Howards End....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well I thought it was an excellent adaptation overall. A few niggles, especially the "How are you?" "I'm good" in the final episode - surely not Forster-speak.

The only let down by the BBC was the dim-witted continuity announcer who told us there would be a happy ending. Slightly happier than the end of Wagner's Ring, perhaps, but with Charles in prison, Henry a bit of a wreck, Leonard dead, Mrs Baste forgotten and left to the workhouse or worse, there isn't a great deal to be cheerful about.

[jean]

Excellent article in Saturday's Times Review by Prof. John Sutherland...

Yes - I read it a very long time ago and never saw the film; there's a great deal there I'd forgotten.

But the race element that the current adaptation introduces struck me - for all my forgetting - as deeply wrong. Sutherland writes There is, in the TV version, a black servant darting about in the Schlegel household. Daringly it also recasts Jacky — the “fallen” woman Leonard Bast honourably marries — as a woman of colour. That noise you hear may be Forster spinning in his grave. I mentioned Jacky Bast in an earlier post here; the black servant was an even more glaring anachronism - wealthy English people had trophy black servants in the eighteenth century and earlier, but not by the time the book is set.

.

[Richard Tarleton]

And did you notice, their bosoms were a proper shape?

So often, the right frocks are spoiled by inauthentic corsetry.

The garments which particularly got up my nose were Helen's hats - those huge berets that covered her ears. For some reason they made her even more annoying than she already was.

The one character who grew in my estimation was Tibby. That scene where Charles was shouting at him particularly well acted, I thought.

Agree with Alpie re the ending - pretty bleak. Clearly Forster not concerned re Jacky - does he bother to tell us in the book?

[jean]

...Clearly Forster not concerned re Jacky - does he bother to tell us in the book?

I found this in a blog post:

...there was a question that was bugging me more than "Would it be tacky to get Only connect tattooed?", and that was "But who provides for Jacky?". Because Jacky is not mentioned at all in the last chapter, where the affairs of the Wilcoxes and of the Schlegels are settled. We get to know both their financial situation and their social one: that Charles wants to change his name, that Dolly doesn't, that Paul (even he gets a paragraph) is resentful to be tied down in England. But not a word on Jacky.

It is easy to imagine, and I do, that Margaret doesn't let her starve. But it bothers me to no end that Forster doesn't say so explicitly.

When I realized this, I wondered whether I have a more general problem with how Jacky is written. It is clear that she isn't treated with nearly as much interest as any of the other characters. She is pitied in an impersonal and vague way, her hostile circumstances are declared "bad" by the narrator, but their tragic aspect is not explored. In fact, she is deemed "incapable of tragedy". To the narrator, Jacky is a convenient metaphor, taken up every now and then. To the Schlegels, Jacky is a vision of the abyss, "like a faint smell, a goblin footfall, telling of a life where love and hatred had both decayed", and her mistreatment by Henry is always an afterthought. When Helen is angry at Mr. Wilcox over Jacky, it is chiefly directed at the way Leonard was ruined by being entrapped by her. When Margaret chastises Henry, his betrayal of Mrs. Wilcox takes up more space than his abandonment of Jacky...

[aeolium]

Forster certainly isn't concerned about Jacky, or indeed Leonard Bast, as they both represent an encroaching world of commerce and grey suburbia that appals him. The other side of that world, and nearly as damaging, is that of the "Imperialist" - represented by Henry Wilcox and his sons - who "is a destroyer. He prepares the world for cosmopolitanism, and though his ambitions will be fulfilled, the earth that he inherits will be grey."

Forster like so many other writers of the time dislikes the world of the clerks. Leonard Bast could have been redeemed had he stayed in the countryside (he had "a spine that might have been straight" and "a chest that might have broadened"), but drawn into the suburbs he is doomed to squalor and penury. Bast, Forster tells us, "was not as courteous as the average rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable." He has a "cramped little mind" which he hopelessly tries to fill with culture. This quality will eventually prove his downfall as he is literally crushed by culture as the Schlegels' books crash down on him, a warning, Forster implies, to those from this lowly class who attempt to reach beyond their grasp. Not only does Forster not deign to mention the "bestially stupid" Jacky's fate, Leonard's liaison with Helen Wilcox is never described, only appearing through Helen's pregnancy and in her recollection, and after Leonard's death he is easily forgotten by Helen, while their child is seen at the end of the novel playing in the fields at Howard's End, so that he at least is returned to the pastoral world which would have been Leonard's proper place. Though even at Howard's End, it is only temporary, for it like other country places would, Helen predicts, be swallowed up by the "red rust" of creeping suburbia. Forster's ideal society and period as evinced by Howard's End seems to look back to the early C18, mostly pre-industrial, pre-imperial and pastoral, where a cultured and leisured aristocracy is spared the horrors of the modern world.

