Monday, June 05, 2006

A Room With a View

Because I'm trying to find short books to read, I picked as my first Forster book A Room With a View, rather than A Passage to India. It was a pretty sort of story, though it felt disjointed at points, but the worldview was quite skewed. From what I understood, the whole point of the book was that love (passion) cannot be helped, cannot be overcome, and is eternal. A lovely idea, I'm sure, but not very realistic. I prefer books like A Civil Contract, which, though perhaps more fluff-like, has almost the opposite (and therefore a more correct) view on love, while being just as lovely a story.

2 comments:

Kiernan said...

I've never heard of "A Civil Contract." Who wrote it?

I've never read any of E.M. Forster's work. I'll have to get some out...

M. Ivanolix said...

A Civil Contract is a romance by Georgette Heyer, a little known but loved by those who know her, author of hilarious Regency time-period historical romances (she wrote about forty, but not all are good). A Civil Contract is a little more serious than the others (Cotillion and The Grand Sophy are the best and two of my favorite books), but the storyline is very warm and touching, with a great message for a "fluff" book.