Reading: Howards End
Dec. 31st, 2017 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartE.M. Forster has been one of my favourite writers for a long time, and Howards End has been one of my favourite of his books ever since I first read it, probably nearly 30 years ago now, but watching the recent BBC adaptation reminded me that it had been a long time since I last re-read it, and I thought it was probably high time I did that.
It remains as wonderful as ever. I still love the description of Beethoven's Fifth, and the contrast between urban and rural life (like Forster, I am generally on the side of the rural), and the exhortation to "connect"; to live a joined-up, honest life, and not to be confined by artificial morality. On this re-read, I was surprised by how modern the social landscape Forster describes feels. It's easy to assume that the two World Wars changed everything, but in fact the contrast between the liberal Schlegel sisters, interested in art and literature and equality, acknowledging and making the most of their European connections, and the conservative Wilcoxes, whose interests are all focused on the commercial and material, and who are suspicious of foreigners and whose overseas connections are with the Empire and not with Europe, felt awfully familiar; the roots of the current divisions in British society obviously go a long way back, for those who had eyes to see them. It's sad that in over a century we haven't succeeded in "connecting" more rather than drawing further and further apart. If only more people had listened to Forster.
It remains as wonderful as ever. I still love the description of Beethoven's Fifth, and the contrast between urban and rural life (like Forster, I am generally on the side of the rural), and the exhortation to "connect"; to live a joined-up, honest life, and not to be confined by artificial morality. On this re-read, I was surprised by how modern the social landscape Forster describes feels. It's easy to assume that the two World Wars changed everything, but in fact the contrast between the liberal Schlegel sisters, interested in art and literature and equality, acknowledging and making the most of their European connections, and the conservative Wilcoxes, whose interests are all focused on the commercial and material, and who are suspicious of foreigners and whose overseas connections are with the Empire and not with Europe, felt awfully familiar; the roots of the current divisions in British society obviously go a long way back, for those who had eyes to see them. It's sad that in over a century we haven't succeeded in "connecting" more rather than drawing further and further apart. If only more people had listened to Forster.
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Date: 2017-12-31 05:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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