Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #263488 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Synopsis
This novel by the author of "Maurice" and "A Passage to India" deals with personal relationships and conflicting values and has been filmed, directed by James Ivory and starring Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson, Prunella Scales, James Wilby, Helena Bonham Carter and Jemma Redgrave.

Customer Reviews

"Connect the prose and the passion...both will be exalted."
In this 1910 story of Edwardian England, Forster illustrates the conflicts between the superior attitudes of the aristocracy and a developing feeling of obligation toward the "lower" classes which World War I will soon bring into sharp relief. Margaret and Helen Schlegel are intellectual and sensitive to the arts, with compassionate hearts for those less fortunate. When Margaret, at age twenty-nine, is affianced to Henry Wilcox, the much older, widowed husband of a friend, this conflict of attitudes is brought to the fore. Henry, insensitive and believing himself actually entitled to his family's privileges, is cold and reserved, though Margaret believes that "Henry must be forgiven and made better by love."

Helen, her sister, a 21-year-old with an enthusiasm for the life of the imagination, has no sympathy for Henry's staid pronouncements and failure to pay attention to the people "below him" who are dependent upon his whims. When Henry asserts that Porphyria Fire Insurance Co. is on the verge of collapse, Helen and Margaret persuade Leonard Bast, a young clerk they have befriended, to resign his position there, only to have him later "downsized" out of his subsequent bank job. Henry refuses to accept any responsibility whatsoever and refuses his wife's entreaties to give the destitute Leonard a job.

Immensely sympathetic to the economic position of the poor and women, Forster illustrates their financial dependence on those over whom they have little control. Margaret, who secures the reader's total sympathy, must try to educate a close-minded dolt like Henry to be kinder and more empathetic towards the people he considers below him, but she achieves only limited success. When Helen returns from Germany, where she has been living, and Henry and his family discover she is pregnant, Henry's belief that her condition reflects negatively upon himself and his family inspires a disaster with far-reaching consequences.

Filled with incisive observations and great wit, the novel follows the narrative pattern of a melodrama, but Forster's sensitivity to both sides--the practical and conservative values of Henry vs. the emotional and idealistic sides of Margaret and Helen--elevates the novel above the tawdry. Henry is a product of his time and his class, but though times are changing, he is too dense to realize it. With the action centered around the Wilcox home at Howard's End, the reader realizes that the estate is a microcosm of the country and that its conflicts are those of the nation. Thoughtful and entertaining, Howard's End still draws in readers after almost a hundred years. Mary Whipple

The New England
Urban and urbane, this is a majestically written novel about the beginnings of the modern life we have inherited in the 21st Century. It's also an exceptional testament to what it's like to be English (English is the key word here not British) during this period of transition.

This is my favourite of Forster's novels and it has both pathos and bathos; characters are fully realised - the ineffectual Schlegel sisters and the tragic Leonard Bast (surely the most wretched persona to haunt Modernist literature?)but it is prohetic. Yes there is the oft quoted 'telegrams and anger'(oh so poignant now that personal letter writing has been steam rollered by emails) but it is his description of a growing suburban mentality, the "red rust" and its ensuing mediocrity that frogleaps this novel out of Victorian blandness.

A great novel about modern English life. Highly recommended.

Surprisingly humorous and entertaining
I read this novel as a mandatory part of my Advanced English course and expected it to be heavy, dry, and fairly blunt as regards Forster's ideas on England. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find the novel significantly lighter and more subtle than I had speculated and in fact, very humorous. I will even admit that there were occassional snippets of dialogue and Forster's witty narritive that made me want to laugh out loud (and Iam a seventeen year old male). Most of the characters in the novel are extremely likeable (such as Margaret and Ruth Wilcox), and those characters who are not likeable (such as Charles Wilcox) are extremely entertaining. Yes, there are several serious undercurrents about class mannerisms, culture, connecting prose and passion, individual versus the system etc, but these ARE communicated clearly and USUALLY in a way that is not too difficult to understand. That said, there were occassional passages (mostly Maragaret's philosophical rants) that I felt I had twice or three times to fully understand. However, since not everybody who reads this book will have to study it or write an exam essay on it, it can be enjoyed without a full understanding of some of this philosophy. The plot itself is interesting, but is rather a series of coincodences than a carefully developed story. The only slight negative point about Howards End that comes to mind is that, while many books can be enjoyed on two levels (ie as plain stories or as philisophical insights into things), the philisophy/ Forster's ideas about society cannot be TOTALLY igonred - they are blantantly the inspiration for this novel. But as I have said, the book is not as heavy and dry as you would think, and is without a doubt very clever and humorous. Read it.