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cblanton2026's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Classism and Death
jesshindes's review against another edition
dark
funny
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
A very funny aspect to reading more classic novels this year is that probably nobody needs me to be like, 'Howards End is good actually'. Wouldn't you know it, Howards End is good. I read this to go with the Brandon Taylor I already blogged about - now working on the essay or whatever it will be - but yes, it's great obviously. I liked it a lot for its vision of pre-first-world-war London (who knew there was like a vegetarian health food restaurant popular at the period) but mostly for the narrative voice, which is confident and opinionated in a way that is so so rare in novels nowadays (is anybody doing that prominent third-person omniscient narrator thing?? who?).
The book is about class, and also about art and money (which is what made me think it would sit well with The Late Americans). It offers more or less three models for approaching the world: the Schlegels, Margaret and Helen, are our main characters, are half-German, love to be intellectual and go to concerts and read poetry and think about the more intangible things in life; care a lot about 'human relations'. The Wilcoxes are acquaintances met on holiday who become a much larger part of their lives; they have a much more prosaic (more English?) set of priorities: sports, and money, and respectability. And then there is Leonard Bast, who has no money and aspires, desperately, to culture: he meets the Schlegels at a concert where Helen walks off with his umbrella and then he can't enjoy the concert anymore because he's so worried about the (very battered and crap) umbrella and the prospect of having to replace it. And then all three of these different moving planets pull into each others' orbits and things start to get a bit dangerous.
I had read this before, I think when I was in third year undergrad so probably about 15 years ago, and one of the things I'd forgotten but liked this time around was the book's explicit discussion of privilege. Margaret has a little speech where she points out that the six-hundred-a-year income of which both she and Helen are in possession means that they have the luxury of a kind of mental space that is not afforded to the very poor: "all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches." There's a scene where Helen and Margaret go to a kind of debate club and talk about How To Help the Poor and everybody wants to do all these schemes but Margaret is like, should we not just give them a lot of money? And of course that goes down very badly. But Forster is more subtle or the book more complex than all of this, and Margaret's good ideas become complicated by her 'personal relations' with the Wilcox family, who I really struggled to have any time for at all (Margaret admires them as a kind of 'spirit of the Empire' which might explain some things tbh) and everything ends up badly for, well, the obvious and inevitable people.
I had forgotten how funny this book was, and I do think there are layers of satire happening here: obvious mockery of the Wilcoxes but then something fairly (faintly?) damning about the Schlegels, too. I found the ending (which I won't spoil here) really shocking, maybe even more shocking, this time around; not just the Big Thing that happens but what comes afterwards, the way that that six hundred pounds reasserts its presence. I don't think the novel necessarily answers the questions it raises but it does manage to say a lot of funny and accurate and pointed things about society, including a whole ton of things about gender relations that I haven't even started to get into here. But yeah. I want to say something clever here about intersectionality and the novel's mantra, 'only connect'. Still thinking about it. Watch this space, haha
The book is about class, and also about art and money (which is what made me think it would sit well with The Late Americans). It offers more or less three models for approaching the world: the Schlegels, Margaret and Helen, are our main characters, are half-German, love to be intellectual and go to concerts and read poetry and think about the more intangible things in life; care a lot about 'human relations'. The Wilcoxes are acquaintances met on holiday who become a much larger part of their lives; they have a much more prosaic (more English?) set of priorities: sports, and money, and respectability. And then there is Leonard Bast, who has no money and aspires, desperately, to culture: he meets the Schlegels at a concert where Helen walks off with his umbrella and then he can't enjoy the concert anymore because he's so worried about the (very battered and crap) umbrella and the prospect of having to replace it. And then all three of these different moving planets pull into each others' orbits and things start to get a bit dangerous.
I had read this before, I think when I was in third year undergrad so probably about 15 years ago, and one of the things I'd forgotten but liked this time around was the book's explicit discussion of privilege. Margaret has a little speech where she points out that the six-hundred-a-year income of which both she and Helen are in possession means that they have the luxury of a kind of mental space that is not afforded to the very poor: "all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches." There's a scene where Helen and Margaret go to a kind of debate club and talk about How To Help the Poor and everybody wants to do all these schemes but Margaret is like, should we not just give them a lot of money? And of course that goes down very badly. But Forster is more subtle or the book more complex than all of this, and Margaret's good ideas become complicated by her 'personal relations' with the Wilcox family, who I really struggled to have any time for at all (Margaret admires them as a kind of 'spirit of the Empire' which might explain some things tbh) and everything ends up badly for, well, the obvious and inevitable people.
I had forgotten how funny this book was, and I do think there are layers of satire happening here: obvious mockery of the Wilcoxes but then something fairly (faintly?) damning about the Schlegels, too. I found the ending (which I won't spoil here) really shocking, maybe even more shocking, this time around; not just the Big Thing that happens but what comes afterwards, the way that that six hundred pounds reasserts its presence. I don't think the novel necessarily answers the questions it raises but it does manage to say a lot of funny and accurate and pointed things about society, including a whole ton of things about gender relations that I haven't even started to get into here. But yeah. I want to say something clever here about intersectionality and the novel's mantra, 'only connect'. Still thinking about it. Watch this space, haha
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
Someone dies of heart failurejade_0222's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism and Death
eve81's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity, Animal death, Death of parent, Misogyny, Biphobia, Racism, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Murder, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Classism, and Death
bookish_bry's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I think my rating for this might be a little low. I went into it with a very different idea of what kind of book it would be, and it didn't manage to grab me very well. If I read it again with the fact that it was meant to be a symbolic book about the changes in society around the early 1900s, I might have a higher opinion of it, but as it is, I didn't enjoy reading it very much.
