Customer Reviews

Arctic Summer, and Other Fiction (Abinger Edition of E. M. Forster, Volume 9)

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This volume contains several parts of what EMF managed to write before writer's block set in. There are no real plots - the books end before the plots have any chance to develop - so what you get is usually a handful of characters and scenes in typically Forsterian style.
One cannot help but wonder - would they be good novels? My impression of the eponymous Arctic Summer is that at least this one would not. Certain elements and scenes seem to have been used before (close reading reveals especially similarities to A Room with a View), and there is little new and striking. The central conflict between action and ideas would probably be too little to sustain another novel after Howards End.
In short - this volume a necessary reading for any true Forsterian (you may have a preview if you take a look at the recently published mass-market paperback of Arctic Summer) but not necessarily for the general reading public. General reading public, however, should immediately aim for the last novel Forster managed to complete: A Passage to India.

The unorthodox narrative, the unfinished novel buried within books must be deciphered as a palimpsest by an archeologist-reader. Not only does it explore the classical themes of Forsteriana, but it goes beyond the boundaries of traditional patterns of writing and reading, fanning out a new range of perspectives and interpretations. Arctic Summer is a World of Art everlastingly shaping and altering what exists.