by E. M. Forester
ages: adult
First sentence: “One may as well begin with Helen’s letters to her sister.”
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Quick memory: I first read this book when Hubby and I moved from Utah to Washington, DC. In one of those weird quirks of time and space (especially since I usually get very carsick if I’m not constantly looking out the window), I was able to read this while we were driving the moving truck across the country. I remember two things about my impressions the book: I liked it and I thought it wasn’t anything like the movie.

I can’t speak for the movie part anymore (though I’m going to re-watch it soon), but I still quite liked the book. If you haven’t read it, it’s the story of two sisters — Margaret and Helen Schlegel. They’re half German, middle class women in their mid- to late- twenties (old maids in Austen’s books, anyway), liberal in their thought. It’s only when they cross paths with two families — one old-school wealthy (the Wilcoxes) and one definitely lower class (the Basts) — that their ordered lives, as well as their philosophy, get thrown into a tailspin.

The thing that struck me most this time around (perhaps it struck me last time, too) was that this not only a book about the class divide in early-20th-century England, but it was also a book about the connections that are made between people. Margaret meets Mrs. Wilcox, which impresses Mrs. Wilcox enough that she wills Howards End to Margaret. This in turn sets the rest of the family off (because it’s just not “done”), which in turn leads the family to interact with the Schlegel sisters, which leads to Margaret’s falling in love with and marrying Mr. Wilcox. In turn, Leonard Bast accidentally meets the Schlegel sisters, and that in turn, eventually changes the course of his life. It’s fascinating seeing all the intricate connections that Forester weaves through the book.

And it works, I think, because Forester is such an astute writer. He doesn’t dribble on like Dickens (sorry), and he’s not as brilliantly pointed as Austen. But, he is observant about people’s characters and, perhaps most of all, their motivations. He is able to get inside a character, so much so that you understand them, even if you don’t like them all that much. And that is what really drives this story, making all the various elements in it work well together. Which is good, because I’m not sure, in the end, that this is a truly memorable story with a memorable plot and memorable characters.

That’s not to say it’s not a good book; it is. It’s just not one that I think I’ll talk about and think about for quite a while.