A Room With a View

Rating:
Summary: Not always an easy read, but a great book overall!
Review: A Room With a View is a little hard to get into at first. The many references to Italian culture and British politics in the beginning confused me and made it hard to get into. However, after a little research, I understood the story better and really liked it. Get past the beginning, and you'll be fine. Forster presents very relatable characters in this story: characters trying to discover the meaning of life and feeling. He presents great ideas in this book about happiness and love. The text can be somewhat hard to understand at times; I would keep a dictionary handy. However, this book is truly a classic and an excellent read.

Rating:
Summary: A Room with a View
Review: A Room with A View is a romantic book, which teaches more than one important lesson of life. Lucy teaches the reader many great morals through her battling of society's expectations. We also see these morals being taught with her struggle to find what she really wants. Throughout the book, we see Lucy start to develop a sense of independence and passion by following her heart. I think E.M. Forster does a great job of reflecting the 18th century in this book. Through Lucy he portrayed a woman's strength and a woman's changing role in society. This was also happening at the time in the 18th century to many other women. In this novel, social class is a huge factor in teaching us not to be judgmental or obey the unfair rules of society.This novel teaches us to think for ourselves just as Lucy did. Lucy meets a man of lower rank than she was. His name is George Emerson. He teaches her the things in life that are important such as her musical talents. He shows her the truth, and passion that she soon with discover. Nature is also conveyed widely in this book. Forster does a great job of connecting man and nature showing how they affect each other. Forster teaches us the lesson that man cannot be taken from his natural state. When the novel ends, we see how man and nature are all tied together. With the help of many people and by traveling to Italy, Lucy finally grows into a strong woman. She is now passionate, independent, and aware of what she wants. This book takes the reader through the adventure of a young woman's struggle with her heart, and with the society.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite love stories
Review: I LOVE this novel and the Merchant Ivory film of the same name, which I would give 10 stars! The film, by the way, is very faithful to the book. Anyway, I was extremely delighted by this story when I first read it long ago after seeing the film, and my impression of it has not changed with time. This is a parody of prim and proper English society, something the author E. M. Forster specialized in. For a novel written in 1907, this is an extremely easy read, nothing like a Henry James novel.

The plot concerns a young woman named Lucy who goes to Italy on holiday chaperoned by her older spinster cousin, Charlotte. Lucy meets a handsome young guy named George, but he seems a bit odd and eccentric, and she doesn't quite know what to think of him. He takes her by surprise by walking up to her and kissing her in a secluded open field. Charlotte happens to see this and is determined not to let it go any further. You see, Lucy is already engaged to a snobby twit named Sistel back in England! But in the end, Lucy follows her heart.

Ah man, I just love this story. See the movie and then read the book.

David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"

Rating:
Summary: the greatest read ever
Review: i loved this book and have recommended it to everyone i know. forster captivates his reader by making them feel right there smack in the middle of the muddle between lucy and george. he carries out a kind of jane austen comic manner throughout the whole book, and you are just compelled to laughing. he describes his characters so meticulously, that you can just about relate each of them to a person in your own life. forster once said that he thought this novel was " slight, unambitious, and uninteresting " (gardner 403) but he was very mistaken. this novel is a light-hearted glimpse into the lives of the well refined english society and its unfortunate black sheeps. i especially enjoyed the way forster addressed the attraction between george and lucy, i've never read any book that has made me so thrilled at the end when the two lovers finally become one. of all forster's novels, i think this one is the funniest, most genuine, and heartwarming novel for any audience. i very highly recommend this novel

Rating:
Summary: Forster's passion for life
Review: I was greatly impressed by the grasp that this male author had on the sometimes vague nature of emotion - his understanding, especially of women and their emotions, may stem from the fact that his father died soon after he was born and he was raised by his mother and two other women. This book is amazing, not only for the statement that it makes about women and their changing role in society at the time, but for it's great insight into the important aspects of life. For example, (and this is a running theme throughout the book)in the words of a little old lady at the pension: " ...have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?" This philosophy of life highlights Forster's obvious favor of Lucy's brother Freddy and George Emerson - the silly ones who go for a romping swim in a pond - and makes plain his disfavor for Cecil Vyce, Lucy's stiff and condescending intended. This philosophy of life comes to full fruition when George kisses Lucy and even dares to kiss her again. By the rules of society, he is an indecent cad, but Forster would encourage us to find the beauty in it instead. Furthermore, this is not merely a story of a brainless girl who is tossed from an unfeeling fiance to an affectionate suitor. Rather, it is a story of a girl's realization of herself and her will. She triumphs as a thinking and feeling girl at the end and that's what makes the finale a sure victory for the author - he has not fallen into the usual trap of creating a two dimensional heroine.

Rating:
Summary: Lovely, Life Affirming
Review: This elegant little novel totally swept me away. It is so perfect from any angle I look at it. I know that this will be one of those novels I will always keep in a prominent place on my bookshelf and return to my whole life.

This exquisite novel primarily concerns Lucy Honeychurch. The novel begins with Lucy on a trip in Italy. She is accompanied there mainly by members of her own society, the upper class of England among which she has been raised. While in Italy, though, Lucy is confronted by the Italian society where she notices the classes seem to mix easily. She is also confronted with George Emerson. George is simple, direct, and of a lower class, and he is having existential worries. Despite themselves (or their pasts), the two begin to fall in love with one another, and their experiences eventually lead to their realizations of what their hearts really desire.

As it is with all of my favorite novels, I really cannot do A Room With a View justice with this review. This is a truly lovely book. The prose and the pace is perfect. There are so many sentences which are just perfect little gems by themselves. The characterizations are complex. The plot is romantic and funny. The thought behind the novel is meaningful and life affirming. There's not much more that any novel can do. A Room With a View is perfection.