Book review: Where Angels Fear to Tread

By E. M. "Howard" Forster. His first book. Has vague echoes (errm, or presentiments) of "A Room With a View" in that it is about the English in Italy; but unlike that, where the respectable English abroad meet the English lower classes - the horror - here the respectable but silly Lilia meets a charming young Italian of no family.

For reasons unclear to me the respectable folk inhabit Sawston, an unremarkable town on the railway line from Cambridge to London; closer to Cambridge than Stevenage; which may perhaps explain the connection. The book is probably better if you know none of that.

The book contrasts the suffocatingly dull but respectable life of Sawston with the beauty freedom and dirt of Italy. I would interpret it as another novel about the English, as Howard's End is, and A Passage to India arguably is. Except my edition contains an afterword, an exchange of letters between Forster and Trevelyan, which tells me it is really about the growth of Philip. Oh well; I really think my interpretation is better.

English society does not come off well from the book. The Herritons are by construction unlovely; Philip's Italiophilia appears shallow; no-one gets to lead a natural life.

But considered as a novel, the book is interesting and enjoyable to read, and well constructed. The "reception" section on wiki is worth reading. I wonder if the "charitable" comment influced India, which does look kindly on its characters.

Aside: to me, the most remarkable element of the story is that the folk of Sawston can afford to send Lilia off on a year-long tour of Italy with a companion, and Harriet on a whim for six weeks in the Tirol. But perhaps that is how it was in the days of the Empire.