Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster ~ 1905. This edition: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1995. Hardcover. ISBN: not found. 208 pages.
My rating: 6/10
My relatively high rating of 6 is mainly for the quality of some of the writing. If judged by the appeal of plot and characters alone, this would get about a 4 or so.
I felt that the author lost his way towards the end, and I couldn’t abide any of the characters by the final chapter, least of all the main male protagonist, young Italiophile Philip.
So, has anyone else read this first novel by E.M. Forster? And if so, what did you think?
I found it rather uneven, with moments of sheer brilliance interspersed with numerous rather shaky bits. And the ending was not what I’d expected. I think that is possibly a good thing in a literary sense, in that I was shocked out of my readerly complacency – I thought I was reading merely a satirically humorous tale for the longest time – but I felt it (the final tragic occurrence and its aftermath) ultimately rather artistically troubling, as none of the responses of the characters to the contrived situation felt genuinely satisfactory. (Sorry to be all mysterious as to the nature of the tragedy – I don’t want to spoil the ending, in case someone is half way through and wondering where it’s all going.)
This is a very slender novel, really more of a novella in its limited scope, and not up to the standard of Forster’s later, longer, more complex and much better-known works such as A Room with a View, Howard’s End, and A Passage to India. But as I’ve already mentioned, there are passages of wonderful writing in Where Angels Fear to Tread, which show what Forster was capable of at his best.
A widowed Englishwoman, very much under the thumb of her in-laws, departs for a year in Italy in the company of a much younger woman, whom she is to chaperone. It is hoped by the in-laws that the beauties of Italian art, architecture and culture will have a refining effect on the rather common nature of slightly foolish, slightly crass Lilia Herriton, and everyone concerned draws a sigh of relief when the train bears her away. Even her young daughter is content to see her go, and her mother-in-law is positively gleeful to have a free hand with bringing up her deceased son’s only child.
At first all is well, and Lilia writes gushing epistles home full of wonder at the beauties of Italy, leading her in-laws to hope that she will return a changed-for-the-better woman. But then a further letter comes, announcing Lilia’s engagement to an Italian “met in a hotel”. Shocked inquiries by telegram bring in return a brief explanation from Lilia’s companion, that the fiancé is “of the Italian nobility”. Something doesn’t seem quite right, and an immediate intervention is put into action, with the dispatch of Lilia’s young brother-in-law, Philip, with orders to set things straight and bring Lilia back home unencumbered with an Italian second husband, “nobility” or not.
Philip finds himself arriving too late to prevent the worst, for Lilia has actually married her Italian swain. Far from being a member of the nobility, he turns out to be the impoverished son of the local dentist, and Philip finds Lilia defensive and unrepentant and her young travelling companion in the throes of guilty despair, for she has encouraged the unlikely lovers in their wedding plans, and has now, with the arrival of the appalled Philip, realized the extreme unsuitability of the liaison and her own role in it.
Lilia is cast off by her exceedingly genteel in-laws back in England, and left alone to make do the best she can in her new life. Needless to say things are not quite as rosy as she has expected, and even the fact that she is comparatively wealthy and can afford a high standard of living for herself and her husband in the small Italian town where they establish their nuptial home does not compensate Lilia for her subsequent bitter loneliness and boredom as she finds herself isolated by nationality, language, and personality from everyone around her.
Lilia is not left to linger long, as she exits the Italian scene as impetuously as she entered it, triggering new complications which again cause the family of her first husband much hand-wringing and heart-burning. Philip finds himself despatched once more to attempt a resolution to an exceedingly awkward state of affairs, this time accompanied by his impetuous and outspoken sister Harriet. They are hot on the heels of Lilia’s one-time lady-companion, who, still wracked with guilt over the original scenario, has also departed post-haste to Italy in order to effect her own attempted rescue mission of the only true innocent in the increasingly sordid tale.
There is plenty of room for farce in all of these goings on, and Forster plays his characters for comedic effect well, but the story turns relentlessly from comedy to tragedy, and all of Philip’s (and the young author’s?) anguished philosophizing cannot turn back the course of events.
A tacked-on sort of romantic coda at the very end felt to me out of place. I’m not quite sure what I would have had the author do in its stead. Perhaps stop sooner and leave us to use our imaginations at the point of the tragedy? As it was, to my mind the story lost much of its poignancy because of what came after.
I doubt I’ll be reading this book again, though it has reminded me how good Forster can be, if in a slightly patchwork fashion. I may be looking at him again in the new year, and reading some of his later works once the Century project is all tidied up.
Where Angels Fear to Tread is an excellent title, even to its gentle warning to the reader not to expect a completely satisfactory tale.
My final verdict: I felt this was an “interesting” book, rather than a particularly “good” one.
Leaves & Pages 