Where Angels Fear to Tread
book — UK — 1905

6.5
I find it quite funny when on the back of this book it`s mentioned that Forster was a coeval of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and other great British writers. From a passage like this the reader might conclude that Forster was a revolutionary in the field of literature who has left a very serious legacy for the generations to come. In fact he seems to be just another leftist realist. Lydia has married into a wealthy high class English family but she doesn`t really belong there, especially after her husband`s death she seems to be misplaced there. The relatives of her deceased husband tell her what to do and how to do, but she isn`t really a smart person or a reasonable person. At one point she decides to go for Italy for a year, and nobody objects to that for in fact most of the nobles want her out of their sight. Yet when they learn to know that the widow of their beloved relative wants to remarry in Italy Philip, her brother in law, is sent to Italy on a rescue mission. Still he arrives late and Lydia has already married Gino - the son of a dentist, a man with no job and no prospects for life. But he doesn`t need a job or a profession - he has got a pretty face and now he`s also got a rich wife. Lydia doesn`t have much fun living with her new husband for it proves that Gino ain`t much better than the high class society, he locks her up in terms that she can`t walk alone, she can`t invite people to tea parties, and so she slowly fades and when she gives birth to a son she dies herself. After that the English family decides to take hold of the child for Lydias daughter from her first husband Charles takes interest in her baby stepbrother. Philip is sent to Italy once again, but this time his religious sister Heriette is taken along as well. They can`t persuade Gino to give the child away for money (nor does Philip really want to succeed) but then Heriette steals the child and accidentally kills it (for she`s about as good at handling children as I am at conducting classical opera).
2006-05-07
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