I was already a big fan of Howard's End and Room With a View, so I fell easily into the style of Forster's writing in Maurice.
It is one of those books I've always wanted to read, even before I was openly gay, and possibly would have made a difference to my process of self-realisation if I had. Never could find it amongst the Wordsworth Classics at Dymocks though. Thanks be to Kate for the loan.
She asked me if I liked it and I said yes. She professed a love of the soppy ending, and I agreed. But last night Mr Kate, Andy, said he couldn't see how Maurice ended-up with Scudder. Which I hadn't really considered to closely but it puzzled me thereafter so this afternoon I scowered the terminal note for Forster's explanation. There really wasn't one. I guess, knowing Forster, I put it down to his life-long exploration of the class system.
All I can come up with is this: Clive was too considered and to aware of his place in the world and the reality of the world to follow through with homosexual love in the way Maurice wanted/needed/does. He wouldn't even explore beyond the platonic, for example. Anyone of Maurice's class, education, would probably be the same. Perhaps introducing Scudder as someone from a lower class, (albeit slightly blurred: Forster makes him a servant who chooses to be servant but comes from a respectable family of trade and stresses the point) allows Forster to excuse the character's openess? Scudder's class somehow affords him more honesty in expression of emotion?
I'm not sure. Perhaps I'm clutching at straws. The question remains, whether or not if Scudder's class is a devise, is it believable that these two characters should end up together? I think it probably is. The two characters are romantics (climbing in the window, the boatshed, racing to Southampton to watch the other leave without actually talking to them) and could easily get wrapped-up in the idea of one another and the Chatterley-style romance of their situation.
Overall, in 2007 this book would not set the world alight. The situation would have been utterly different when it was written in 1913, and possibly still quite different when it was published in 1970. Glad to have consumed the volume though.
Private Dancer
2 months ago
3 comments:
I've had someone else say the same thing about Maurice choosing Scudder and but, for me, it worked probably because I didn't think about it all that much at the time. Plus, I have to admit, I saw the movie about a day after reading the book and the thought of anyone NOT wanting to be with Rupert Graves was crazy. But mainly I think it worked because I didn't think too much about it. I mean, on the one hand I do think it's more than coincidence that a lot of Forster's (often unpublished) short stories involve romances between men from the upper middle class and working class men but, at the same time, I like to read it as just a straight-out romance.
When I think about it I don't really know why I like the book so much, when I don't think it 'says' as much as a lot of his other books, and it's obviously quite sentimental (which rarely works for me, unless you're talking about the Bridges of Madison County *sniff* shut up) but on one level at least I just think it's a well written story that's a bit poignant and sad and a bit lovely and happy and it doesn't really need to be more than a romance.
I mean Maurice is completely lost, the one guy he has loved for ages, Clive, is fucking useless, his family is pants, Scudder's hot, uncomplicated and lovely to him and so he falls in love. Ten, five or even a year down the road it might all turn to shite but nobody needs to know that.
Phew. Longest. Comment. Ever
LOL.
And that was kind of my point. I didn't think about it, 'til Andy mentioned it. Way to go Andy... ruin my read! Ha!
The postscript (not the author's note in your volume) actually outlines the future for the two of them. Apparently it was unpopular with those Forster showed it to, so he scrapped it.
I might have to go get the film out so I can see how it looks on film. Young Rupert is dishy. I fell in love with him in Room With A View. It was the nudie-around-the-lake race that did it for me, finally. The other chap was even hotter.
Well there's a lot more hardcore nudity in Maurice than Room with a View. And yes, I DO mean nudity involving Rupert Graves. Wait Dans, where are you going so fast?
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