Maurice
Ratings72
Average rating3.9
Halfway through, if you told me that this would have ended up as a 5 star read, I would have never believed you. It felt important to me to read Maurice as it feels like such an iconic part of LGBTQIA+ history and literature, but, I found such trouble in liking the actual story itself until the conclusion. The actual story of Maurice is almost bland and can be described very easily. Though it has its profound moments, I don't think this novel was made iconic for its story.
E. M. Forster wrote from the eyes of a character that was so insufferable and mostly unlikable that I was struggling to appreciate anything about the story and this was a good distraction because I was quite taken aback by the growth of Maurice by the end of the novel because of its subtly. The story itself is not really anything special and in fact, not much happens. But the growth of Maurice as a character was stretched out so discretely that it caused me to have quite an emotional attachment by the end of it. He begins as a stiff, classist, uptight, snooty, terrified boy and ends as a man who fully accepts himself and his sexuality regardless of the societal implications or even the legality of it.
The thing that brings this book from an okay story to an iconic piece of literature is how it came to be and the circumstances in which it was written. This book was published in 1971 and if that is when it was written, I think how it is remembered would be much different. But it was sitting in a desk for 58 years before it was ever published. In the novel, we live through Maurice's struggle with self-acceptance of his homosexuality because of how culturally sinful, and even illegal, it was in edwardian London. Much like the reality that E.M. Forster found himself before writing this novel in 1913. Forster wrote this book for himself and made a plan for it to only ever be published after his own death. Forster did not seek to publish this book due to the public opinion of same-sex relationships. It was illegal for men to privately engage in homosexual acts in England until 1967, 3 years before Forster passed away. Forster decided to keep this novel hidden until it could be published posthumously for his own safety.
I found that the most interesting part of this entire book is the Terminal Note, written by Forster himself, where he explains his inspiration to write the book and breaks down every single nuance that went into crafting these characters and why he didn't feel like he could publish his book yet. I especially found his conviction to write a happy ending to be profound, especially reading it over a century later when queerness in media is STILL represented by a majority of traumatizing stories.
“A happy ending was imperative. It shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood. I dedicated it ‘To a Happier Year' and not altogether vainly. Happiness is its keynote - which by the way has had an unexpected result: it has made the book more difficult to publish. Unless the Wolfenden Report becomes law, 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 recommended crime. Mr Borenius is too incompetent to catch them, and the only penalty society exacts is an exile they gladly embrace.”
I feel like I could write an entire essay about this so for now I'll just say that this was an essential read.
I wasn't expecting to love this as much as I did... Maurice makes for such an fascinating protagonist, flaws and all
Beautiful. I can't imagine what it would have been like if he had published it back when he wrote it.
Hermoso, profundo, realista, me encantó cada parte y no entiendo porqué tanta gente siente que el final no fue suficiente, yo creo que fue perfecto, Clive fue el primer amor pero no estaba destinado a ser el verdadero, además su actitud para el final me hizo odiarlo. Lo mejor que le pudo pasar a Hall fue separarse de él, gracias a esto pudo crecer y madurar, y conocer a quien si estaba destinado a estar a su lado.
Se va a mi lista de libros favoritos y que reeleré muchas veces de ahora en adelante.
A really hard-to-read must-read that will tug at your heartstrings. Maurice follows the titular characters as he understands his identity through his own perspective and other's perceptions of him.
I truly loved this book. It was amazing to read something that felt so realistic at times when it came to how Maurice was treated for being himself, as well as how he treated himself. Without spoilers, Alec saying "I know" was by far one of the most heartbreaking and heartwarming moments I have read as someone who was also closeted for a long time.
I also recommend the movie starring James Wilby, Hugh Grant, and Rupert Graves. It's a very good adaptation and stays true to the source material. If you find the book to be too slow, the movie is a good way to enjoy the story without missing too much.
In many ways I have found myself loving this book, cast it into my personal favourites, and closed the book as how it was closed, reminiscing the bright days, fleeting memories, the bittersweet symphony that the loved and beloved once shared, as being called in the novel.
What this book had been, surpassing standards of gay romance, delving deeply into philosophies of platonic love or not, and there came the moral obligation, plastered by the social situations, which had made none, but Clive's romance, forever a regrettable tale, laying unmoved in the darkness, and could never be revealed.
