I love, love E.M. Forster's A Room with a View. I love it so much I've found it too hard to try and write about it as I know I can't really do it justice. I finished it ages ago and I still think about it. The novel intertwines in my mind with the very excellent Merchant Ivory film adaptation. I know it was remade not so very long ago, but I can't bring myself to watch the newer version as Helena Bonham-Carter, Julian Sands and Maggie Smith are so firmly entrenched in my mind as Lucy Honeychurch, George Emerson, and Charlotte Bartlett. Actually the whole cast felt spot on to me. This was a reread and I think I could quite happily go right now and pick up the book yet again, turn to the first page and start all over.
So what is it about this novel? The story is about many things but for me it is at its most basic a young woman's awakening to life and love and learning how to grasp them passionately and wholeheartedly. Lucy Honeychurch is from a respectable, middle class Edwardian family. A young woman who has traveled to Italy as a tourist with her aunt Charlotte she will have her first taste of real life in all its passion. There is a line from the book that gives me goosebumps when I read it. First to set the scene:
"A very wet afternoon at the Bertolini permitted her to do the thing she really liked, and after lunch she opened the little draped piano. A few people lingered around and praised her playing, but finding that she made no reply, dispersed to their rooms to write up their diaries or to sleep. She took no notice of Mr. Emerson looking for his son, nor of Miss Bartlett looking for Miss Lavish looking for her cigarette-case. Like every true performer, she was intoxicated by the mere feel of the notes; they were fingers caressing her own; and by touch, not by sound alone, did she come to her desire."
"If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting for both us and her." (As spoken by the Reverend Mr. Beebe).
Music plays a large role in this novel and it almost seems to be a metaphor (can music be a metaphor?) for the feelings that Lucy has, which she doesn't necessarily understand or even more likely suppresses in the beginning.
The novel begins with Lucy and Charlotte at the Pensione Bertolini where they've been promised two rooms close together and with views when in reality they're recipients of two rooms far apart and overlooking a courtyard. An unforgivable act, particularly as the proprietor is an Englishwoman to boot. When a well intentioned but rather bohemian older man offers to switch his and his son's rooms for the ladies' rooms Charlotte is aghast and immediately refuses for fear of being under obligation to the gentlemen. Charlotte is a model of unreserved propriety. Lucy and Charlotte are two perfect examples of the English abroad with Baedekers firmly planted in hand, which makes me think that Forster has something to say about that, too.
Miss Eleanor Lavish, a lady novelist, who is also staying at the pension declares that Charlotte is going to have an adventure, but in the end it is Lucy whose good name is nearly compromised. A drive in the Tuscan counstryside organized by the local vicar results in Lucy coming upon George in a field of flowers where he takes her in an ardent embrace and kisses her thoroughly. Charlotte whisks her away in a furor.
Italy seems to be all about unrestrained emotions, but back in England feelings are kept tightly under wraps. Lucy's uncertainty about George Emerson has been tucked away and replaced with an engagement to Cecil Vyse, a sophisticated Londoner and pretentious snob who inadvertently introduces the Emersons into the country society of Windy Corners and back into Lucy's life.
In the end Lucy must decide whether she'll settle for society dictating her future or whether she'll live according to her own passions and desires. This novel is a wonderful exploration of love and freedom and how one young woman learns to follow her own path in life. There are so many reasons why I love this book apart from the story itself. Forster's prose is gorgeous and often witty and his characters are interesting and develop as the story progresses. Maybe I'm just remembering the lushness of the film, but the story has a certain lushness, too. Easily this is one of my top ten favorite novels.