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Our room had a view of a narrow rather noisy street, and a patio that overlooked a small courtyard full of domesticity and washing lines. Charlotte Bartlett murmured something about it not being quite seemly, really: “Lucy dear, was it wise to be renting from Italians? If I am not mistaken, that is ...olive oil, left by some previous tenant unknown to us! It is too bad and I am quite sure your mother expected us to stay in a respectable pensione��...

Ahem, about A Room with a View: after more than 100 years, what more can anyone say that hasn’t been said already? Except that I love it; I loved it when I first read it god knows how long ago and it seems as fresh and clever now as it did then. The only thing is, I loved the 1987 film too and every image I have now from the book is really a scene from the movie.

At one level it’s a fairy tale and a rather a predictable love story �� is there any doubt that Lucy and George will end up together? �� and tending to melodramatic in many places (as old Mr Emerson lectures Lucy on love, life and caring less about what others might think), but in Forster’s hands it becomes something else. You know the plot is a little contrived, with the number of coincidences (really, how did Cecil manage to bump into the Emersons so conveniently?) and abrupt changes of plan, yet the way Forster comments on his characters�� motives and quirks is absolutely enchanting. It feels as natural as if he hadn’t concocted the whole thing himself, but was simply commenting on actual lives and events.

And with such tact and fairness, too! No black-and white characters here �� Lucy might be the heroine but she’s also a naive little drip; and was an insufferable prig like Cecil ever allowed to retire with such grace?

Favourite quotes �� oh, this is hard as every page is filled delight and clever, airy observations:

Miss Lavish looked at the narrow ribbon of sky and murmured “Oh, you have property in Surrey?��
“Hardly any,�� said Lucy, fearful of being thought a snob.

Then the pernicious charm of Italy worked on her, and, instead of acquiring information, she began to be happy.

From her feet the ground sloped sharply into view, and violets ran down in rivulets and streams and cataracts, irrigating the hillside with blue, eddying round the tree stems, collecting in pools in the hollows, covering the grass with azure foam. But never again were they in such profusion; this terrace was the well-head, the primal source whence beauty gushed out to water the earth.

Before she could speak, almost before she could feel, a voice called “Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!�� The silence of life had been broken by Miss Bartlett, who stood brown against the view.

Lucy was suffering from the most grievous wrong which this world has yet discovered: diplomatic advantage had been taken of her sincerity, of her craving for sympathy and love.

She returned with new eyes. So did Cecil; but Italy had quickened Cecil, not to tolerance, but to irritation.

It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, “She loves young Emerson.�� A reader in Lucy’s place would not find it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle but bewildering to practise

... she grew more and more vexed at his dignified behaviour. She had counted on his being petty. It would have made things easier for her. By a cruel irony she was drawing out all that was finest in his disposition.

He heard her in silence and then said: “My dear, I am worried about you. It seems to me ... that you are in a muddle��

A passion of gratitude �� all feelings grow to passion in the South �� came over the husband, and he blessed the people who had taken so much trouble over a young fool. He had helped himself, it is true, but how stupidly! All the fighting that mattered had been done by others –by Italy, by his father, by his wife.