Maurice

this book started off really slow in the first 1/3 but it got better after that and i couldn't put it down in the last third of the book. this is a book that is better read not solely for its plot, which is generally slow-going, but for the introspection that it offers on how it might feel like, and the different paths open, to gay gentlemen in early 20th C England. Maurice pretty early on realises that his sexuality cannot be reconciled with Christianity so he gives up on that, but he takes a much longer time to face up to the realities of living as a homosexual man in his society. i like the idea near the end where the book says that Clive and him are descended from the same Clive from their time in Cambridge - they were both in almost identical positions in life, but one chose respectability and the other rebellion. man, Alec's letters to Maurice also twisted knives in my heart :( it's also interesting that Maurice's love of his life ended up being a gamekeeper, and presumably of a different class. i'm sure class hierarchy was still a big thing even at that time, so i think in having this relationship be doubly taboo in that it also transcends class boundaries, it also rebels against the Greek ideals that Maurice had initially based his sexual awakening on, because (iirc) Greek homosexuality was only amongst men of the same class? and it felt like in making big sacrifices for each other and deserting their own classes, both of them ended up becoming equal with each other. frankly i skimmed through some parts of this book but i enjoyed it overall because in writing fiction instead of a biography, we can sort of have a more intimate insight into the inner workings of perhaps Forster himself, and the generally-hidden world of homosexuality he was a part of at the time.

In many ways I have found myself loving this book, cast it into my personal favourites, and closed the book as how it was closed, reminiscing the bright days, fleeting memories, the bittersweet symphony that the loved and beloved once shared, as being called in the novel.

What this book had been, surpassing standards of gay romance, delving deeply into philosophies of platonic love or not, and there came the moral obligation, plastered by the social situations, which had made none, but Clive's romance, forever a regrettable tale, laying unmoved in the darkness, and could never be revealed.

Have I to name a few things that stroke me when reading the book, first the language, the vast arrays of words, sentences, paragraphs, packed with tantamount details: the scenes in Cambridge, Penge, etc, vividly presented by Forster's words, candidly weaving out the contour lines of emotions, the inner thoughts and development of Maurice. Here are some quotations, with each attached to its own sentiments that could arouse.
“Durham could not wait. People were all around them, but with eyes that had gone intensely blue he whispered, ‘I love you.'“
“When they parted it was in the ordinary way; neither had an impulse to say anything special. The whole day had been ordinary. Yet it had never come to either of them, nor it was to be repeated.”
“‘I should have gone through life half awake if you'd had the decency to leave me alone. Awake intellectually, yes, and emotionally in a way; but here-‘ He pointed with his pipe stem to his heart; and both smiled. ‘Perhaps we woke up one another. I like to think that anyway.'“
“Blossom after blossom crept past them, draggled by the ungenial year: some had cankered, others would never unfold: here and there beauty triumphed, but desperately, flickering in a world of gloom.”

Secondly, the characters. Surely Alec was a very important character that provided us a happy ending as well as Maurice his future, the length in discussing the first love of Maurice, Clive, and their follow-up courses had been the main focus. Supposedly, Clive was being described by Forster himself, as a character that had annoyed him, and seen in many's eyes as too timid and cowardly to ever take course on the journey of love. Yet, to my eyes, I found him piteous in the sense that his actions, shaped by the social orders, and as obvious a choice many would have taken, to despise the love of his own sex, and try to embrace that of the other. Did he still love Maurice? I supposed the answer is still a yes, since the way he tried to make his house a home for Maurice, claiming it was as a hotel to him so that perhaps, at some point he could still guard his past love and know how he is. I felt sympathetic to Clive's ending, how he and Maurice would never see each other again with their love dimmed out slowly by one, then mutually the bonds were cut.

Perhaps the only reason I find it unable to receive a five-star rating from me, is that the novel was a bit too short in entailing Alec's story. But either way could the story end, it was perfect as it was imperfect, to each the characters had their own fates, own beliefs, own social conundrums to bound to, or revolt from. This is it. Maurice. A tale with both tragic and joyous elements.