Howard's End ★★★☆½

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Title: Howard's End
Series: ----------
Author: E.M. Forster
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 334
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Helen falls in love with a young man but he has overcommitted and secretly breaks it off. Helen's Aunt goes to straighten things up and ends up making an enemy of the oldest son Henry. Helen's older sister Margaret smooths things over and becomes friends with Mrs Wilcox, the mother of the young fool. This all happens at a country house of the Wilcox's called Howard's End.

Mrs Wilcox dies from cancer and Margaret ends up marring Mr Wilcox. Mr Wilcox and Helen can't stand each other, as one is a businessman and the other an impractical dreamer with an independent fortune to succor her. Helen has an affair, gets pregnant and when Henry Wilcox finds out, he hunts down the man and ends up accidentally killing him. He goes to jail and Mr Wilcox suffers several business setbacks.

Margaret smooths things over and Helen and baby live with her and Mr Wilcox at Howard's End. Mr Wilcox leaves Howard's End to Margaret in his will and everything else goes to his 3 children.

The End.

My Thoughts:

This was a finely written soap opera of absolutely zero import. It didn't help that the introduction by whoever Barnes & Noble (this was a Barnes & Noble classic from their Classics Line) hired pissed me off. Talking about literary devices and creating motives wholesale out of 2 word choices is idiotic and useless. Huh, kind of like Helen in the story. If all one does is write papers swanning on about other papers and books, then you might be feeding the soul of the world but in my books you are useless lump and do more harm to this world than any 1950's Cadillac Eldorado ever will. Go dig some ditches you useless waste of resources.

Ok, with that out of the way.....

I did enjoy this. Reading about ordinary life of small people is a nice break from Epic Fantasy or galaxy spanning plots with aliens waiting to suck our brains out. Forster, whatever you may think of the filthy pervert, could write and deserves his place in literary canon. I am sure a useless waste of resources could spend their useless life mining his stuff for “meaning” but for people who actually “do” something with their life, Forster writes in such a way as to draw you in to the story and make the people real and sympathetic. I mean, who doesn't know that relative that is well meaning but bungles things up, or that friend who is trying to be something more without even knowing what they want to be “more of” or that in-law that you just shut your mouth around to keep the peace? Forster knew people and wrote people and he did a fantastic job.

Between this and A Room with a View, I am quite impressed with Forster as an author. Knowing about him as a person however, I'll probably leave my reading of him with these 2 books and call it good. Better to leave with a good impression than to keep on and end up face down in the mud.

★★★☆½