Julie L. (lamerehouse) - , reviewed on + 4 more book reviews
'You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you.'
In this brilliant piece of social comedy Forster is concerned with one of his favourite themes: the 'undeveloped heart' of the English middle classes, who are here represented by a group of tourists and expatriates in Florence. The English abroad are observed with a sharply ironic eye, but one of them, the young and unaffected Lucy Honeychurch, is also drawn with great sympathy.
In her relationships with her dismal cousin Charlotte, with the unconventional Emersons and - the scene transferred to England - with her supercilious fiance, Lucy is torn between lingering Victorian proprieties, social and sexual, and the spontaneous promptings of her heart ('an undeveloped heart, not a cold one'). Thus there are hidden depths of meaning in this sunniest and most readable of Forster's novels.
This edition includes Forster's light-hearted sequel, 'A View Without a Room'.
In this brilliant piece of social comedy Forster is concerned with one of his favourite themes: the 'undeveloped heart' of the English middle classes, who are here represented by a group of tourists and expatriates in Florence. The English abroad are observed with a sharply ironic eye, but one of them, the young and unaffected Lucy Honeychurch, is also drawn with great sympathy.
In her relationships with her dismal cousin Charlotte, with the unconventional Emersons and - the scene transferred to England - with her supercilious fiance, Lucy is torn between lingering Victorian proprieties, social and sexual, and the spontaneous promptings of her heart ('an undeveloped heart, not a cold one'). Thus there are hidden depths of meaning in this sunniest and most readable of Forster's novels.
This edition includes Forster's light-hearted sequel, 'A View Without a Room'.
