Damon Galgut
Estate Artica

"Arctic Summer" is the title of a "ghost" novel by E.M. Forster, started immediately after "Howards End" (early 1910s) and left unfinished. It was supposed to be set, at least in part, in Italy, in the vein of "Where Angels Fear to Tread," or "Monteriano," if you prefer, and "A Room with a View": I learned this specific detail thanks to Damon Galgut, who reused the title for his... how to define it? Novelized biography? Historical novel? The best fanfiction ever written? In any case, for anyone who loves Forster, "Arctic Summer" effectively fills a gap, doing so by meticulously connecting the writer and his literary work, the characters and the real people who inspired them, masterfully blurring the line between lived experience and fiction. The fact that Edward Morgan Forster is already, by himself, a fascinating and empathetic figure, almost timeless from a certain point of view, obviously helps make everything more vivid and beautiful.

Before venturing into the tortuous, often painful narrative tangle of "Arctic Summer", it is strongly advisable to read at least three specific novels by E.M. Forster: "A Passage to India," "Maurice," and "The Longest Journey"; these, coincidentally, are also my three favorites. Only in this way, in fact, is it possible to fully understand and appreciate the countless quotes and references to these works, which are those through which Forster "exposed" himself most directly. "A Passage to India" is the final destination, the long years of its gestation are the central theme of this novel. However, in the image of Forster's own life, it is structured in a way that is anything but linear; it fragments, branches into various subplots and narrative lines, thus managing to outline a truly complete, detailed, and credible human portrait of the man even before the writer. What kind of portrait? The portrait of a man who, lacking the temperament of an activist, a "warrior," has no other weapons to fight the unequal battle with the society of his time except his creative genius and his lively, inexhaustible curiosity. Weak, apparently, and subjected to overwhelming pressures: in this, he closely resembles Maurice, the protagonist of the eponymous novel. Maurice will find salvation through love; for the Morgan Forster narrated here, in the end, only pen and ink will give meaning to everything, allowing him to rise above disappointments, repression, and sufferings. And if, as a whole, "Arctic Summer" can almost be called some sort of synthesis between "A Passage to India," the nebulous, longed-for final destination and "Maurice," which appears suddenly like an epiphany, providing new vital energy but at the same time distracting the creative genius from the aforementioned destination, we must not forget the original vertex of the "triptych," that "The Longest Journey," to which brief and beautiful narrative glimpses are dedicated, particularly a page of particularly visionary tones that represents one of the most moving emotional peaks of the entire work, especially for someone who adores "The Longest Journey" also for personal reasons.

As declared by the author himself in a brief afterword, "Arctic Summer" is the result of meticulous, accurate historical and biographical research; various literary and cultural figures from the era appear within its pages; above all stands the heroic profile of Edward Carpenter, to most, like for example D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, are given a more marginal role, a cameo. Yet, as is inevitable in such a case, Damon Galgut projected much of himself into it; "In a Strange Room," which I have already talked about, is a very solid demonstration of this thesis. Here the prose is obviously much more elaborate, as befits a historical novel, but the unease and loneliness felt by Damon there and Morgan here are perfectly superimposable, both seek in travel, in the contact with "foreign" elements a panacea, an escape from an unsatisfying and disharmonious life, in both books particularly harsh images appear cyclically, and the ending remains partially unresolved and dissonant. Overall, "Arctic Summer" shares many characteristics with a great literary masterpiece particularly dear to me, "Memoirs of Hadrian" by Marguerite Yourcenar; in both, there is this fascinating ambiguity between narrator and narrated juxtaposed with a rigorous historical reconstruction, both, among splendors and miseries, narrate not only the life of two, let's call them, queer icons, but also their respective milieus, in a broad and detailed manner.

I conclude this analysis of mine with a rather fascinating detail: To date, "Arctic Summer," released in 2014, remains Damon Galgut's latest literary publication; we all know that "A Passage to India," finally published in 1924, after the long and tortuous gestation explored here, was the last chapter of E.M. Forster's history as a novelist. Now, I recall that Damon Galgut is not a prolific writer, much less "serial," but six years of pause still leave room for an insidious, suggestive question: could the echo of the Barabar/Marabar caves indeed be something supernatural? A sort of siren song for writers who have encountered it? A surreal Indian "magic" à la Salman Rushdie? As far as I know, it might as well be.