply would not have existed if they could tell each other what they really think/feel. I like to think their behavior is explained by the time/place in which they lived and that "we" are better at understanding ourselves and expressing our thoughts. But, of course, we continue to make some of the same mistakes. Seeing them in such exacerbated circumstances as Foster shows can be both amusing and a lesson for us.
Cactus- at first I was going to say it wasn't that Lucy was a prize herself, but Mr. Emerson was more pleased that his son had found love, a person to share life with, to help him avoid the darkness.But Lucy did have a flair. She was innocent, passionate (the musical talent) and she loved George back.
I enjoyed this book overall. I thought it was a welcome break after Maisie. :) The pond scene is a riot! I remember watching the movie version of this story with my mother years ago (I would have been in high school) and I remember my mother rolling that they showed full male nudity! She thought it was awesome, since you usually only see girls. I was just embarrassed then but it makes me smile now.
Forster was a gay man in a very intolerant era as well. There were times when he described the characters as wanting to be with someone, but being barred. While Forster's characters were bound by social classes, I wondered if he was describing barriers.
Good points, Melissa. I revise my judgment of Lucy.
Melissa, the pond scene was my favorite part of the book! That's when George really came to life.
I really enjoyed this book. I agree that the ending is a bit contrived, but it is so refreshing to find a book by Forster which actually has a happy ending, and where the main character actually manages to cut off her social restrictions. In the other books I've read by him, for all their intercultural experiences abroad, the characters seemed to withdraw back into their limited world and personalities and not learn anything. One of the things I love about Forster is his gift for social comedy. There are some very funny bits, such as the scene in the pond, or the description of the way the English behaved in Italy, which made the book fun to read.
Carly wrote: "I think I'm enjoying this more than the movie - and in audio more than I would the book. The reader does the characters so well. Especially the exasperating women and their silly do's and do not's,..."I agree completely - even the chapter titles are very tongue in cheek - how can you not chuckle at "How Lucy Faced the Situation Bravely". I too loved this book - one of my new favorites.
Loafingcactus wrote: "Carly wrote: "Anybody think about this - why would the narrator say she/he believed that congratulating the bride's mother on the engagement would be a social blunder?"Traditionally one does not ..."
I would congratulate them both - as a couple. This is the first time I've heard of this.
Melissa wrote: I enjoyed this book overall. I thought it was a welcome break after Maisie. :) The pond scene is a riot! I remember watching the movie version of this story with my mother years ago (I would have been in high school) and I remember my mother rolling that they showed full male nudity! She thought it was awesome, since you usually only see girls. I was just embarrassed then but it makes me smile now. ..."
I remember taking my mother to see the 'Spring Thaw' back in the late 60's. That was when we had Hair playing in Toronto - and there was a big schmoz about it having a nude scene.
I'd been told that the Spring Thaw had a nude scene that year. I warned my mother about it. Told her not to make a fool of herself and appear all shocked - ha ha!
Well, she was fine for the nude scene - and I was too. It was done so artistically, you couldn't have faulted it.
But there was a part in that play where four people 'dress off the line' to do that - gimmee' an F ... gimmee' a U ... gimme' a C ... gimmee' a K ... now FO!
Well, I was so shocked that I gasped audibly and loud! My mother just laughed at me ... heh! heh!
It seems amazing when I think back to a day when it was still shocking to hear four letter words spoken aloud. And to see nude scenes in the movies.
I'm perfectly okay with nudity/bad language in books/movies/music/stage productions because anyone watching/listening chooses it. But I miss the days when people had respect for others around them. I'll never forget the time when I was standing in line with my husband and his brother and they were discussing something very off-color, to the point where the woman behind us stepped out of line. Now with our smart phones, I only seeing it getting worse. We feel like we live in a bubble where we think no one else can see or hear us. Books of Victorian manners make me think we went from one side of the pendulum to the other in just 100 years.
Re. congratulating someone on an engagement, this is still true today (at least in the south!). Supposedly congratulating the bride is tacky because it makes it sound like you're congratulating her on luring in a husband.
I'm with those who found this book delightful and the movie version even more so. It's not meant to be a serious book, of course; but I take issue with those who just label it as silly. (No offense to any one -- any opinion is respected here.) It is silly in the way that the British society of the time was quite silly (from our perspective today); and Forster does a great job in developing characters that represent all that silliness.As for Lucy as a prize, don't forget that she was an heiress due to come into her inheritance the following year.
But the author, I think, wanted us to appreciate her vitality and "inner light" as what made her stand out from young women of her day.