I did very much like the ending (though that might somewhat be because I'd figured out the book by then). The characters were eh, but they did have some good development. I might try to read it again someday, but not for a while. It was hard for me to get through.
I did very much like the ending (though that might somewhat be because I'd figured out the book by then). The characters were eh, but they did have some good development. I might try to read it again someday, but not for a while. It was hard for me to get through.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Misogyny, Death, Infidelity, and Sexism
Moderate: Pregnancy
kerrence30's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
The epitome of the style of time in terms of phrasing and creating a atmosphere without words. Interesting how the themes of class and entitlement are explored. A much more relaxed view on society than early 19th century literature, and a strong sense of familiarity is created by the dialogue used.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Death, Cancer, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Violence, Bullying, Terminal illness, and Sexism
Minor: Colonisation, Animal death, and Racial slurs
mackenziem12's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Pregnancy and Death
jbabbm's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Forster's writing is incredibly poetic, and his imagery is majestic. This book portrays the three different families in such a way that snares you as the reader, and it does a marvelous job at contrasting the traditionalist with the liberal. Forster says "Only connect", and I believe that we should listen to him.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Infidelity, Pregnancy, and Colonisation
writtenontheflyleaves's review against another edition
challenging
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Howards End by E.M. Forster ☂️
🌟🌟🌟✨
-
☔️ The plot: A brief failed romance between Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox at the latter’s family home, Howards End, draws two very different upper-class families into an association that neither can shake. When Helen accidentally takes the umbrella of poor clerk Leonard Bast at a concert, the entanglement becomes even more fraught, and the consequences for all involved will be far-reaching, and even explosive.
-
This is a novel about human relationships and how important they are; it is equally a novel about privilege, and the ways that material wealth smooth our passage through the world and make us ignorant or callous. I’m sure there are essays on these subjects and you’re probably better off reading them than anything I could write – instead, what struck me most was the way that Forster illustrates the intense friction between ideals and reality, particularly in times of social upheaval.
-
The novel is set around 1910, a time of huge change in British society, and you can really feel it: women discuss the merits of voting themselves versus influencing their husbands’ votes; socialism is debated, and London is described as a great groaning behemoth swallowing up everything around it (still very relevant imo). All of the characters – whether they’re an idealistic Schlegel or a materialistic Wilcox – have ideas of how the future should be and are disappointed or chagrined when their expectations are jarred and they are forced to adapt.
-
It was an interesting read, but I can’t say I loved this one. I enjoyed the wry narration but the book felt quite dense and it wasn’t until the final third that I was really hooked. I think if I were discussing it at uni I’d love it, but as a casual read it didn’t quite work for me. I’m open to reading more Forster though!!
-
📚 Read it if you’re interested in the seam between the Victorian period and modernity now – the social change aspect of the novel was fascinating!
-
🚫 Avoid it if you don’t like too much intellectualising in your novels, or if you’re even more of a contemporary reader than I am and would find the setting and mindset of the characters alienating.
🌟🌟🌟✨
-
☔️ The plot: A brief failed romance between Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox at the latter’s family home, Howards End, draws two very different upper-class families into an association that neither can shake. When Helen accidentally takes the umbrella of poor clerk Leonard Bast at a concert, the entanglement becomes even more fraught, and the consequences for all involved will be far-reaching, and even explosive.
-
This is a novel about human relationships and how important they are; it is equally a novel about privilege, and the ways that material wealth smooth our passage through the world and make us ignorant or callous. I’m sure there are essays on these subjects and you’re probably better off reading them than anything I could write – instead, what struck me most was the way that Forster illustrates the intense friction between ideals and reality, particularly in times of social upheaval.
-
The novel is set around 1910, a time of huge change in British society, and you can really feel it: women discuss the merits of voting themselves versus influencing their husbands’ votes; socialism is debated, and London is described as a great groaning behemoth swallowing up everything around it (still very relevant imo). All of the characters – whether they’re an idealistic Schlegel or a materialistic Wilcox – have ideas of how the future should be and are disappointed or chagrined when their expectations are jarred and they are forced to adapt.
-
It was an interesting read, but I can’t say I loved this one. I enjoyed the wry narration but the book felt quite dense and it wasn’t until the final third that I was really hooked. I think if I were discussing it at uni I’d love it, but as a casual read it didn’t quite work for me. I’m open to reading more Forster though!!
-
📚 Read it if you’re interested in the seam between the Victorian period and modernity now – the social change aspect of the novel was fascinating!
-
🚫 Avoid it if you don’t like too much intellectualising in your novels, or if you’re even more of a contemporary reader than I am and would find the setting and mindset of the characters alienating.
68w
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Death and Murder
heini's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Toxic relationship
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