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August 11, 2009

It was funny, but....

E. M. Forster: A Room with a View, 1908

A little funny satire about Edwardian England, but unfortunately nothing more.

Lucy Honeychurch is a young woman, travels with her cousine Charlotte to Italy, to Florence. In the Pension Bertolini they meet with two men, the Emersons (father and son) on a quite unusually way, Lucy and Charlotte were promised to get a room with view in this pension, but they got another ones, so Mr. Emerson (the father) offers their rooms to the ladies. Charlotte worries about is it gentlemanlike or not, and even the other guests want standing figure out, are the Emersons gentlemen or not? Today it seems sometimes to ridiculous this standing worrying, but I can imagine those days it was for a woman like Charlotte the quintessence of the life. Later, during a little trip George (the son) kisses Lucy, but they are interrupted by Charlotte and the two women leave Florence immediately.

In the second part of the book, we met the two ladies again in Surrey, England, in Lucy’s family home Windy Corner. Cecil Vyse, a young gentleman propose to Lucy at the third time (twice in Rome after the ladies’ escape from Florence),and she accepts. But the Emersons move near to Windy Corner into a cottage, after meeting with George (and kissed by him again) Lucy break up her engagement with Cecil, not because she is sure in her feeling to George, but even she is very confused. After all, of course, there is a happy end....

….and the life is beautiful, amor vincit omnia, there are no any bigger problems in the world, than to get or not get a room with a view.

E. M. Forster's first novel is optimistic and romantic, there are quite interesting characters (like Cecil, or the vicar Mr. Beebe), and the scene Cecil reads exactly that story in a book inspired by the kiss between Lucy and George is very funny, but I think this novel is not for me, its funny and amusing. Nothing more just funny.

(This post was written for The Decade Challenge 09)

2 megjegyzés:

Marie Cloutier said...

I loved this book, and I LOVED the movie- so romantic. It was THE love story movie when I was in college- all the girls were crazy about the guy who played George :-)

JoAnn said...

I really liked A Room with a View a lot. It was my introduction to Forster, but I loved Howard's End.

 
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