Howards End in Book Buying Addicts Anonymous

Dec 02, 2017 David James rated it liked it

Forster, EM. Howard鈥檚 End

I thought that I had finished with EMF fifty years ago, but lately have found myself turning back to the struggles of Margaret and Helen Schlegel to reconcile what Forster has memorably termed the 鈥榩rose and the passion,鈥� something that he found missing in his account of English life in the pre WW1 period. My reason for reopening this, admitedly dated volume is the latest televised version of Howard鈥檚 End, billed like the persistent novels of Jane Austen as 鈥榓 costume dr Forster, EM. Howard鈥檚 End

I thought that I had finished with EMF fifty years ago, but lately have found myself turning back to the struggles of Margaret and Helen Schlegel to reconcile what Forster has memorably termed the 鈥榩rose and the passion,鈥� something that he found missing in his account of English life in the pre WW1 period. My reason for reopening this, admitedly dated volume is the latest televised version of Howard鈥檚 End, billed like the persistent novels of Jane Austen as 鈥榓 costume drama.鈥� The novel begins with two chatty letters from Helen to her sister Margaret extolling the virtues of Howard鈥檚 End where she is staying with the Wilcox family - and fallng in love with Paul the eldest son. This heady passion proves to be a fantasy of Helen, whose impulsive nature is to be her undoing. What she needs is more common sense, the steadying hand of the business class, such as the Wilcoxes - class is to be an insuperable problem in the book - giving plenty of scope for the author鈥檚 opinions.

Indeed, authorial nagging and advice is ever-present in the book, proving to be its undoing in my opinion. The terms 鈥榙ated鈥� and 鈥榦ld-fashioned鈥� are not out of place as a comment on this book, which would never be used for let us say, any of the novels of Dickens or Jane Austen. Forster鈥檚 thesis that all one needs is to 鈥榗onnect the prose and the passion鈥� for everything in the (English) garden to be lovely wears very thin. One of Forster鈥檚 virtues is clarity, but at the cost of over-simplification. He can get away with 鈥榯ypical鈥� characterusation in his lighter novels, but is far too cumbersome and intrusive here. One example from dozens that could be culled illustrates Forster鈥檚 didactic capacity in his treatment of the Basts, the ill-assorted couple supposed to represent the working class - and this is a very class-consciously obsessed book. We are invited to share Leonard Bast鈥檚 cultural aspirations - he is a sort of HG Wells in embryo: He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street. London came back with a rush. Few were about at this hour, but all whom he passed looked at him with hostility that was the more impressive because it was unconscious. He put his hat on. It was too big; his head disappeared like a pudding into a basin, the ears bending outwards at the touch of the curly brim. Having adjusted the angle, however, he becomes a changed man: Thus equipped , he escaped criticism. No one felt uneasy as he titupped along the pavements, the heart of a man ticking fast in his breast.

The novel was first published in 1910, and while Bast鈥檚 aspirations to become accepted in polite society convince, his presence here is awkward, and despite Helen鈥檚 efforts to include him he remains an outsider. It is perhaps fitting that he ends by being smothered under a library of books when the bookcase collapses on him. But that belongs in the realm of irony or satire, which this book definitely does not.

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Jul 12, 2018 David Jay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

When you're sitting on the NYC subway and you feel like you're walking through the streets of London at the turn of the century, you know a book has worked its powers of imagination and magical ability to transport us to another time and place. Such is the beauty of "Howards End."

I NEVER say this, and I feel silly saying it because the book is so wonderful, but this is one of those rare instances where I think the movie (Emma Thompson/Anthony Hopkins version) actually improves upon the source ma ...more

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