Edward Morgan Forster
Camera con vista

Classic bedside novel much loved by women in the mood for romanticism and, generally, equally avoided by men due to the perpetual label of “love story.”
A Room with a View is a novel that features the typical English woman of the Edwardian age, torn between two diametrically opposed men and oppressed by the era's conventions and the family women's attempts at manipulation. But A Room with a View is also the launching pad for a sacred figure of modernism, Edward Morgan Forster, known to the general public as the author of this novel and little else (except, perhaps, Howards End), but also the author, believe it or not, of much more significant texts from a historical and social point of view, such as A Passage to India or Maurice.

Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman from a wealthy family traveling in Italy with her bigoted and unmarried cousin Charlotte, who serves as her chaperone, is not very enthusiastic about her arrival at the Bartolini boarding house in Florence: the hostess, though she promised them two rooms with a view of the Lungarno, provides them with more modest accommodations than expected. The unforgivable conduct of the Emersons at the table places her in the condition of having to accept a morally inconvenient exchange: Mr. Emerson, in fact, offered them his and his son's room, with large windows looking over the much-desired view.
An in-depth acquaintance with the two gentlemen reveals the nonconformist character of the elderly Englishman, who has passed on his principles to his son George: the Emersons are straightforward, atheists, and they always hold original opinions about everything and everyone on the tip of their tongues: they are, in short, ostracized by the respectable society of the time. An unfortunate incident brings Lucy and George closer together, and the latter, during a picnic on the hills of Fiesole, behaves disgracefully towards the naive girl, who, spurred by her cousin, decides to leave Florence immediately for Rome. Back in England, Lucy accepts the marriage proposal of Cecil, the exact opposite of George: square, conformist, disdainful towards her family, cultured but lacking any open-mindedness. Lucy shows a lively temperament stifled by the people around her (Cecil not being the least) that comes to life when George and his father move by chance near her villa.

A Room with a View is a short novel, not exactly rich in events or profound introspection; the characters are not particularly unforgettable, and certainly, no great passions of love comprehensible to a contemporary audience are found within; instead, it is a good novel that helps understand the position of girls from good families in a period when suffragettes (never mentioned in the novel, but whose shadow ominously haunts) were starting to chain themselves to railings and set post boxes on fire to obtain the right to vote. Lucy, who throughout the novel is a mouthpiece for others' thoughts (those of her cousin; those of her mother; those of Cecil, and finally those of the Emersons), and who can only express herself through music, ultimately confronts social and family conventions to refuse a convenient marriage and instead choose one of love.

The novel is also fascinating for another aspect: it presents early 20th-century Italy through the eyes of an Englishman, even if as non-conformist as Forster: in a place of passions and free expression, so far from the impositions and rigidity of the English world, Lucy first appears shocked and then captivated by the spontaneity of the Italians. It is her journey to Italy that causes changes in her, allowing her to recognize the limits of England (because, as we know, a journey is not a journey if it does not allow one to return to see the place of origin with new eyes) and, above all, allowing her to understand and love the colors of George Emerson's soul. Thus, Forster denounces the social hypocrisies of Edwardian England, just as he will do with the imperialist hypocrisies in A Passage to India.

A final note on Forster's style: situated just before the modernist era (1908), the novel is very classic (still 19th-century) in style and form. Careful, refined, occasionally even poetic: if not for the plot, I recommend this novel for the splendid effect it has when read in an armchair with a cup of tea, or, even better, on a sunny lawn with a picnic basket.