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“When I think what life is, and how seldom love is answered by love - Marry him; it is one of the moments for which the world was made.��
- A Room With A View, E. M. Forster

In this novel published in 1908, E. M. Forster offered a view of life in Edwardian Era England. Couched as a romance, it is a humorous critique of English society.

Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman from an upper middle class family, is accustomed to a very sheltered life and expected to marry well. On a visit to Florence, she is chaperoned by Charlotte Bartlett, an impecunious cousin whose trip is financed by Lucy’s mother. Poor Lucy is stifled as Charlotte feels duty bound to be protective and controlling. At the Hotel Bertolini, they are disappointed as their rooms have no view of the Arno River. An elderly gentleman, Mr Emerson, and his son, George, trade rooms with them as they do not care for rooms with a view. The Emersons are rather tactless but refreshing when they speak their minds. However, others regard them as offensive and shun their company.

George seems incorrigibly melancholic but takes an interest in Lucy who does not quite know how to relate to him. On an outing, a stolen kiss sends Charlotte packing Lucy to Rome as Charlotte deems it a serious matter. In Rome, Lucy meets Cecil Vyse, a friend from England, who proposed marriage not once but thrice. Cecil is wealthy and respectable but arrogant and stuffy. He admires Lucy for her ‘wonderful reticence.�� To him, 'She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s, whom we love not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us.'

Two suitors. An unhappy problem for Lucy who is muddled and does not know her own mind. But the reader knows. The theme of a room with a view is strategically developed as Lucy grows over a span of a year to become aware of her own special person and what she truly wants. I found this interesting: Cecil connects Lucy with a view; Lucy regards Cecil as a room with no view; George (more accurately Old Emerson) offers Lucy a room with a view. Not too hard a choice, is it?

The greatest pleasure for me is watching Lucy grow in self-awareness, confidence, and decisiveness. Italy changed Lucy.

“Life, so far as she troubled to conceive it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and identical foes. In this circle, one thought, married, and died. Outside it were poverty and vulgarity forever trying to enter�� But in Italy where anyone who chooses may warm himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished.��

She returned with new eyes. Oh, maybe we should all go to Italy! Forster wrote some brilliant dialogues that showed how Lucy walked out of her muddle and gained a clear view of the future she wished for herself.

I have not read E. M. Forster for a long while and I am once again bowed over by his elegant prose and engaging storytelling. A Room With A View has been listed among the top 100 best English language novels of the 20th century. Now I know why.