Books 2014 - Maurice by E.M. Forster

[byslantedlight]

Sort of a once-upon-a-time book this, but not in the way of the challenge, more in the way it was written in 1913, about a world quite different to ours. It was published in 1971, a year after Forster's death, at his request... oh, oddly enough, flipping through the introduction now (I never do until I've finished a book), there's this:
"...Ozick called it 'a disingenuous book, an infantile book, because, while pretending to be about social injustice, it is really about make-believe, it is about wishing; so it fails even as a tract. Fairy tales, though, are plainly literature; but Maurice fails as literature too.'
I don't know about fails as literature - I've yet to think particularly deeply about the whole what-qualifies-as-literature thing, and I don't really care, because I don't read to be consciously instructed (there - apparently I think that literature is supposed to "teach" us something! I suppose I do, that we're supposed to "get something" from it - but then who tells us we're supposed to, or what the something is, so there's still more to it... it's all very tangled, isn't it). I suppose for Forster it was a kind of fairy tale - that the hero and his beloved might live happily ever after...

So... what do I want to write about it, for a review? It's one of those books it seems a bit presumptuous to "review" - it's a Penguin Classic! But my "reviews" are really more I liked it or not, so... I liked it. *g* Very much, actually. Although Maurice himself isn't a very sympathetic character sometimes - he blusters and bullies on occasion, he's not overly bright, he works in the stockmarket, but... but he is actually, because he's also bravely struggling with something that's unfair, and he doesn't just lie down and let it roll over him - well, he can't, because it's his life we're talking about, but still. There's a thread through the book about how slow he is to catch on to things, how things become such muddles to him (I definitely sympathise there!), but he keeps going anyway, eventually working out what's going on where, and then facing the situation bravely, and I was caught up in it, and desperately, desperately want it all to work out well for him. And perhaps that's another thing - the book was written before 1914, before even the First World War, so I know it's pretty unlikely that things will work out for Maurice in the end, he's just the wrong age, but if only he can have a few years happiness before the world turns to a different kind of hell, then I want him to. Because in the end, and despite everything, I do like him as a character, and as I've said before, that's quite often what makes a book for me.

Comments

[gilda-elise.livejournal.com]

I've never read any of his books, though I've seen the movies based on several, including this one. I liked it.

And fails as literature? What does that mean? I certainly would think of it as literature. When a book manages to become a classic, it's hard to think of it as not, whether I personally like it or not. I mean, there are some of Dickens' books that I couldn't get into to save my life, but I still consider them literature.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess the real question is why some books become "classics" and others don't... trouble is, nowadays it probably all gets caught up with marketing, and doesn't always reflect the book... Hmmn, maybe that's one reason modern fiction should be or is treated a little differently to older fiction... (*muses on comment made by moth2fic above...*)