Have I to name a few things that stroke me when reading the book, first the language, the vast arrays of words, sentences, paragraphs, packed with tantamount details: the scenes in Cambridge, Penge, etc, vividly presented by Forster's words, candidly weaving out the contour lines of emotions, the inner thoughts and development of Maurice. Here are some quotations, with each attached to its own sentiments that could arouse.
“Durham could not wait. People were all around them, but with eyes that had gone intensely blue he whispered, ‘I love you.'“
“When they parted it was in the ordinary way; neither had an impulse to say anything special. The whole day had been ordinary. Yet it had never come to either of them, nor it was to be repeated.”
“‘I should have gone through life half awake if you'd had the decency to leave me alone. Awake intellectually, yes, and emotionally in a way; but here-‘ He pointed with his pipe stem to his heart; and both smiled. ‘Perhaps we woke up one another. I like to think that anyway.'“
“Blossom after blossom crept past them, draggled by the ungenial year: some had cankered, others would never unfold: here and there beauty triumphed, but desperately, flickering in a world of gloom.”
Secondly, the characters. Surely Alec was a very important character that provided us a happy ending as well as Maurice his future, the length in discussing the first love of Maurice, Clive, and their follow-up courses had been the main focus. Supposedly, Clive was being described by Forster himself, as a character that had annoyed him, and seen in many's eyes as too timid and cowardly to ever take course on the journey of love. Yet, to my eyes, I found him piteous in the sense that his actions, shaped by the social orders, and as obvious a choice many would have taken, to despise the love of his own sex, and try to embrace that of the other. Did he still love Maurice? I supposed the answer is still a yes, since the way he tried to make his house a home for Maurice, claiming it was as a hotel to him so that perhaps, at some point he could still guard his past love and know how he is. I felt sympathetic to Clive's ending, how he and Maurice would never see each other again with their love dimmed out slowly by one, then mutually the bonds were cut.
Perhaps the only reason I find it unable to receive a five-star rating from me, is that the novel was a bit too short in entailing Alec's story. But either way could the story end, it was perfect as it was imperfect, to each the characters had their own fates, own beliefs, own social conundrums to bound to, or revolt from. This is it. Maurice. A tale with both tragic and joyous elements.
bit unsure on my feelings towards this book.
it was very fast paced and entertaining but the second half of the book had a different tone than the first half and I mean that in a good and bad way but I just don't know how to explain it.
this book started off really slow in the first 1/3 but it got better after that and i couldn't put it down in the last third of the book. this is a book that is better read not solely for its plot, which is generally slow-going, but for the introspection that it offers on how it might feel like, and the different paths open, to gay gentlemen in early 20th C England. Maurice pretty early on realises that his sexuality cannot be reconciled with Christianity so he gives up on that, but he takes a much longer time to face up to the realities of living as a homosexual man in his society. i like the idea near the end where the book says that Clive and him are descended from the same Clive from their time in Cambridge - they were both in almost identical positions in life, but one chose respectability and the other rebellion. man, Alec's letters to Maurice also twisted knives in my heart :( it's also interesting that Maurice's love of his life ended up being a gamekeeper, and presumably of a different class. i'm sure class hierarchy was still a big thing even at that time, so i think in having this relationship be doubly taboo in that it also transcends class boundaries, it also rebels against the Greek ideals that Maurice had initially based his sexual awakening on, because (iirc) Greek homosexuality was only amongst men of the same class? and it felt like in making big sacrifices for each other and deserting their own classes, both of them ended up becoming equal with each other. frankly i skimmed through some parts of this book but i enjoyed it overall because in writing fiction instead of a biography, we can sort of have a more intimate insight into the inner workings of perhaps Forster himself, and the generally-hidden world of homosexuality he was a part of at the time.
I really hate reading books or seeing movies that I know are going to make me cry, so I don't know why I chose to read this one.
It's a beautiful and heart-breaking story of same-sex love and loss. It also has an ambiguous ending a la the movie version of Brokeback Mountain. So, the reader is left wondering about what will happen to Maurice next. If you're of a hopeful bent, you might choose to think they live out their days in a boathouse somewhere in France or elsewhere in realms where their love is not illegal. But if you're a pessimist, you may recall that it was not so many years after the time in which this story is set that Alan Turing was chemically castrated and driven to suicide for being gay.
I hope I can be an optimist when I think back on this book.
