Title: Howards End
Author: E. M. Forster
Publication date: 1910
Length: 246 pages
Rating:

‘Only connect…’

 Considered by many to be E. M. Forster’s greatest novel, Howards End is a beautifully subtle tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of “telegrams and anger.” When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home—Howards End—to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve. Written in 1910, Howards End is a symbolic exploration of the social, economic, and intellectual forces at work in England in the years preceding World War I, a time when vast social changes were occurring. In the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes, Forster perfectly embodies the competing idealism and materialism of the upper classes, while the conflict over the ownership of Howards End represents the struggle for possession of the country’s future. As critic Lionel Trilling once noted, the novel asks, “Who shall inherit England?”

Forster refuses to take sides in this conflict. Instead he poses one of the book’s central questions: In a changing modern society, what should be the relation between the inner and outer life, between the world of the intellect and the world of business? Can they ever, as Forster urges, “only connect”?

To be honest, I don’t feel especially qualified to “review” Howards End. It’s a beautifully written, thought-provoking, even funny book, and I loved it, really and truly. But I’m no literary expert — not even an English major!! — so I’ll skip any attempt at deep analysis.

Instead, I’ll just mention what I especially liked:

• The contrast between the Wilcox and Schlegel families. The Wilcoxes are wealthy thanks to the nonstop busy-ness of business. Life is practical, efficient, and sensible. The Schlegels, on the other hand, are dreamers and art-lovers, especially sisters Margaret and Helen. Left comfortably wealthy after the death of their parents, they don’t have to worry about work or practicality. They enjoy discussions of the more esoteric elements of life.
• Excellent dialogue: Whether it’s scenes of Margaret and Helen engaged in yet another argument, or pointed examples of how obtuse and stubborn the Wilcox eldest son Charles can be, the bickering and disagreements are quite entertaining.
• Examinations of class, without preachiness: We also meet clerk Leonard Bast, who is desperate to claw his way out of poverty despite his low beginnings and extremely low-class wife. Leonard’s aspirations make him susceptible to the influence of the Schlegels, whose attempt at do-gooderism instead dooms poor Leonard to an even worse situation than where they found him.
• Lush descriptions of places, especially the beauty of Howards End itself.
• A wide cast of characters that provides peeks at so many aspects of the society of the time.

A few selections to enjoy:

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk.

A funeral is not death, any more than baptism is birth or marriage union. All three are the clumsy devices, coming now too late, now too early, by which Society would register the quick motions of man.

If a man cannot lead up to passion he can at all events lead down from it […]

The interlude closes. It has taken place in Charles’s garden at Hilton. He and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor is regarding them placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short-frocked edition of Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is squeaking; a third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out Wilcoxes in this peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth.

I so enjoyed the writing and the story, and heartily recommend Howards End. I’d love to read it again with a book group at some point — there’s so much in it that I’d love to pull apart and really examine at leisure.

As is, I read this book via Serial Reader, intending to stick to one little installment per day (out of 40 installments in total). Instead, by about the halfway point, I was too impatient to take it slowly, and read straight through to the end.

All in all, a very happy experience with this round of the Classics Club Spin!

Several years ago, I watched the excellent four-part adaptation of Howards End, starring Hayley Atwell and Matthew Macfadyen. Now that I’ve read the book, I’d love to watch it again!