I thought the adaptation was quite watchable and well-acted, especially by Hayley Atwell and Matthew MacFadyen, but I don't care for Forster's vision, the uglier features of which were rather underplayed compared with the book.

[Serial_Apologist]

Forster certainly isn't concerned about Jacky, or indeed Leonard Bast, as they both represent an encroaching world of commerce and grey suburbia that appals him. The other side of that world, and nearly as damaging, is that of the "Imperialist" - represented by Henry Wilcox and his sons - who "is a destroyer. He prepares the world for cosmopolitanism, and though his ambitions will be fulfilled, the earth that he inherits will be grey."

Forster like so many other writers of the time dislikes the world of the clerks. Leonard Bast could have been redeemed had he stayed in the countryside (he had "a spine that might have been straight" and "a chest that might have broadened"), but drawn into the suburbs he is doomed to squalor and penury. Bast, Forster tells us, "was not as courteous as the average rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as lovable." He has a "cramped little mind" which he hopelessly tries to fill with culture. This quality will eventually prove his downfall as he is literally crushed by culture as the Schlegels' books crash down on him, a warning, Forster implies, to those from this lowly class who attempt to reach beyond their grasp. Not only does Forster not deign to mention the "bestially stupid" Jacky's fate, Leonard's liaison with Helen Wilcox is never described, only appearing through Helen's pregnancy and in her recollection, and after Leonard's death he is easily forgotten by Helen, while their child is seen at the end of the novel playing in the fields at Howard's End, so that he at least is returned to the pastoral world which would have been Leonard's proper place. Though even at Howard's End, it is only temporary, for it like other country places would, Helen predicts, be swallowed up by the "red rust" of creeping suburbia. Forster's ideal society and period as evinced by Howard's End seems to look back to the early C18, mostly pre-industrial, pre-imperial and pastoral, where a cultured and leisured aristocracy is spared the horrors of the modern world.

I thought the adaptation was quite watchable and well-acted, especially by Hayley Atwell and Matthew MacFadyen, but I don't care for Forster's vision, the uglier features of which were rather underplayed compared with the book.

I think one easly forgets this, or overlooks the fact that Forster is portraying his own snobberies through characters we today find objectionable unless we're "little Englanders", rather than exposing them as caricatures of class in the capitalism of the era. Once this is pointed out, one finds better things to do than read his novels or watch their dramatisations, however pictorial or supposedly authentic to type. The further we get away from those times, the less able are we to identify and reproduce manners and speech inflections pecular to past eras, no matter how skilled in acting the cast may be. When Pinter did "The Go Between" in 1971 he still had direct experience and connections with such people to go by.

[french frank]

I think one easly forgets this, or overlooks the fact that Forster is portraying his own snobberies

I think that needs justifying. He was depicting the society in which he lived (cf I Am a Camera), and if you're not interested in that portrayal, naturally, you don't read the novels. But he was said to have had an 'utter dislike' of the public school values as he knew them; a conscientious objector; a president of the National Council for Civil Liberties; fought against censorship. So not all bad.

As for Jackey: I'd see her (in retrospect) as a 'literary device'. She figured as long as Leonard figured, and when he was dead she had no function. She was needed because if Leonard had been single there would have been no one for him to engage with in those domestic scenes which revealed so much of his character.

[jean]

And besides

...The Working Men's College was founded in 1854 by F. D. Maurice, a theologian and socialist who took a civil law degree from Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1827. The college aimed to give a liberal education to working class men...in 1902, [Forster] he began teaching at the college and continued to do so for twenty years. Forster, therefore, had a personal experience of and interest in the question of the education of working-class people, and particularly the impact of cultural education on the working-class.

