Howards End....

[french frank]

... of his contemporaries? Where to begin - Dezső Kosztolányi, Miklós Bánffy, Thos: Mann, Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Italo Svevo, Céline , Gide...

Actually you don't need to leave these shores - Conrad, Gissing, Bennett, Ford Madox Ford, Joyce, Woolf, even Ivy Compton Burnett - are so much more rewarding than the painfully limited, earnest, and (I repeat myself) 'clunky' Edward Morgan Forster...

Some would raise an eyebrow, albeit signalling unfamiliarity , some I'll give you (Mann, Kafka, Conrad, Joyce, Woolf), Roth, yes, I C-B, no, Gide on and off (La Porte Etroite?). If you go into the 20s (and five of Forster's six novels were written before the war), no Huxley?

[eighthobstruction]

....after news gridlock due to the roy wedding....I'm feeling a huge amount of bile and vitriol that I could just take out on the BBC's nice ;never a dirty w/c attire to be seen....everything nice and clean, laundered, straight out of wardrobe....So many of these 'things' Dance to Mrs Dallaways Parade of the Cazzulets-Brideshead Camilmille(sp) Lawn....Woolf PAH, Celine (clunkeeee)Pah..... and don't get me onto Council Housing - Grammar Schools - Brown Rice and Sandles/Sandals - Gites -and Chablis n'Burgundy - House prices - cheap flights to Italy ....and DUBAI f'Crisakes....Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aa

Thank you Normal Service will be commenced as soon as possible....

[french frank]

There, there, eighth - soon be over

[Barbirollians]

Where Angels Fear to Tread is not my idea of a light comedy ! Can't see much point of any further adaptations of A Room with a View surely the Merchant Ivory film cannot be surpassed ?

[vinteuil]

... of his contemporaries? Where to begin - Dezső Kosztolányi, Miklós Bánffy, Thos: Mann, Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, the short stories of Schnitzler, Zweig, Borges, - Italo Svevo, Céline , Gide...

.

... and how could I have forgotten another of my faves, the great Belgian writer -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Elsschot

.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Elsschot

.

[french frank]

... and how could I have forgotten another of my faves, the great Belgian writer -

I compliment you on your knowledge of so many languages, Mr V, but isn't the issue that you enjoy your favourite minor writers, you don't rate Forster?

I know people who don't rate Dickens - or Shakespeare

[vinteuil]

I compliment you on your knowledge of so many languages...

... sadly I have not the Flemish, so read Elsschot in translation. But he's really good, well worth investigating. And a useful additional name for any list of fifty famous Belgians...

I think Forster over-rated; he seems to me clunkily obvious in what he does: he megaphones his social messages, and is tiresomely heavy-handed in his use of symbols.

I am enjoying the acting in this telly version.






.

[Nick Armstrong]

I think Forster over-rated; he seems to me clunkily obvious in what he does: he megaphones his social messages, and is tiresomely heavy-handed in his use of symbols.

I am enjoying the acting in this telly version.

My brief foray into the text (to see whether a scene in the TV version had any basis in the novel) gave me no urge to read the book.

One of those authors best encountered in adaptations, perhaps - like (for different reasons) Henry James...

[vinteuil]

My brief foray into the text (to see whether a scene in the TV version had any basis in the novel) gave me no urge to read the book.
One of those authors best encountered in adaptations, perhaps - like (for different reasons) Henry James...

ho ho.

Yes, for different reasons. Forster perhaps too obvious; James perhaps not obvious enough.

For some people, at least....


.

[french frank]

To each his own I reread it in three evenings without pain, and not having a copy your Meneer Welzschmerz on my shelves, I shall begin The Longest Journey this evening

I was wondering a week or so back how Forster's reputation had fared. 'Clunky' (thrice) does not speak to me as a term of literary criticism. As for any distaste/disdain expressed here, ainsi soit-il: quite acceptable since I cannot describe the uninterest I experience on hearing what forumistas are reading now: ripping yarns, spies and detective novels, whether good or bad, hold little attraction - any more than science fantasy/or fiction.

I prefer to clunk along with tales which seem more like reality, albeit from another age.

[Serial_Apologist]

As for any distaste/disdain expressed here, ainsi soit-il: quite acceptable since I cannot describe the uninterest I experience on hearing what forumistas are reading now: ripping yarns, spies and detective novels, whether good or bad, hold little attraction - any more than science fantasy/or fiction.

I prefer to clunk along with tales which seem more like reality, albeit from another age.

You are the re-incarnated Jane Austen, I do declare, and I claim my $25.

[french frank]

You are the re-incarnated Jane Austen, I do declare, and I claim my $25.

Well, for all I know she might have devoured John Le Carré and Terry Pratchett.

Curiously, I found a fleeting something of the Austinesque in Forster's humour (the vignette of Aunt Juley holding a watering can and pointing out the Wilcox's window in the flats opposite with it) in the opening chapter or so, but it quickly disappeared.

[eighthobstruction]

....but don't start reading Henry James ff; it will do you no good at all....

[vinteuil]

....but don't start reading Henry James ff; it will do you no good at all....

... o I don't know - it's done me a fair amount of good over the last forty years or so - well, at least it's kept me off the streets quite a bit....


.

[eighthobstruction]

....anybody read any Mrs Gaskell or Disraeli....I've often wondered what they are like....