I love E.M. Forster

I just reread A Room With A View. I think it’s probably my favorite Forster novel.

I never liked so much the books that have actually entered the canon, his later, longer, more serious, less youthful novels; they’re eminently sane and honest, but I love the freshness of A Room With A View, its impatience with stuff like sane character establishment and linear time, its shameless pedantry. Usually I balk at pedantic novels (and most of them are), but Forster is one of those teachers who shames most of the actual profession. You couldn’t fault him for writing instructively any more than you could fault any person who breaks a rule made for less talented people.

Exactly what Forster teaches is probably a question I should leave to him – in the early novels, it’s usually about differentiating between oneself and others, something to do with accepting passion, and the choice between caring for sincerity or for harmony, but since I’m not a natural teacher, I can grasp his points without doing them justice. In my hands they make the wincingly easy transition from philosophy to platitude.

Forster teaches mainly by example, and mostly by showing failed characters.  This sounds brutal and dull, and it’s true that he presents life as a series of errors and disasters, with ostracization the only alternative to assimilation into an inherently hateful society – but he’s actually an extraordinarily gentle and nonjudgmental writer. It helps that likes his characters, isn’t partisan (presenting bohemia and suburbia as complementary traps), and is always frankly chatting away at the reader in his own voice, which helps to avoid the impression of a sugared pill. In general, Forster’s insistence on dictatorial control over the narrative (Miss Lavish and Miss Bartlett would never say so many double entendres if he weren’t behind the curtain) is a very flattering trait in a certain kind of author.