Maurice: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Once a term the whole school went for a walk-that is to say the three masters took part as well as all the boys..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Written during 1913 and 1914, Maurice deals with the then unmentionable subject of homosexuality. More unusual, it concerns a relationship that ends happily.

About the Author

E. M. Forster was one of the major novelists of the first half of the twentieth century. He was born in 1879 and educated at Cambridge. His other novels include A Room with a View, Howards End, and A Passage to India. He died in 1970.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (December 17, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393310329
• ISBN-13: 978-0393310320
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,268 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #29 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > British > 20th Century
  #69 in	Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Fiction > Gay

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars favorite, December 21, 2002

By	"timbolectable" (Walnut Creek, CA United States) - See all my reviews

I think I'm setting myself up to be abused for an imperfect understanding of Forster's work, but I love Maurice, and I only like everything else he wrote. Forster's plots to me are so controlled that his novels become more like chess games than stories--his characters move entirely according to their classist/symbolic value; their minds are types, their types interact. Sometimes this interaction is delightful, as in Room with a View. Sometimes it is genuinely touching, as in Where Angels Fear to Tread. But it is always highly regimented. This criticism extends for me to his prose, which I find to be too rule-bound--he always leaves the same words out; his style is symbolic of delicate subtlety without necessarily being so.

But in Maurice, Forster lets go some of this reserve. His prose, which I find formulaic in his later stuff, is here undeveloped enough to be idiosyncratic, un-stylized, and gorgeous. Maurice as a character is wonderfully, wonderfully real, and I appreciate the detailed development of the plot because Forster brings home with such ability the hazards of Maurice's struggle, the ever-present possibility of failure, the balance between lesser and more important goals, and the way in which Forster makes clear that these goals, as Maurice knows when he "listens beneath" words, are not the ends that he is really achieving as he achieves them. Maurice himself is drawn with Jane Austen-ian precision: Forster mixes the divine heroism--beauty and brutality--in Maurice's essential, private life with his utterly mundane non-essentials--politics, understanding, relationships with family, opinions, way of talking, appearance, job.

This is a heroic book. It moves me to tears every time I read it.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written love story 80 years ahead of its time, August 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Maurice (Hardcover)

The film of "Maurice" produced by Merchant Ivory a number of years ago is one my favorite films. I was curious, having never read E.M. Forster before, to see how much of the issue of homosexuality was a product of the book and how much was played-up for the film. The book did not dissapoint. An honest, self-aware writer, E.M. Forster tells a beautiful story of a fairly unremarkable young man who is forced to (by virtue of being gay) become remarkable. Problems of English repugnance at homosexuality (a feeling he shares himself at first) and of class make him into a grownup, into a real man. In the book this becomes a wonderful liberation--that does not come through as well in the film. A marvelous read. Not published until after his death in 1970. Only a few read it when he actually wrote it in the teens. Too dangerous. A shame. Far ahead of it's time.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful!, April 26, 2000

By	JCB (I Love Seattle!) - See all my reviews

I have to confess, I watched the movie first (which I watched three times in a span of two days). I enjoyed the movie so much that after the third time, I ran out and bought the book. The book is absolutely beautiful. I remember sitting on the subway reading Maurice and forgetting where I was, ingnoring everyone around me, and letting the book whisk me away to a time and place obviously different, yet unfortunately similar in attitude towards same-sex relationships (I missed my stop). I couldn't believe Maurice was written over 80 years ago. The subject matter seems too contemporary to be written about during that time, and I suppose that's why E.M. Forster's novel is so great. He manages to capture effortlessly the relationship of Maurice and Clive, as well as to paint a picture of what life was like back then for gay folk. Readers can easily transpose many of the events and experiences in the novel to the present day, which makes empathizing with Maurice so much easier. This novel should no doubt be a required read. It shares many of the complexities as Forster's other work, yet perhaps it is glossed over more because of its subject matter--which, if true, is such a shame.