I've been reading A Room With a View, having always adored A Passage to India, and curious about this writer, who seems so in touch with the social universes of the British at large. Although removed by at least six generations from my Anglo-Saxon roots, I see some of myself in the ways of the British, but I fear mostly due to the human factor, and not much else in the way of genes. Language, however, is a great factor. How little I really know about the English language, and yet how much of my being I ascribe to it. I don't know if I approach like an artist, understanding on some deep level, out of grasp, or if I am lazy and just need to work more. Charles Olson, who wrote Call Me Ishmael was a poet, and his work of criticism is seen many times as a work of art. I think my work will tend to fall into that category. That is not to imagine that my works are or ever will be priceless, but they do and will take on that aspect of impact; I have always been a lover of feeling over thinking, but just barely.
A Room With a View is a little dizzying to me. I kind of feel like I did when I first tried to read Moby-Dick, ages ago. I can't quite get a grasp on where I am, or who's perspective I'm reading through, or what the point is. This I love, and hate. Whenever I feel like I don't get it, like the chaos is mounting to an avalanche of details, I suspect with gleeful interest that I will find something magical and mystical there. Forester does have these amazing lines. For instance, after a particularly chaotic scene in the novel where Lucy has received a kiss, and the group is going back to their hotel in carriages, a storm erupts and frightens Lucy, who is more than a little naive. Her chaperone, whom Lucy goes back and forth between despising and needing, squeezes her hand under a blanket. Forester offers this line, "At time our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards." Instantly, I am hooked. This line, so carefully nonchalant, but heavy, heavy with suggestion, makes thrashing through the dizzying scenes seem like a race of endurance with enlightenment or even the small whisper of intimate wisdom, or a small sublime secret traced onto the back of your neck, the fleeting and ultimate reward.
Sentences do this to me.
1 comment:
Did you finish the Forster novel? A Passage to India has always been one of my favorite books. I think he's a genius, and he certainly does have the ability to encapsulate in perfect sentences exactly the sentiment that he needs or wishes to convey.
You should tackled Howard's End next, if you haven't read it already. Brilliant book about the class structure of England.
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