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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Some good moments but I just didn’t care about the posh knob characters or plot. Probs was very fresh and different when it was first written, but in 2023 I just don’t care!
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
There is a great line in [b:A Room with a View|1348444|A Room with a View|E.M. Forster|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327553421s/1348444.jpg|4574872] about a book that has been abandoned in a garden: The garden was deserted except for a red book, which lay sunning itself upon the gravel path.
The author then describes what the main characters are doing in various locations adjacent to the garden, but meanwhile the red book is allowed to be caressed all the morning by the sun and to raise its covers slightly, as though to acknowledge the caress. The description of the book seems very innocent but the reader’s attention is immediately caught. What is the significance of this book within a book, we wonder, and why does it have a 'red' cover.
As it turns out, the immediate purpose of the red-covered book on that sunny English morning is to move the story along, quickly and dramatically. The red book causes certain things to happen that wouldn't otherwise have happened as if it were in fact a character in the novel with a voice of its own. The plot is really very neat and makes for an entertaining read. The backdrops Forster uses for the action are interesting too: the shifting class structure and the new ideas on religion and politics which were emerging in England in the last decades of the nineteenth century. But my favorite aspect of this beautiful novel is 'Art'. Even when everything else is in flux, Art is a constant and reliable reference which Forster returns to again and again.
The first half of [b:A Room with a View|1348444|A Room with a View|E.M. Forster|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327553421s/1348444.jpg|4574872] takes place in Florence. The characters meet and avoid each other in a number of locations throughout the city: at the Santa Croce church adorned with frescos by Giotto; in the Piazza Della Signoria where Michaelangelo's David stares across at Benvenuto Cellini's bloody Medusa under the Loggia dei Lanzi; at the San Miniato church, its beautiful facade visible from the very room of the title. Practically every scene in the Italian half of the book features some work of art or another, directly or indirectly. When the characters take a trip into the hills, landscape artists are recalled. When they view Giotto's frescos, their different reactions mirror their approaches to life and living. Forster continually uses the adjectives 'michaelangelesque' and 'leonardesque' to describe the opposing facets of the characters. Once I began to notice that pattern, I recorded it in the status updates but there were more examples than I've listed there.
All of this is by way of explaining that Forster creates a juxtaposition of two modes of being in this novel, the cool and sedate versus the sublimely passionate, as if he himself is involved in some balancing act between sedate predictable prose and wildly unpredictable romanticism, between his own rational leonardesque qualities and his more michaelangelesque tendencies, between the English half of the novel and the Italian half.
Two of the characters are symbols of those two extremes. Lucy Honeychurch's entourage, especially her cousin Charlotte Bartlett, would like to keep Lucy on the side of the sedate. George Emerson and his father would like Lucy to step over into their own more dynamic world. I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's [b:Night and Day|116056|Night and Day|Virginia Woolf|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1368337020s/116056.jpg|1019503] which offers similar contrasts and challenges and a similarly nuanced resolution.
I was unsure about what destiny Forster actually wanted for his main characters. According to the introduction, he wrote two different outcomes though only one exists today. However, in the end, it is as if the characters resolve the situation for themselves. Charlotte Bartlett emerges as a curious and unlikely deus ex machina, and the title of the innocent-looking book, sunning itself in the English garden, turns out to be ‘Under a Loggia’, nicely connecting the two halves of the novel and helping to resolve the dilemmas of the characters.
.........………………………………………
I've chosen two images that I think illustrate Forster's adjectives 'leonardesque' and 'michaelangelesque'. Leonardo's 'Annunciation' (in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence):
and one of Michelangelo's unfinished 'imprisoned slaves' (now in the Academia Gallery, Florence):
For some further thoughts on how Forster merges his story with the art of Florence, see my review of The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.
I read both Forster's and Cellini's books while visiting the Tuscan capital last month and found interesting parallels between them.
The author then describes what the main characters are doing in various locations adjacent to the garden, but meanwhile the red book is allowed to be caressed all the morning by the sun and to raise its covers slightly, as though to acknowledge the caress. The description of the book seems very innocent but the reader’s attention is immediately caught. What is the significance of this book within a book, we wonder, and why does it have a 'red' cover.
As it turns out, the immediate purpose of the red-covered book on that sunny English morning is to move the story along, quickly and dramatically. The red book causes certain things to happen that wouldn't otherwise have happened as if it were in fact a character in the novel with a voice of its own. The plot is really very neat and makes for an entertaining read. The backdrops Forster uses for the action are interesting too: the shifting class structure and the new ideas on religion and politics which were emerging in England in the last decades of the nineteenth century. But my favorite aspect of this beautiful novel is 'Art'. Even when everything else is in flux, Art is a constant and reliable reference which Forster returns to again and again.
The first half of [b:A Room with a View|1348444|A Room with a View|E.M. Forster|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327553421s/1348444.jpg|4574872] takes place in Florence. The characters meet and avoid each other in a number of locations throughout the city: at the Santa Croce church adorned with frescos by Giotto; in the Piazza Della Signoria where Michaelangelo's David stares across at Benvenuto Cellini's bloody Medusa under the Loggia dei Lanzi; at the San Miniato church, its beautiful facade visible from the very room of the title. Practically every scene in the Italian half of the book features some work of art or another, directly or indirectly. When the characters take a trip into the hills, landscape artists are recalled. When they view Giotto's frescos, their different reactions mirror their approaches to life and living. Forster continually uses the adjectives 'michaelangelesque' and 'leonardesque' to describe the opposing facets of the characters. Once I began to notice that pattern, I recorded it in the status updates but there were more examples than I've listed there.
All of this is by way of explaining that Forster creates a juxtaposition of two modes of being in this novel, the cool and sedate versus the sublimely passionate, as if he himself is involved in some balancing act between sedate predictable prose and wildly unpredictable romanticism, between his own rational leonardesque qualities and his more michaelangelesque tendencies, between the English half of the novel and the Italian half.
Two of the characters are symbols of those two extremes. Lucy Honeychurch's entourage, especially her cousin Charlotte Bartlett, would like to keep Lucy on the side of the sedate. George Emerson and his father would like Lucy to step over into their own more dynamic world. I was reminded of Virginia Woolf's [b:Night and Day|116056|Night and Day|Virginia Woolf|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1368337020s/116056.jpg|1019503] which offers similar contrasts and challenges and a similarly nuanced resolution.
I was unsure about what destiny Forster actually wanted for his main characters. According to the introduction, he wrote two different outcomes though only one exists today. However, in the end, it is as if the characters resolve the situation for themselves. Charlotte Bartlett emerges as a curious and unlikely deus ex machina, and the title of the innocent-looking book, sunning itself in the English garden, turns out to be ‘Under a Loggia’, nicely connecting the two halves of the novel and helping to resolve the dilemmas of the characters.
.........………………………………………
I've chosen two images that I think illustrate Forster's adjectives 'leonardesque' and 'michaelangelesque'. Leonardo's 'Annunciation' (in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence):
and one of Michelangelo's unfinished 'imprisoned slaves' (now in the Academia Gallery, Florence):
For some further thoughts on how Forster merges his story with the art of Florence, see my review of The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.
I read both Forster's and Cellini's books while visiting the Tuscan capital last month and found interesting parallels between them.
The ending makes it so worth it! A short little book about the importance of choosing what makes YOU happy and not anyone else.
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes