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Maurice
Von E. M. Forster
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Mit Lesen beginnenBeschreibung
Written in 1914 by the Nobel Prize–nominated author of Howard’s End, this intimate portrait of homosexual desire “seems as relevant as ever” (The Guardian).
From early adolescence to his college years at Cambridge and into professional life at his father’s firm, Maurice Hall plays the part of the conventional Englishman. All the while, he harbors a secret wish to lose himself from society and embrace who he truly is.
Maurice’s first love, Clive Durham, introduces him to the ancient Greeks who embraced same-sex attraction. But when Clive marries a woman, Maurice is distraught enough to seek a hypnotist who might “cure” him of his homosexuality. In his quest to accept his true self, Maurice must ultimately go against the grain of society’s unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.
Though Forster completed Maurice in 1914, he left instructions for it be published only after his death. Since its release in 1971, Maurice has been widely praised and adapted for major stage productions as well as the 1987 Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Hugh Grant and James Wilby.
“The work of an exceptional artist working close to the peak of his powers.” —The New York Times
From early adolescence to his college years at Cambridge and into professional life at his father’s firm, Maurice Hall plays the part of the conventional Englishman. All the while, he harbors a secret wish to lose himself from society and embrace who he truly is.
Maurice’s first love, Clive Durham, introduces him to the ancient Greeks who embraced same-sex attraction. But when Clive marries a woman, Maurice is distraught enough to seek a hypnotist who might “cure” him of his homosexuality. In his quest to accept his true self, Maurice must ultimately go against the grain of society’s unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.
Though Forster completed Maurice in 1914, he left instructions for it be published only after his death. Since its release in 1971, Maurice has been widely praised and adapted for major stage productions as well as the 1987 Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Hugh Grant and James Wilby.
“The work of an exceptional artist working close to the peak of his powers.” —The New York Times
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Mit Lesen beginnenInformationen über das Buch
Maurice
Von E. M. Forster
Beschreibung
Written in 1914 by the Nobel Prize–nominated author of Howard’s End, this intimate portrait of homosexual desire “seems as relevant as ever” (The Guardian).
From early adolescence to his college years at Cambridge and into professional life at his father’s firm, Maurice Hall plays the part of the conventional Englishman. All the while, he harbors a secret wish to lose himself from society and embrace who he truly is.
Maurice’s first love, Clive Durham, introduces him to the ancient Greeks who embraced same-sex attraction. But when Clive marries a woman, Maurice is distraught enough to seek a hypnotist who might “cure” him of his homosexuality. In his quest to accept his true self, Maurice must ultimately go against the grain of society’s unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.
Though Forster completed Maurice in 1914, he left instructions for it be published only after his death. Since its release in 1971, Maurice has been widely praised and adapted for major stage productions as well as the 1987 Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Hugh Grant and James Wilby.
“The work of an exceptional artist working close to the peak of his powers.” —The New York Times
From early adolescence to his college years at Cambridge and into professional life at his father’s firm, Maurice Hall plays the part of the conventional Englishman. All the while, he harbors a secret wish to lose himself from society and embrace who he truly is.
Maurice’s first love, Clive Durham, introduces him to the ancient Greeks who embraced same-sex attraction. But when Clive marries a woman, Maurice is distraught enough to seek a hypnotist who might “cure” him of his homosexuality. In his quest to accept his true self, Maurice must ultimately go against the grain of society’s unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.
Though Forster completed Maurice in 1914, he left instructions for it be published only after his death. Since its release in 1971, Maurice has been widely praised and adapted for major stage productions as well as the 1987 Oscar-nominated film adaptation starring Hugh Grant and James Wilby.
“The work of an exceptional artist working close to the peak of his powers.” —The New York Times
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"Publishable, but worth it?" Was the question E.M Forster wrote in his own margins of the manuscript of this novel.
My answer is yes. Yes, absolutely, yes.
This is a story of same-sex love in Edwardian times between a man called Maurice (said like Morris) his various relationships and finally the man he falls in love with.
I love Forster's tone in this - he's very witty, his writing is layers and layers of comments on class, and gender, and privilege and it's all very subtle. This book can be quite masculine, quite dark, a little bit bitter and bleak, but there's a warmth to it, and an honesty to it.
This book wasn't published until 1971 - after Forster's death. As a queer woman, it makes me wonder what other books were written throughout history and never published, because they had a theme of same-sex love.
This book is an absolute triumph - even its 1987 film adaption with a very young Rupert Graves, Hugh Grant and James Wilby is brilliant.
You should definitely give this book a try. You'll be surprised.
My answer is yes. Yes, absolutely, yes.
This is a story of same-sex love in Edwardian times between a man called Maurice (said like Morris) his various relationships and finally the man he falls in love with.
I love Forster's tone in this - he's very witty, his writing is layers and layers of comments on class, and gender, and privilege and it's all very subtle. This book can be quite masculine, quite dark, a little bit bitter and bleak, but there's a warmth to it, and an honesty to it.
This book wasn't published until 1971 - after Forster's death. As a queer woman, it makes me wonder what other books were written throughout history and never published, because they had a theme of same-sex love.
This book is an absolute triumph - even its 1987 film adaption with a very young Rupert Graves, Hugh Grant and James Wilby is brilliant.
You should definitely give this book a try. You'll be surprised.
First off, Maurice has the peculiar honor of having been read by me serially from three separate books - two in different libraries and one in the Yale Bookstore. This happened not out of reluctance to finish it, but because I spent a lot of time hanging around New Haven recently without a library card. Finally I got it out from the library and finished it today.
It's a totally charming book! I am a sucker for early 20th century Britain with its mixture of Victorian ideals and modern ideas, its cricket and country estates and class snobbery and public school slang. Maurice in particular was written on the cusp of WWI and represents the end of an era. I enjoyed Forster's poetic yet didactic style, which sometimes produces effects invisibly and sometimes sits down and tells you how it is in classic storyteller fashion.
The human interactions were real, romantic, and moving. Maurice could have become a mere argument piece or allegory, and certainly it had a strong message about English society and the English class system, but its characters felt, for the most part, alive on the page.
Maurice is about what it means to be, in Forster's words, "embedded in society" and defined by its expectations and strictures. His Romantic vision of freedom from social bonds is more cheerful than other novels on the subject - The Mill on the Floss and The Age of Innocence, for instance, have rather less optimistic forecasts - but I think Maurice's bravery in prescribing a happy ending is really something.
Because, yes, Maurice is a novel about a gay man, written in 1914. Not only that, it actually manages to be a good novel and not merely a self-aware protest piece, and the main characters don't die or end up in an asylum or in loveless marriages or alone for eternity. They live happily ever after. (Spoiler, yes, but this is basically how the book advertises itself on every jacket copy I've seen. This is why it's really worth reading.)
Forster knew no one would publish it. As he explains in the postscript, written forty-six years later, "it will probably have to remain in manuscript. If it ended unhappily, with a lad dangling from a noose or with a suicide pact, all would be well, for there is no pornography or seduction of minors. But the lovers get away unpunished and consequently recommend crime."
The extreme irony that nearly a century later we think Brokeback Mountain (a great movie, don't get me wrong) shows how progressive popular storytelling has become, when it's the same gay tragedy that's been retold for the last ninety years.
There actually is a film of Maurice from the eighties. Starring Hugh Grant as Clive! That might have to go on the top of my soon-to-be-purchased Netflix queue....
It's a totally charming book! I am a sucker for early 20th century Britain with its mixture of Victorian ideals and modern ideas, its cricket and country estates and class snobbery and public school slang. Maurice in particular was written on the cusp of WWI and represents the end of an era. I enjoyed Forster's poetic yet didactic style, which sometimes produces effects invisibly and sometimes sits down and tells you how it is in classic storyteller fashion.
The human interactions were real, romantic, and moving. Maurice could have become a mere argument piece or allegory, and certainly it had a strong message about English society and the English class system, but its characters felt, for the most part, alive on the page.
Maurice is about what it means to be, in Forster's words, "embedded in society" and defined by its expectations and strictures. His Romantic vision of freedom from social bonds is more cheerful than other novels on the subject - The Mill on the Floss and The Age of Innocence, for instance, have rather less optimistic forecasts - but I think Maurice's bravery in prescribing a happy ending is really something.
Because, yes, Maurice is a novel about a gay man, written in 1914. Not only that, it actually manages to be a good novel and not merely a self-aware protest piece, and the main characters don't die or end up in an asylum or in loveless marriages or alone for eternity. They live happily ever after. (Spoiler, yes, but this is basically how the book advertises itself on every jacket copy I've seen. This is why it's really worth reading.)
Forster knew no one would publish it. As he explains in the postscript, written forty-six years later, "it will probably have to remain in manuscript. If it ended unhappily, with a lad dangling from a noose or with a suicide pact, all would be well, for there is no pornography or seduction of minors. But the lovers get away unpunished and consequently recommend crime."
The extreme irony that nearly a century later we think Brokeback Mountain (a great movie, don't get me wrong) shows how progressive popular storytelling has become, when it's the same gay tragedy that's been retold for the last ninety years.
There actually is a film of Maurice from the eighties. Starring Hugh Grant as Clive! That might have to go on the top of my soon-to-be-purchased Netflix queue....
Midway through reading, I glanced at the copyright page to find out when this novel was first published and nearly fell over - 1970! But no, E M Forster actually finished writing Maurice in 1914, which fits much better with the characters and social setting, and was waiting for the outcome of the Wolfenden report (1967) before releasing his manuscript for publication. In the end, the novel was published posthumously.This is a very bizarre choice for me, but I actually enjoyed the story and the characters, especially the befuddled and frustrated Maurice. I'm always surprised when a nineteenth/early twentieth century novel is still readable and relatable! Basically, Maurice discovers that he is 'an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort', as he puts it, and falls in love for the first time with Clive Durham at university. For a few years they share an 'understanding', then after illness and a trip to Greece, Clive decides he is 'normal' and wants to get married. Maurice is devastated and sets about 'curing' himself too, including a session or two of hypnotherapy, but of course that doesn't work. He eventually finds love again at Clive's country estate and disappears into the 'greenwood' with his new lover.I love Forster's droll and insightful narration, which holds true long after attitudes to homosexuality have changed. Maurice, for instance, is described as 'constitutionally lazy', belatedly discovering that 'people turned out to be alive', not cardboard cutouts like himself, and only admits his true feelings after 'the man who returned his love had been lost'. There are a couple of 'love scenes', tacked on after the fact, but more romantic than erotic. And I am glad that 'a happy ending was imperative'!
Pretty tame by today's standards, this was one of the first books to deal with a homosexual relationship. Forster seems to have romanticized things a bit too much by our modern-day standards and so the book gets relegated to the realm of the "dated." Still worth a read for the insight it gives us into his time. And also, insight into a male relationship jeapardized by class...And, as part of our history.
This is the third or fourth time I've read Maurice, and I never get tired of rereading it. I marvel at the way Forster writes a character who isn't particularly likable but for whom the reader still has a great deal of sympathy. I desperately want Maurice to be okay despite shuddering at the thought of having to sit down to a meal with him. Forster has a great knack for putting things, especially things going on in a character's thoughts, just so. Over and over I think to myself, "Oh, come now, that's just too, too navel-gazey" and then on second thought realizing that, no, that's just the way of it! And how clever of him to have figured out how to say so. The end is a bit "isn't it pretty to think so," but bless him for doing it, for writing a happy ending for his character who feels "the love that dare not speak its name," even if the book couldn't be published for decades after it was first written.***For Book Club.
I've loved Forster for years and have been saving this particular book until I had a really difficult journey ahead of me. It didn't let me down--it's excellent. Forster says, "In Maurice I tried to create...someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him."
I thoroughly enjoyed this short novel about homosexual men set just before World War I. The characters are so well drawn -- torn by their sexuality which society, and even their inner beliefs, tells them in wrong -- but fully drawn men who have feelings of love, lust, power, ambition, obligation. They are not stereotypes or archetypes. Maurice and Clive meet and fall in love at University. After that, life takes them along different paths. Clive disavows his homosexuality and marries. Maurice struggles over his lost love then seeks a "cure" through hypnotism. Through it all, the men sometimes succeed in life and in conforming; other times, they succeed in being true to themselves. Many of the issues faced by the characters in Maurice continue to exist today. While homosexuality is much more accepted, gay people remain the victims of discrimination and, too often, violence. E.M. Forster's book is one that should be widely read as it shows that we are all the same in our struggles and dreams.
This book is thrilling because it introduced two novel concepts at the same time. Homosexually is not wrong, supported by beautiful imagery and symbolism, and class distinctions are wrong, proven by love. Maurice may be dull and average, but that is who he is; the average Edwardian Englishman, upon whom homosexuality is thrust. The action of the novel ensues as he copes with his birth trait. This is a point in itself. Homosexuals are no one particular or special, they are average.
Clive's propensity to see the world in shades only of good and bad is paralleled in his fate in opposition to Maurice's happy ending. Clive is delivered in a few chapters as transformed, as turned away from men to women. While this transformation is possible, it is not as he would have it, he has chosen a path of great unhappiness, overwhelmed by society and thus he conforms to the idea that his platonic love for Maurice is wrong, thus it ends. Between the lines, Clive has forced the change. It was not natural for him, even though he thinks himself 'normal' thereafter. Much of these thoughts lie for the reader to interpret in Forster's subtle poetry.
Maurice's fate, much happier and very controversial in it's support of homosexuality and of inter-class love, is fantasy balanced by the average archetype that he is. This novel portrays him as a very basic upper-middle class man who can do or be anything the author wants, all is believable about him, and indeed, he is perfectly naive. It is through him that we understand a grander motif of the destruction love can do. Maurice is selfish and childish in love, but that is love. He is no great person or hero. He is the everyman. And the everyman in love, true love, is a slave to his passions, and once a sad and lonely man finds them, if he ever does, why should he let go?
Clive's propensity to see the world in shades only of good and bad is paralleled in his fate in opposition to Maurice's happy ending. Clive is delivered in a few chapters as transformed, as turned away from men to women. While this transformation is possible, it is not as he would have it, he has chosen a path of great unhappiness, overwhelmed by society and thus he conforms to the idea that his platonic love for Maurice is wrong, thus it ends. Between the lines, Clive has forced the change. It was not natural for him, even though he thinks himself 'normal' thereafter. Much of these thoughts lie for the reader to interpret in Forster's subtle poetry.
Maurice's fate, much happier and very controversial in it's support of homosexuality and of inter-class love, is fantasy balanced by the average archetype that he is. This novel portrays him as a very basic upper-middle class man who can do or be anything the author wants, all is believable about him, and indeed, he is perfectly naive. It is through him that we understand a grander motif of the destruction love can do. Maurice is selfish and childish in love, but that is love. He is no great person or hero. He is the everyman. And the everyman in love, true love, is a slave to his passions, and once a sad and lonely man finds them, if he ever does, why should he let go?
Like other Forster works (A Room With a View and Howards End, in particular) Maurice is a piece that would have pushed many societal envelopes at the time of writing; however, when read with only modern sensibility, it falters as unimpressive. This is only the case if the book is not read with the historical context in mind, and if you're reading it outside of this context, you might as well not bother to pick it up. Fortunately, the reader is constantly reminded of the historical problems faced by the central character.Similar to other Forster novels, the subject matter is treated with tender care and not forced upon the reader simply to advance a "taboo." If the book had been published when it had been completed in 1914 instead of in 1971 (published posthumously), it would have outraged simply because of the thought of homosexuality, not because Forster forces homosexuality upon his reader. Forster seems to present his subjects in this manner to fool the typical English thinker into rooting for the characters, until a tragic "flaw" (tragic to the majority of Englishmen) is revealed and the reader is forced to consider where his/her loyalties lie and why they lie where they do.The protagonist Maurice Hall, knows from an early age that something is not quiet "normal" about him, though he is not sure what it is. Forster eases us into loving the awkward character (awkward because of his feelings, not due to physical appearance since he is a rather striking person). What is interesting about the novel is that it is not simply a study in homosexuality at a time when is was a criminal offense to act as a homosexual, but it is also a presentation of how societies react to people who are misaligned from the norm in a religious way, as well. Maurice battles with belief in an almighty God, and his first lover, Clive, is an outright atheist.Forster weaves two characters who cannot believe in the normal tenets of society, not for lack of trying, but simply because they cannot wrap their heads around what is normally accepted socially. Forster hints that Maurice is born with inherent differences that ultimately make him more beautiful that those who simply accept the status quo. Forster is perhaps at his best when Maurice attempts to "cure" himself through medicine, tracking down doctors who have eradicated his sexual "illness" in past patients with a certain degree of accuracy.As the book takes a turn toward cures, it became clear to me that this might be the first Forster novel I was going to read without a happy ending. After reading Howards End, I felt the happiness at the conclusion was a bit unrealistic and was only written so as not to disappoint the readers. While I thoroughly enjoyed Howards End, if Maurice was to have a happy ending, I figured it would end in the protagonist being cured and if that was the case, I probably would have burned my copy of the novel. Miraculously, Forster manages to squeeze out a beautiful ending to work. It is one marked with a twinge of melancholy, and remains wholly realistic. I won't do anything to spoil the plot, but I'd be highly surprised if you're not impressed by the way Forster ends this piece.After reading the "Terminal Note" following the novel, one finds that Forster poured dedication into this novel fully expecting to publish the book before he died. However, by the year 1960, views on homosexuality had changed direction, but had not taken the exact course Forster had hoped for. The author notes, "I...had supposed that knowledge would bring understanding. We had not realized that what the public really loathes in homosexuality is not the thing itself but having to think about it."Forster's effort to increase understanding and spur empathy for gay men was one that fell short of a wholly intolerant public. The staunch views on sexuality in general did nothing to help his cause, and it is a bit ironic since this is something tackled by one of the characters consummating his marriage: "[T]hough he valued the body the actual deed of sex seemed to him unimaginative and best veiled in night. Between men it is inexcusable, between man and a woman it may be practised [sic] since nature and society approve, but never discussed or vaunted." If this is the attitude toward heterosexual sex, no wonder homosexual sex was a crime in England until the Wolfenden Report of 1957.To me, Maurice is Forster's masterpiece. While it may not have had an effect on the public of the time, the feelings of a sexually oppressed person being put down by a sexually repressed society certainly have strains of truth that are still very much relevant in modern society. The book is a beautiful piece of retrospective that one can only hope is never forgotten. I implore you to read this book and share it with others.
A powerfully emotive book that brings to the surface the way homosexuality was repressed and made a taboo subject in early twentieth century Britain. Forster writes in a compelling and powerful way that brings sympathetic undertones to the character Maurice. This is the first Forster novel I have read and I was impressed. I will definately read more of his works.
Published many years after his death due to the subject of the book, this is at once on par with his best known comedic observations of English behaviour in the early part of the twentieth century, and completely ahead of its time. The language of the book makes the occasionally stumble in the story excusable, there are some really lovely and well-put passages.
Half a novel? A novella? A love-letter perhaps, and because not publuished in his lifetime, a secret text, perfumed with the longing of a whole age.
Nobody does hot, erotic passion simmering beneath a laced up, prim Edwardian exterior quite like E.M. Forster and Maurice is by far his most subversive novel. Published posthumously, Maurice is a gay version of Lady Chatterley's Lover in which the hero, Maurice, discovers his homosexuality with a school chum who loves him but refuses to *ahem* fuck him...and then ends up running away with an earthy, passionate gameskeeper who has no problem with fucking. Captures the thrill of discovering your sexuality and capacity for loving another human being (and to hell with what society thinks!) perfectly. If only Forster were alive today to see how far the gay community has come since his time.
As I read this, I wondered how it could have been accepted in the 1910's. Well, it wasn't. Written in 1914, it was not published until 1970, after Foster's death. An excellent look at what it must have been like to be homosexual in he early years of the 20th century in London. Maurice started out as a fairly insufferable character but he grew on me and I was glad to see a happy ending for him.
Just finished reading Maurice by E. M. Forster. Originally written during 1913 and 1914, this inspiring and courageous novel was not published until 1971 after Forster's death. Why? Maurice was gay. As was Forster. Britain did not decriminalize homosexual sex between men over twenty-one if conducted in complete privacy until 1967. Forster was inspired to write Maurice during a visit to Edward Carpenter at Milthorpe, Sheffield, England, in 1913. He was touched by Edward's lover George Meredith on his "backside -- gently and just above the buttocks." "The sensation was unusual and I still remember it, as I remember the position of a long vanished tooth. It was as much psychological as physical. It seemed to go straight through the small of my back into my sides, without involving my thoughts. It if really did this, it would have acted in strict accordance with Carpenter's yogified mysticism, and would prove that at that precise moment I had conceived."Forster understates Edward Carpenter as someone whose "prestige ... cannot be understood today." Among many aspects to Edward's complex personality was an ethical socialist vegetarianism. The Grumpy Vegan highly recommends the film Maurice produced by Merhcant Ivory Productions as a faithful and sympathetic dramatization. Of course, read the book! Learn more about Edward Carpenter, a colleague of Henry Salt.
Maurice is an excellent book; it gives a glimpse into what life must have been like for homosexuals back in Edwardian England. It allows to reader to feel the empathy with the characters and truly gives the reader the opportunity to ingest some of the deep oppression felt by social conventions. Forester also goes deeply into his characters, giving us andecdotes for each one, allowing for more dyanamics between them. Interesting and complex characters as well. Overall, an amazing book that is truly provocative and captivating.
I read this book in two sittings -- honestly an achievement, these days! -- and was so pleasantly surprised by the ending. I had been meaning to read for years, and am very glad I finally managed to, as it was much more interesting (and hopeful) than I had really expected it to be.
Spoilers follow. When I write a review, I often avoid discussing plot points, but in this novel, as in much of Forster’s work, the interest lies far more in the telling than the plot. In fact, it is interesting to see how much warmth and life Forster can impart to such a simple story. (Boiled down to the bare essentials: Maurice Hall gradually becomes aware of his homosexuality and enters into a chaste but loving relationship with Clive Durham; Clive reverts to (or purports to revert to) heterosexuality and marries; Maurice visits Clive at his estate, Penge, and sleeps with his gamekeeper, Alec Scudder, and after some more conflict between Maurice and Alec, the book ends happily.)Much of the warmth comes from the typical Forsterian personality of the book, the tone often ironic but not cruel, critical but loving, and filled with poignant, lofty rhetoric. As another reviewer stated, Forster “captures the thrill of discovering your sexuality and capacity for loving another human being,” of coming to truly understand someone. “Love was harmonious, immense,” as Clive falls in love with Maurice; “He poured into it the dignity* as well as the richness of his being, and indeed in that well-tempered soul* the two were one.” When Maurice and Alec both panic and argue and threaten each other, it ends with Alec offering Maurice his hand. “Maurice took it, and they knew at that moment the greatest triumph ordinary man can win . . . He rejoiced because he had understood Alec’s infamy through his own—glimpsing, not for the first time, the genius who hides in man’s tormented soul.”Forster also gives life to the story through careful and liberal use of symbolism and imagery. In Forster, objects and descriptions are never wasted, never exist in a vacuum, but always contribute to the power and emotion of the story. In the opening scene, young Maurice’s schoolmaster, Mr. Ducie, cringingly informs him about "the mystery of sex” (which Mr. Ducie finds to be “rather a bother”) as they stroll along a grey sea reflecting the colorless sky. He scratches diagrams in the sand, which bear no resemblance to any feelings or thoughts inside Maurice (who is not yet aware of his homosexuality, but cannot quite understand this uniting of male and female). Mr. Ducie waxes poetically and priggishly about Man and Woman and God, but it is silly and passionless rhetoric, and when Maurice says he shall never marry, Mr. Ducie invites Maurice and his future wife to dine with him “ten years hence.” Then they walk off and the tide erases the drawings behind them, and "darkness rolled up again, the darkness that is primeval but not eternal, and yields to its own painful dawn.”This event is not wasted; Maurice alludes to it after he first sleeps with Alec, and Mr. Ducie’s reappearance (probably some ten years hence!) during the chief conflict between Alec and Clive gives force, irony, and clarity to the situation. The colorless sea, the drawings in the sand, erased by the tide, are the sort of descriptive symbols that take a simple, straightforward scene and impart an unforgettable mythic, resonant quality. The windows at Cambridge and Penge, the primroses and the boathouse at Penge, Alec’s gun, the imagined “crack in the floor” at the hypnotist’s, these are the lifeblood of the work.Mirrors and echoes of characters and situations through the book provide further resonance and a pleasing sense of unity. Mr. Ducie’s appearances are one example. The interplay of the Clive/Maurice and Alec/Maurice relationships provide the most parallels: Clive and Alec being, respectively, upper and lower class; richer and poorer; chaste and physical; blue-eyed and associated with the Blue Room at Penge, brown-eyed and associated with the Russet Room. Clive is first presented as homosexual, then heterosexual; when Alec first appears, he is flirting with two young women, but he then sleeps with Maurice. At the beginning, Clive and Maurice argue before Maurice climbs into Clive’s window; they reconcile, and later part with a bang. In one of their first encounters, Alec and Maurice have a little tiff, then reconcile; afterwards, Alec climbs into Maurice’s window and they sleep together. This encounter is so forceful as to cause a sort of echo effect, as a major eruption and reconciliation follows, then another separation and reconciliation.Between the mirrors and echoes of Clive and Alec lies a void in which Maurice falls into despair over the end of his relationship with Clive. I find this to be the weakest section of the book, as the energy slackens and the structure becomes a bit fuzzy. But there were still plenty of moments that kept my interest and attention, such as the oddly touching scene in which Maurice’s grandfather dies, which leads to character growth in Maurice, the cessation of suicidal thoughts in favor of a struggle for life. “Yet he was doing a fine thing—proving on how little the soul* can exist . . . He hadn’t a God, he hadn’t a lover—the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease, because dignity* demanded it. There was no one to watch him, nor did he watch himself, but struggles like his are the supreme achievements of humanity, and surpass any legends about Heaven.”In two of the quotes above, I starred the words “dignity” and “soul.” Widely separated in the book, the recurrence of these words is another example of Forsterian unity, the repetition of words, themes, phrases in a new context. There are many more examples of this sort of thing in the book, and this is one reason why I find rereading Forster to be rewarding—there’s always more to connect. (Much of what I have written above was heavily influenced by my understanding of the final chapter of Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, in which he discusses his notions of “pattern and rhythm”—I highly recommend that you read at least that chapter.)For a book in which our eyes are averted from physical encounters, no detail provided, the prose crackles with sexual energy. When Maurice first meets Clive (in Risley’s room, as Maurice is unconsciously drawn to the homosexual Risley), the sentences are peppered with innocuous uses of words and phrases like “come,” “want,” “kneeling,” “flushed,” “under me,” “firm,” “roughly,” and so forth. And I hardly think it is a coincidence that in this meeting, Clive has come to Risley’s room to borrow some piano rolls to “play on Featherstonhaugh’s pianola,” or that Clive rebukes Maurice when he reaches for the roll on the pianola, saying that Maurice would be too rough with it.As you can probably guess from the above, I developed an immediate and visceral love for this novel. I felt, pleaded, hoped for the characters. I can admit that it’s not Forster’s finest work, and that there are potential flaws—the characters not as finely drawn and fleshed out as they could be, occasional lapses into sentimentality, the ending perhaps improbably happy—but the last is a choice of idealism over realism that I’m ready to defend. The sense of liberation that it provides is an antidote to all that homosexuals in Edwardian England had to suffer, and that many people must still suffer in many parts of the world today. Go Forster.
Imperfect, but lovely.
An ex-girlfriend loved Forster, but, thanks to her religious sentiments, had mixed feelings towards gays and was never comfortable in their company. I wonder how she would have felt if she had known more about Forster, or had come across 'Maurice', an openly gay romantic fiction that was not published in the author's lifetime. The story itself is well-written, though the language now seems to have aged awfully; I cannot remember having seen the word 'rot' used quite so often in speech. Looked at in a different way though, as a text that shows society's attitudes to sex and 'Hellenism' in the years around Wilde's arrest, then this is thrilling stuff.
Maurice follows this privileged young man from public school, through Cambridge and on into his mid twenties; and the two men with whom he becomes intimately involved. It also provides an interesting insight into the lives of the middles classes of the period and their attitudes, particularly towards those of lower class, and the prevailing attitude towards homosexuality.Forster is not sparing in his depiction of Maurice, at times being quite blunt about his character and his shortcomings and weaknesses, but he also imbues Maurice with many good qualities and over time Maurice becomes stronger and much more personable. Of the other two main characters, Clive, his lover at Cambridge is an intellectual of great intelligence and with high standards, a leader, but he lets himself down eventually in his treatment of Maurice. Alec, the gamekeeper who later wins Maurice's heart is a most interesting character, the wayward, wild son of a tradesman who causes his family much concern, a rough at the edges, who enjoys the outdoor life; however, unfortunately we do not get to know him quite as well as the others.Maurice is an absorbing and very atmospheric story, rich in period detail. Forster's lack of any sentimentality heightens our own involvement, allowing the reader to come to his own conclusions about the many and diverse individuals who people the story. A wonderful, moving and memorable novel.
This book is achingly beautiful, I remember thinking when I read this. It's infused with such strong emotion, and as a result, Forster is able to convey love and relationship in a way that transcends gender and sexual orientation. I lived it with him. Wonderful.
Written between 1913 and 1914, Forster’s novel of a young man’s awakening homosexuality was not published until 1971, a year after the author’s death. The novel caused a sensation when it was released, not just because of the subject matter, but because Forster dared to write a “happy ending.” Still, there is much distress for Maurice as he comes to terms with his “inclinations” and struggles to form a relationship that will be honest and true. But then, many a heterosexual young person also struggles to find true love and acceptance. I loved the way that Forster developed this character, showing Maurice’s confusion and naivete as a young man at boarding school, his headlong reckless nature as he pursued his pleasure and found first love, his despair when he thought all was lost and felt compelled to “find a cure” for his condition, and his eventual awakening to the possibilities that a mature and loving relationship might offer him. I was appalled by some of the attitudes expressed in the novel, but sadly recognize some of the same behavior in current society. While much has changed in regard to societal attitudes about homosexuality in the hundred years since the book was written, and even in the nearly 50 years since it was first published, there is still hatred and persecution aimed at the members of the GLBT community.
Probably the most revealing out of all of this author's books, Maurice was one of the first novels ever published that focuses its attention on homosexuality as a fact of life. It's particularly interesting (I think) to recall that it was published posthumously. Forster doesn't appear to have had an ax he wanted to grind; he wanted to celebrate the quality of love that can exist between two men as partners and to invite others to understand that the complications in same sex relationships might be the same as the complications in opposite sex relationships - i.e. concerns about image and how others will react to one's choice of partner.
This is a novel about an English man discovering and embracing his homosexuality in a society where school boys routinely had "crushes" on one another, but frank and open same sex relationships were illegal. Forster wrote this novel in 1913; he never attempted to publish it during his lifetime, although he did give it to selected friends to read. It was published by his estate in 1971, shortly after his death. I'm afraid this book suffered from its reputation, for me. I expected more of it than I found in it. I acknowledge its importance, but reading it felt like a duty. I had issues with the style; there was a bit too much dated jargon (Forster recognized this himself in a note written in 1960) and I tripped over several sentences that just didn't convey any meaning to me. I couldn't raise much sympathy for Maurice, didn't like him or his lover, who I couldn't help viewing as just a bit of "rough trade". Critical comparisons to Lady Chatterley and her gameskeeper don't quite work. That relationship was much more fully developed than That of Maurice and Alec. Although Forster is praised for giving us a story in which we're meant to understand that these two men will live happily ever after outside of the strictures of "class", I don't buy it. Just what will keep a gameskeeper and a stockbrocker interested in one another after the honeymoon is over, if neither of them can work, and they can't associate with their families or make friends, and the law would have them in the dock if their relationship were known? What are their common interests? What will their daily life be like? Maybe I'm too practical, or have read too much, but giving it all up for love rarely works, even in fiction. Forster stopped writing just where the tale was likely to get the most interesting---if he could have shown us how this relationship might prosper, now that would have been worth reading. I thought he might have sent Maurice off to the Argentine with Alec, rather than have Alec stay behind in England. Having no familiarity at all with the Argentine of the early 1900's, I would have been prepared to accept their happy future more readily in that case.
