Writer's Block: LiveJournal Book Club

[cicatrix_alba]

Howards End (E.M. Forster)

Read it during May, outdoors, amidst the grass and the trees.  It is a life-changing book.  Forster is not everyone's cup of tea, especially now, when his style is not fashionable, and nor are his concerns.  Oh! but the unseen behind the seen, the mysticism in his prose, his understanding of whimsy, chance, fate, and

Comments

[remeciel]

Your review is really impressive. I'll definitely have to check at the library for this book.

[duck_or_rabbit]

Oh, I adore this novel as well as Forster's general body of writing. It delighted me that you referenced Maurice in your most recent PM, ♥.

And I bet this book travelled with you from your past life into your present one.

You get my Inappropriate (to some) Icon of the Day, :D!

[cicatrix_alba]

A friend of mine has a saying

[duck_or_rabbit]

'Death destroys a man; the idea of Death saves him.'

Isn't that absolutely fantastic? You've an existentialism streak in you, don't you? (Don't we all?)

The modern era might create a wealth of Leonard Basts, but do we want them? Can we bear them?

What all Forester's characters share with the reader is something so much more than their experience on the page. They're not limited to physical descriptions--in fact, some lack those all together. We aren't told a characters has a particular accent, or a certain profession, then given their forgettable thoughts as they float on the surface of their minds so the book's plot can progress. No, they are rendered with such depth and reality that Forester's characters unite with readers (if the reader is honest and allows this) and the outcome is Leonard (and Maurice, but will save that) are people. I would welcome another Leonard to parallel my sufferings and the sufferings that extend into human kind, yet he is unique and undublicatable and will doubtfully reincarnate in modern fiction