Book –A Room with a view

Book –A Room with a view

Author :  E.M. Forster

Score: 6/10

Year: 1908 (original) ; 2000 (present edition)

Publisher: Penguin Classics 

ISBN 978-0-14-118329-9

Pages  206

Language: English  

Forster's novel is a romance story, that also serves as a critique of English society in in the early 20th Century  - as the novel was published, and is set, in the restrained culture of the Edwardian Era. 


The novel is divided into two separate parts. The first is set in Italy, the second back in England. 

In the first part, Lucy Honeychurch visits Italy with her cousin Charlotte Barlett, who also serves as her chaperone. There, Lucy meets the Emersons who offer them their room for its window, and view on the local scenary - the River Arno is prettier than a drab courtyard of the room Lucy and Charlotte would have gotten initially. 

Lucy, at this point of her life, has been sheltered. During this trip she learns of new ways of thinking, and of feeling.

After her return to England, the second part explores her personal growth, and her inner conflicts as a person, and as a woman who is expected to fulfil societal roles of marriage and motherhood. 

Through this novel, Forster critisizes his contemprary society, with humour, that is sometimes a bit too exaggerated to my taste. Characterisation and dialogues are sometimes over-exposed, as part of his humourous critic. 

Despite being a rather short novel of just over 200 pages, I found it a bit tedious to read at times. I'll grant that I read it straight after Woolf's masterpiece Orlando, and should have had a non-fiction intermission between these novels, and that I read it during a heatwave,  but even without these important details, Forster's style isn't always elegant, sometimes too repetitive and/or disjointed, making the pacing tedious. 

It wasn't until the 2 thirds of the novel had passed, that my interest was trully peaked by the social commentaries and budding feminism. I appreciated those bits, the last third of the novel, more than the 2 leading to this point, and also the descriptions Forster gave to what we now know as gaslighting. It some respects, he innovated and dared, whilst in others, I fell flat on my expecatations when he resolved the stories in different paths than the ones he was leading to. 

As a critic of society, the ending may disappoint, or it may be exactly what to be expected in a novel set in that period, its conventionalities, and a title that can that infers certain limitations... Other way, my overall appreciation of this novel is 6/10, but may be revised in the future. 

The story was adapted to the stage in 1975 ; into a Merchant-Ivory movie in 1985 which I saw some years ago, forgot almost all about it, but which, according to my research is a faithful adaptation ; into a 4-part BBC radio adaptation in 95 ; and a televized version for ITV in 2007. Oddly, this last one set the story to 1912, a few years after the novel's initial publication and AFTER the Edwardian Era... a choice I cannot understand.