Book Review: A Room With A View - E M Forster

"In her heart also there are springing up strange desires.  She too is enamoured of heavy winds, and vast panoramas, and green expanses of the sea.  She has marked the kingdom of this world, how full it is of wealth, and beauty, and war - a radiant crust, built around the central fires, spinning towards the receding heavens. Men, declaring that she inspires them to do it, move joyfully over the surface, having the most delightful meetings with other men, happy, not because they are masculine, but because they are alive.  Before the show breaks up she would like to drop the august title of the Eternal Woman, and go there as her transitory self." 

Excuse the terrible photo - my camera batteries ran out and I haven't bought new ones yet.  Anyway, next on my 'to read' list was E M Forster's A Room With A View.  I bought this from Black Gull Books, which is a second hand bookshop in Camden and generally one of my favourite bookshops ever. The stock is constantly changing because people are always buying/selling books so you never know what you'll find, and you can often find really unique editions in there.

A Room With A View is about a young girl called Lucy Honeychurch who travels to Florence and then Rome with her cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett. While there she meets George Emerson and his father, who, months later, move into a house close to Lucy's in Summer Street.  Under pressure to marry, Lucy accepts a proposal from her precocious cousin, Cecil, but is wracked with guilt over a romantic encounter she had in Florence with George and the feelings of love she harbours for him are a constant source of distress for her; the truth is ultimately revealed and Lucy and George elope to Florence against Mrs Honeychurch's wishes.

I really enjoyed this book; it was a relatively easy read and at first it seems like it's simply going to be another story of a girl torn between two men, who then makes a decision just because she feels compelled to wed and conform to expectations from family and society to marry and start a family. But before her feelings for George are revealed, Lucy is certain that nothing will ever happen between them, yet she still breaks off her engagement to Cecil because she's unhappy and would rather be alone.  After his assumption that she's ending their relationship because she plans to marry another, Lucy responds: "If a girl breaks off her engagement, everyone says: "Oh, she had someone else in her mind; she hopes to get someone else." It's disgusting, brutal! As if a girl can't break it off for the sake of freedom." 

I also loved loved loved Forster's writing style. His words just flow and the descriptions of the Italian scenery are so beautiful.  I do love a good scenery description. Also some really funny moments in there too.  I know this is a classic and everyone's probably read it, but this is the first time I'd read it so thought I'd just share my thoughts.

Steph xx

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