Book: Maurice by E. M. Forster

[rotaryphones]

Hello! I'm joining the party late to throw in some extra recs for the end of the month.

I've held off on recommending the E. M. Forster novel Maurice for a while now, because the movie version was recommended a little while back and I didn't want to be unoriginal. (The movie, by the way, is also pretty great.) But I'm coming back to it now,

Comments

[miss_morland]

I love Maurice so much. Seconding the rec!

[rotaryphones]

I know, isn't it just so great? :)

[magnetic_pole]

I can't believe we haven't recced Maurice here before! Thirding wholeheartedly! I remember that final line you quote quite clearly from...well, more than twenty years ago now (yikes!), which helped explain the book to me at a time when I didn't fully understand it. I should reread--thanks, R. M.

[rotaryphones]

It holds up to rereading, I think. And I've been seriously debating reccing this for years...but I didn't know if people wanted to hear about the movie AND the book. :)

[magnetic_pole]

I'm trying hard to remember where the book and movie differ.... If memory serves, the movie's pretty faithful. But I found Clive both more sympathetic and less unified as a character in the movie, perhaps because in the book Forster has a chance to sketch out his particular and limited version of same-sex love--and conversely, Maurice's lack of sophistication and potential for growth come through on the page clearly. In the movie, the temptation to read it as a modern romance (with costume and queerness thrown in) was pretty strong. M.

[rotaryphones]

*SPOILERY COMMENT BELOW*

The movie is very faithful to the book, with Clive being the big exception. Because in the movie, he gets scared and decides to marry in order to hide who he is. But in the book, he pretty much wakes up one day and decides he's suddenly attracted to women. I'm not surprised the movie changed it. I first read this for a class in college, and I found that all of my classmates had the same reading, that Clive was hiding his true nature, even though there's nothing in the text to support that. I think Forster condemns Clive for embracing conformity (and breaking Maurice's heart, and having Victorian views on sex), but there's never an accusation that Clive isn't "being true to himself." And I think it's fascinating how modern audiences try to fit his character arc into a more familiar narrative.

ANYWAY there's the summary of my dissertation on Clive, haha. So I think your memory of the movie as a modern romance with costumes is pretty accurate, despite its overall faith to the text.