Maurice is a tale of homosexual love in early 20th-century England, it follows Maurice Hall from his schooldays, through university and beyond. It was written in 1913–1914, and revised in 1932 and 1959–1960. Although it was shown to selected friends it was only published in 1971 after Forster's death. It was this enterprise that Forster's friend, Christopher Isherwood supervised, seeing the publication of Maurice to fruition. In the novel after an introductory section Maurice goes up to Cambridge and soon makes friends with fellow student Clive Durham, who introduces him to the ancient Greek writings about homosexual love. For two years they have a committed if chaste romance, which they keep hidden from everyone they know. Maurice hopes for more from their platonic attachment, but it becomes clear that Clive intends to marry, even though Forster's prose leaves no doubts that his marriage will probably entail a mostly joyless union. It is later during a visit with the Durhams that he meets Alec Scudder, a young under-gamekeeper, and falls in love again. The story is a poignant and sensitive treatment of homosexual love complicated by class differences and Maurice's own difficulty in dealing with the reality of his sexual persona.Forster resisted publication because of public and legal attitudes to homosexuality — a note found on the manuscript read: "Publishable, but worth it?". Forster was particularly keen that his novel should have a happy ending, but knew that this would make the book too controversial. Thus the story is limited in a way, but it still benefits from Forster's fine prose style and a sensitivity that could only come from the heart.
I found Maurice and his relationships with Clive and Alec quite sweet and touching. Clive, I expected better from you!
SPOILERS BELOWThe titular protagonist of Maurice is a prime example of emotional and sexual repression that functions as a reflection of English society as a whole. In boyhood, Maurice is told that when he is an adult he will find a wife and start a family, that such a path is the right and expected one to take. Maurice's internal emotional response is “liar, coward, he’s told me nothing …” (15). Early in the novel, Forster illustrates the socially constructed nature of heterosexual union and family life by this rejection. Maurice’s first real acknowledgement of his identity occurs when he is at Cambridge and he falls for Clive. Clive expresses non-normativity through his disavowal of religion and belief in god, and their conversations about this lead to breeching the subject of Plato’s Symposium and homosexuality. Their actual acknowledgment of their feelings for each other takes longer to manifest, and at least for Clive their relationship and desire for each other remains perpetually entrenched in intellectual terms. Maurice saw Clive’s long tangents while they embraced as “charming nonsense”, and this sort of fashioning of erotic intimacy into intellectual exercise foreshadows Clive’s later rejection of Maurice and integration into “normal” society. While Maurice throughout the novel gradually discovers himself and his identity, Clive rejects his as a schoolboy immaturity and outright malady, trying to help Maurice to also become normal. Maurice’s reappearing self doubt and attempts to “fix” himself manifest through work and psychiatric treatment. According to Quentin Bailey, “by focusing on work, a privileged mode of existence in the imperial realm, Maurice strives to overcome his surprisingly ‘native’ predilections” (337)1. As Clive has masked himself in social convention and respectability, Maurice tries to do the same through work. By doing so, he tries to establish a purpose within himself, but this failing, he must retreat from a mode of privilege into a mode of “disease”. He succumbs to the notion that he not in need of distraction, but of a cure, and thus he is sick. He moves from the privilege of work to the otherness of mental disease.Maurice’s sexual encounters with Alec, the gamekeeper, affirm this otherness through class difference and “by pleasuring the body […] he had confirmed his spirt in its perversion” (214). With Clive, same sex love manifested only in abstract intellectualism, but it is through Alec that Maurice realizes physical passion between men. In his and Clive’s own class, sodomy is not permissible, not among “gentleman”. By subverting class allegiances and fully experiencing his sexuality, Maurice realizes his otherness.Alec’s threats of blackmail to Maurice are tools, perhaps the only ones available to him, to express his sorrow at Maurice’s avoidance of him after their first encounter. Maurice realizes “he had understood Alec’s infamy through his own–glimpsing, not for the first time, the genius who hides in man’s tormented soul” (226). In recognizing first the love of the body, and then in recognizing his similarity to Alec as one who is apart from society, and then his love for Alec, Maurice realizes and then affirms his otherness, allowing him to at last locate and assert his identity.