HOWARDS END

I did enjoy E. M. Forster’s 1910 classic novel, but it was kind of a sleepyhead read. It’s written in a way that makes the reader reread a lot of paragraphs...and sometimes this literary critic still didn’t get the crux of what the author was saying. This has nothing to do with the author’s known love of symbolism, per se. Although I never did find out what the "wych elm tree" with pigs teeth stuck in the trunk (at the Howards End estate) was meant to represent. “Do you think that the tree really did cure toothache, if one believed in it?” “Of course It did. It would cure anything...once.” While Forster used less descriptive writing than most authors of his era, his prose was impeccable, although I would have preferred less circling of the wagons and more of let’s get to the point style of writing. Forster was known to like writing about social class differences and hypocrisy (posturing and deceit) especially from the rich man towards the poor man, and his humanist attitude is full-blown in Howards End. Every so often, the author tried his hand at the English dry sense of humour, but unfortunately it came off as deadpan. I am aware that I’m playing a cat and mouse game (love that idiom) with a big time writer, who also published two other bestsellers: A Room with a View in 1908 and A Passage to India in 1924, besides Howards End (all three were adapted into films). My friendly taunting aside, I liked this novel that Wikipedia said compared thoughtless plutocrats (the Wilcoxes), bohemian intellectuals (the Schlegels) and the struggling middle - class aspirants (the Basts).

The novel is set in the turn of the century England when automobiles and horse and buggies still shared the muddy road. The focal point of the novel wasn’t about who owned the Howards End estate (for me anyway), but how three different classes of people interacted. By the way, I don’t use an apostrophe between the d and s in Howards End because the author didn’t use it in his novel. Anyway, the wealthy family is represented by Henry and Ruth Wilcox and their children: Charles, Paul, and Evie. Business is pure capitalism to Mr. Wilcox...It’s a variation of “it’s my way or the highway.” They have several places to live, but Mrs. Wilcox prefers her inherited property, Howards End. Next, meet the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, and their younger brother Tibby. They are sometimes advised by Aunt Julie Munt. You never find out what happened to their parents, or how they get 500 to 600 pounds each per year. They live in an apartment they call “Wickham Place” in London and enjoy the operas and artsy things of London (they belong to the famous Bloomsbury Group). They meet the downtrodden Leonard Bast, who is trying to get to the middle class from the repressed class, at (of all places) the opera. Leonard is trying to bone up on the musical and literary world in order to move his station in life up one notch. Leonard has his umbrella taken by Helen Schlegel in error at the opera’s end and follows the sisters home to retrieve it. The Schlegels take a liking to Leonard, but he is too overwhelmed and self-conscious to stay for tea. Are you excited yet?

The Wilcoxes and the Schlegels met while touring Germany (the Schlegels father was German, but was naturalized in England). While in Germany, Helen falls in love with Paul, but the brief encounter falls apart when Helen visits Howards End later in the year. We will meet Leonard’s mistress (not married yet), Jacky, later in the novel. I only bring her up, because on page 48, the reader gets his first look at Forster’s descriptive writing. “A woman, of whom it is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was awesome. She seemed all strings and bellpulls - ribbons, chains, bead necklaces that clinked and caught - and a boa of azure feathers hung round her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double row of pearls, but her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again be detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was flowery, resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we sowed with mustard and cress in our childhood, and which germinated here yes and there no. She wore it on the back of her head. As for her hair, or rather hairs, they are too complicated to describe, but one system went down the back, lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for a lighter destiny rippled around her forehead. The face - the face does not signify. It was the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth were not so numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly not so white.” Okay, so he is a descriptive writer after all (haha).

The story is too complicated to tell you any more. It is boring at times and full of surprises at other times. If you are working on building up your knowledge of early 1900s English novelists...then this is the kind of book you want to read. I highly recommend this novel, but have your sleeping cap nearby (haha).

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Besides the three novels I mentioned that were adapted into film, there are four other E. M. Forster works converted to film: a 1945 short film, A Diary for Timothy; 1987’s Maurice; 1991’s Where Angels Fear to Tread; and 1998’s Plug.

As I said in the above text, E. M. Forster was known for surprises and symbolism in all of his novels. One major question is always: “Howards End, the place, is clearly of value for other reasons than its material actuality. It stands for something. How would you describe what it stands for?” Unfortunately, I thought about that throughout the novel and couldn’t come up with an answer (same as the wych elm tree).

Nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 16 different years has to be an exercise in futility. E. M. Forster died on 6/7/1970 at the age of 91 in Coventry, England.