And how could Lucy have seen into her own passions and desires when the whole of her society taught her not to even have any of her own outside of wanting to make someone a good wife! She had it much worse than young ladies today, and that is hard enough!
I was slogging through this book...right up until that awesome pond scene! after that, it just snowballed along to something joyful and fun instead of woefully angsty. Lauli, I agree that this is such a huge departure for Forster - I was expecting all the unrequited torment, and was so fully surprised by the happy ending that I absolutely didn't care how contrived or quick it might be. Carly, I also thought he was going to have to follow her off into a grecian sunset to win her love!was anyone else surprised by how delightfully feminist this was?
Lucy muses in Italy: "Why were most big things unladylike? Charlotte had once explained to her why. It was not that ladies were inferior to men; it was that they were different. Their mission was to inspire others to achievement rather than to achieve themselves. Indirectly, by means of tact and a spotless name, a lady could accomplish much. But if she rushed into the fray herself she would be first censured, then despised, and finally ignored. Poems had been written to illustrate this point."
and is eventually won over with George's description of her fiancee: "He daren't let a woman decide. He's the type who's kept Europe back for a thousand years. Every moment of his life he's forming you, telling you what's charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly; and you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own."
I read this book a week or so ago planning to write a review here later and now I honestly couldn't remember what it was about. So it obviously didn't really leave a lasting impression on me. However after jogging my memory with some of the above comments this book was fun to read but nothing special to tell your friends about.
I enjoyed this far more than I expected at the beginning. It was funny and thoughtful in some ways and in others struck me as viciously satirical.
Kathy wrote: "I read this book a week or so ago planning to write a review here later and now I honestly couldn't remember what it was about. So it obviously didn't really leave a lasting impression on me. How..."
I would echo this. I wasn't surprised to discover that Forster wrote the Italian and English parts of the book at separate times and then joined them together to make a single narrative - the second part is considerably more confident and enjoyable.
As you say, this is not a silly book, but in fact a deliciously barbed satire on the social mores of the time, particularly in relation to class and gender issues.
For me it was too easy to take for granted the class and gender issues since they have been addressed so thoroughly in more modern works. Unfortunately I felt like I was drifting through a very predictable story with few characters that I could relate to. I listened to an audio version, and I often find that I'm not as personally touched by these books as I am when I'm reading a print version.I think next time I read Forster, I'll opt to read print, instead.
Finnegan's Wake, Pynchon's Mason/Dixon, William Gaddis.. I admit to the books that I can't quite master, due either to gnarled syntax, off-putting view or idiopathic distaste...but E.M.Forester? Author of the likeable Howard's End and Passage to India? Pre-eminent stylist of the Edwardians? Never would have thunk it. Simply put, I could not fathom Room with a View -- did not 'get' a word of it. Half-way through, I asked myself for what purpose am I reading about this young female twit Lucy, of certain English economic class and breeding, socializing with other twits of both genders trying to find just the right combination of independent thought and conformity that will make them acceptable, even attractive, in this claustrophobia-inducing milieu? As the intrusive narrator, Forester adds froth, commenting archly on the silly proceedings -- as if there were not fatuity enough in the material. It's definitely not satire, is it early camp? Why does Forester want to revel like this? In 10 years, the best of a generation of young English men will be mowed down in the trenches and foxholes of France. And here we have Lucy worrying about Cecil and the 'kiss'. I understand this is daft criticism but there you have it. For the Merchant/Ivory group, let the stoning proceed.
Yet again, I'm behind the group on this one because the library has to order in the books I request. :( I was wondering what everyone's views were on Charlotte's role in Lucy and George hooking up? George makes it sound like Lucy finally came around because Charlotte 'let' her run into Mr. Emerson but I don't know that I agree with that. She seemed too vindictive and conniving throughout the book and I feel that may have been Forster's cop out way of making her not entirely bad. I wasn't all that impressed with Lucy but my favorite characters were Mr. Beebe and Mr. Emerson. They were always interesting.
I didn't really get why in the end everyone was angry at Lucy for having "deceived" them. How was being in love with George deceiving her friends and family, especially since she wasn't aware of it herself until the very end? I wasn't too impressed with Mr. Beebe when he didn't want to see Lucy anymore because of her feelings for George.
I just wasn't very impressed but liked it a bit overall. I did enjoy the descriptions of Italy and get that this was an era of barriers satired by an author who was gay which adds depth to his satire but did not find it very memorable overall. I would recommend it, nonetheless.
