Book review: Howard's End

Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. Howards End is considered by many to be Forster's masterpiece, or so says Wiki. I woudn't put it quite like that. Grokipedia says Howards End is a novel by English author E. M. Forster, first published in 1910 by Edward Arnold. The narrative intertwines the lives of the cultured, half-German Schlegel sisters—Margaret and Helen—with the pragmatic, affluent Wilcox family and the impoverished clerk Leonard Bast, centering on the titular Hertfordshire country house as a symbol of enduring English heritage and personal continuity; that is rather closer to what I would say. But then again, Gpedia goes on and on about social conditions, overloading a humble article about a book.

I like it. I first read it years ago; it is part of Mother's collection. It is itself cultured, and well written. The aesthete Schlegels are the sort of people that meet other people at Heidelburg; the nouveau wealthy Wilcoxes are not, but they meet there anyway. The Basts are an unpleasant reminder of lower class reality. I should perhaps say a little more about that. Forster, I suspect, is quite sympathetic to the Basts, or perhaps to the poor in general, but he is himself of course not of that class, and he does not hesitate to make them unattractive rather than idealised; they have found no redemption or spirituality in poverty. Leonard, before he is ground down, has some spark of life; but Jacky has gone by the time we meet her and Leonard does not survive the vicissitudes of the plot.

Our chief character, Margaret, despite being cultured has somehow reached thirty unattached, and oddly decides to love and marry Mr Wilcox. Helen is then the rather scatty one to which things happen. Early on there is a discussion group in which nice upper class women discuss how to help the poor; but as the book in the person of Margaret can't help noticing, all the ideas leave the nice upper class wmoen in charge of the money which they think of doling out to the poor as libraries, or trips abroad, or somesuch; Margaret's suggestion that they just give them money is not well received.

Various events occur which cannot but make us think that Mr Wilcox is not worthy of his wife; and eventually she and Helen essentuially retreat into England, personnified byt the house of Howard's End, which has come down through Mr W's ethereal first wife. Forster is clearly not happy with the march of modernity, but has no real answers to a problem he doesn't clearly state. The book's epigram is "Only connect" but while that might have helped some of the individuals, it too would not solve the problem. Indeed the problem cannot be "solved" in those terms, only embraced.

Fun fact: we used to live in Stevenage.

Trivia: Helen's fecklessness reminds me of Daisy.