He cannot have been entirely out of sympathy whith the aspirations of such as Leonard Bast.

[french frank]

And besides

...The Working Men's College was founded in 1854 by F. D. Maurice, a theologian and socialist who took a civil law degree from Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1827. The college aimed to give a liberal education to working class men...in 1902, [Forster] he began teaching at the college and continued to do so for twenty years. Forster, therefore, had a personal experience of and interest in the question of the education of working-class people, and particularly the impact of cultural education on the working-class.

He cannot have been entirely out of sympathy whith the aspirations of such as Leonard Bast.

Interesting. It seems to me to be the old fallacy of reading a literary work and assuming you're reading about the author/poet.

[aeolium]

And besides

...The Working Men's College was founded in 1854 by F. D. Maurice, a theologian and socialist who took a civil law degree from Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1827. The college aimed to give a liberal education to working class men...in 1902, [Forster] he began teaching at the college and continued to do so for twenty years. Forster, therefore, had a personal experience of and interest in the question of the education of working-class people, and particularly the impact of cultural education on the working-class.

He cannot have been entirely out of sympathy whith the aspirations of such as Leonard Bast.

I don't think, in the novel, Forster was entirely unsympathetic to Bast. He suggests he is dragged down by his economic circumstances, by the drudgery and insecurity of his working life and his unhealthy living environment. But I think Forster does portray Bast's attempts to access high culture as doomed to fail. His attempts to show off his literary knowledge to the Schlegels provoke muffled laughter and groans. Tibby "knew that this fellow would never attain to poetry, and did not want to hear him trying." The Schlegels are interested in his attempts to escape his suburban prison, his long night-time walk to the North Downs, and are sympathetic to his plight. But I don't think the manner of Bast's death is accidental, as far as Forster is concerned - at least, if it is, it is an exceptionally unusual death. And the concerns expressed in the novel about creeping suburbia devouring countryside were exactly Forster's own concerns about the development of new Stevenage threatening his childhood home of Rooksnest, surely the model for Howard's End.

[french frank]

...exactly Forster's own concerns about the development of new Stevenage threatening his childhood home of Rooksnest, surely the model for Howard's End.

He said as much:

"The garden, the overhanging wych-elm, the sloping meadow, the great view to the west, the cliff of fir trees to the north, the adjacent farm through the high tangled hedge of wild roses were all utilised by me in Howards End..."

POV is important, of course: just because the Schlegels are culturally snobbish (at least) towards Bast, it doesn't mean Forster was.

[Nick Armstrong]

I hope the chap playing Tibby is a great actor and that he's not really like that.

I caught most of a film that was on C4 last night (Departure) in which he was extremely good playing the son of Juliet Stevenson in a rather intense and sad drama involving both mother and son falling for a young French bloke in the village where they have their holiday home. It was made a couple of years ago - no mean feat to be as convincing as Stevenson in a film with no hiding places as far as acting is concerned.

On topic - I rather lost interest in Howards End during the latter two episodes, didn't enjoy it half as much as the opening. The way in which Margaret breezed past the revelation that Wilcox had defied his late wife's wish about Margaret having the house didn't convince. Don't remember it being 'disappointing' like that in the film. But as mentioned above, I have no idea how it's handled in the novel...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The way in which Margaret breezed past the revelation that Wilcox had defied his late wife's wish about Margaret having the house didn't convince. Don't remember it being 'disappointing' like that in the film. But as mentioned above, I have no idea how it's handled in the novel...

IIRC, it's even more of a "throwaway" in the film - right at the very end, the camera moves away from the figures and Margaret's response fades into the concluding credits. (It's been a long time since I last saw the film, but I did think seeing the telly version that they [the telly] did it better.)

[french frank]

IIRC, it's even more of a "throwaway" in the film - right at the very end, the camera moves away from the figures and Margaret's response fades into the concluding credits. (It's been a long time since I last saw the film, but I did think seeing the telly version that they [the telly] did it better.)

In the novel, I kept wondering whether it would ever come to light. Not much was made of it.

[Nick Armstrong]

In the novel, I kept wondering whether it would ever come to light. Not much was made of it.

Interesting, thanks.