Details
Synopsis
This novel, suppressed during Forster's lifetime, is the only one of his works that deals explicitly with homosexuality.
| Size | | Length: | 256 pages | | Height: | 7.8 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 0.5 in | | Weight: | 8.8 oz |
Industry Reviews
"'Maurice' lacks both the moments of poetry of the early novels and the dense and thoughtful complexity of 'Howards End' and 'A Passage to India'....It is slightly more frank on the subject of homosexuality than Forster cared to let on....It contains two short words which are still considered offensive in many circles, and perhaps more egregious, a scene in the bedroom of a country house in which a patrician youth is hugging a gamekeeper. Homosexuality is one of the novel's subjects, and so, as that embrace implies, is the idea of class. On both subjects, Forster's view could have been considered irregular. Now, it would be hard to judge them as anything but quaint....The novel is an Edwardian fantasy of liberation."
Book World - Paul Theroux (10/03/1971)
"The first 100 pages of 'Maurice' are fossilised. After that, when he begins to tussle with his hero's homosexuality, the book comes to life. It has a good deal of Forster's tart gift for moral puncture, all his talent for not forgiving and for not shedding tears....'Maurice' is the male version of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' written in 1913, long before D.H. Lawrence's book, and a similar criticism of English life, as Forster says himself, in a few pages of comment on the book, written some 10 years ago. There is the same preoccupation with snobbery and class-consciousness, the same allegory of the stagnant condition of English life....The blackmailing scene in the British Museum, with its lies, its collapse and abrupt reconciliation, is excellent; and it makes one realise with what expert craftsmanship the emotional scenes have been managed."
New Statesman - V. S. Pritchett (10/08/1971)
"'Maurice', bad as it is, nevertheless is Forster's only truthful book, full of nerves, hysteria, infatuation, bitterness."
Epstein
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