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Through a
Glass Darkly: A Room with a View
by
Marilyn Green Faulkner
This business
of seeing is a strange process. We know that something mechanical
occurs when light hits the retina of the eye, and images are communicated
to the brain. That, however, is just the beginning of sight. From
quite a young age, we also understand that sight is an inward process
as well, and look beyond the surface of faces and objects for their
spiritual significance. Perched precariously between the innocence
of prewar England and the disasters to come, a young man named Edward
Forster penned a novel about a young girl learning to see for herself,
and poured into it all of his "insights" (a lovely word) about the
clash between civility and nature, between keeping up appearances
and living with a vision. He called it A Room with a View.
E.M. Forster
was only twenty-eight years old when he published A Room with
a View, and its tone reflects the hope and optimism of a young
idealist. Forster has been called the expert on spinsters, clergymen
and "nervous old ladies," and peoples his novel with the kind of
people who raised him in a nostalgic representation of an era disappearing
even as he began to write. (D.H. Lawrence called Forster "the last
Englishman.") Games of lawn tennis, tea in the garden, calls paid
to neighbors and returned within ten days, all the conventions of
genteel suburban life are chronicled here in delightful detail.
There are the Emersons with their "anti-religious" views, and the
snobby Vyse's in London who give dinner parties attended by "the
grandchildren of famous people." We meet the ancient Miss Alans,
who traverses the globe armed with Baedekker guides and plenty of
digestive bread, the bitter, suspicious cousin Charlotte, and a
host of others, Italians and English, all drawn with careful, loving
care by a master of characterization.
The central
figure of the tale is Lucy Honeychurch, an average girl with a pretty
face and an unusual talent for music. (Forster believed in art as
a vehicle for inner discovery.) Mr. Beebe, the celibate clergyman
who acts as intermediary between the large cast of characters at
home and abroad, muses about what might happen if Lucy ever learns
to "live as she plays." Such a development would not be possible
in England, but on a tour of Italy Lucy comes face to face, first
with death, then with physical attraction, then with love. Whether
she will have the courage to bring her new view home with her, and
whether she will be able to combine youthful passion with social
propriety become the focus of the story, told in a tone of comic
irony remarkable in an author so young.
Forster was
raised in a setting very like Windy Corner, coddled by his mother
and maiden aunts after his father's death. He has a perfect ear
for dialogue, and it is a pleasure to listen in on the Honeychurches
at home, or the Vyses in their stuffy, London flat. Forster uses
dialogue to help us see into the hearts of these people, but we
must attend to the subtle shifts in conversation. No one will shout
the message to us here, except old Mr. Emerson, who eschews all
forms of "civilized" communication and wishes only to speak from
the heart. It is he who possesses the wardrobe upon which is inscribed
this motto: "Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes."
His loud ranting offends everyone but Lucy, who sees in his indelicacy
"something beautiful." His son George rouses in her a feeling of
immediate physical and spiritual attraction, a passion so foreign
to her that she attributes it to her Italian surroundings. Her impulse
is to flee Italy and her new emotional state. But the winds of fate
blow even as far as Windy Corner, and George turns up in her English
neighborhood, as full of passion and love as in Italy. By then Lucy
has replaced one chaperone for another; she has become engaged to
Cecil, snobby, controlling, yet socially desirable. Lucy must choose.
The novel is
organized almost as a play, with chapter headings that describe
the scene to follow. The two exceptions are titled simply, Fourth
Chapter and Twelfth Chapter. These two chapters record events of
deeper significance: the death of the Italian that brings Lucy and
George together, and the swim in the "Sacred Lake," where Freddy,
George and the clergyman Beebe go "skinnydipping" and encounter
Cecil, Lucy and Mrs. Honeychurch in a hilarious clash between nature
and civilization. Though Forster makes us laugh in these scenes,
his meaning is serious. The trappings of civilization, our manners,
civilities, customs and prejudices, may keep us from truly connecting
with each other and with the best that lies within us. Lucy, upon
hearing that the Emersons will be moving to her neighborhood, rehearses
over and over how she will meet George. When, instead of meeting
at church or a garden party, she stumbles across him whooping like
an Indian at play in the bathing pool, all her rehearsal is in vain.
She simply bows to him, Forster says, "across the rubbish that cumbers
the world."
There is a bit
of Lucy Honeychurch in all of us, isn't there. It can be difficult
as a young person to reconcile our lofty ideals of eternal companionship
with the commonsense requirements of real life. I remember bringing
a young man home from BYU to meet my parents. He was serious, righteous,
and extremely smart and spiritual. After everyone had been introduced
I was anxious to hear my mother's reaction to my new beau. I found
her at her vanity, doing her hair, and as I chattered on and on
my mother looked thoughtfully at my reflection in her mirror. Finally
she said simply, "Yes, but Marilyn, I wonder, do you want your children
to look like him?" I was silenced. With the wisdom of years she
correctly saw that I felt no real attraction for this fellow. I
did not love him "body and soul," as Mr. Emerson describes it, but
was attracted to his qualities, his intellect, his "trappings."
I had yet to experience the kind of connection upon which a true
marriage is made. Ironically, it was in my home, among the mundane
details of daily life, that I could see these eternal realities
most clearly. Lucy finds the same thing to be true: Cecil is hopelessly
out of place in her home while George slips easily into the routine
of things. In Windy Corner Forster creates a happy haven of safety,
flawed yet perfect in its way, as our own homes are, with a loving
family who helps us find our inner vision through acceptance, unconditional
love and an occasional dose of the truth about ourselves.
E.M. Forster
went on to write two great novels: Howard's End and A Passage to
India. If his artistry appeals to you as it does to me I recommend
them both. His prose at its best becomes almost musical, and his
use of dialogue always rings true, which cannot be said for most
of the novels of today. (All three novels, by the way, have been
beautifully adapted for film by the Merchant-Ivory team.) Forster's
own life was, to use his expression, "a muddle," and he never achieved
the happiness he granted to Lucy and George. In them he created
a union of body and soul that symbolized the harmony of civilization
and nature. It is "a consummation devoutly to be wished" and a beautiful
expression of the heights attainable in the midst of everyday realities.
Once you gaze into the life of this little novel, you cannot help
but enjoy the view, and may gain some insight into the workings
of your own soul.
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© 2001 Meridian
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