No tea on the lawn for EM Forster's Maurice (From Swindon Advertiser)

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No tea on the lawn for EM Forster's Maurice

10:40am Saturday 9th May 2009

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By Book Worm »

I WENT on a walk the other day with my sister (who's still nagging me about Adam Bede).

Enjoying the warm spring sunshine and rolling lush green of the countryside, I found myself fantasising about being an Edwardian lady living in one of the stunning Northamptonshire country piles we passed along the way, in a flowing white frock, taking tea on the lawn and not worrying about recession or redundancy or any of these modern vexing vulgarities.

So, not having a time machine to hand, I decided I would do the second best thing and read something quintessentially English, and EM Forster popped into my head.

I have happy memories of reading and re-reading Room With A View as a teenager, the perfect romantic social satire which would hit just the spot.

Fast forward a few days and I found myself in a bookshop in Cheltenham, scouring the shelves for Mr Forster. And what should catch my eye on the table of 'our favourite reads' but Maurice?

Maurice was written in 1913/14 but was not published until 1970, after Forster's death. An intensely personal novel, it tells the tale of a young man called Maurice who falls in love with a fellow student at Cambridge by the name of Clive Durham. He later horrifies himself and his snobbish notions of class structure by falling for Clive's gamekeeper.

It's an odd book. Part polemic on homosexuality and society's attitude towards it, part love story, I got the feeling Forster was expressing his bitterness at the world for being anti-gay and fantasising about the perfect male romance.

Some of the love scenes between Maurice and Clive seemed a bit gauche and sentimental (but perhaps that's just because of when it was written) and at times, it was a negative and depressing read, such is the anger in the subtext.

However, it is an honest and moving account of a man's struggle with his sexuality, his desire to find 'a cure' and his need to reconcile his very English notions of religion, class and masculinity with his secret passion for his own sex.

It wasn't quite what I was looking for when the penchant for a terribly English novel hit me - they don't even take tea on the lawn.

But it is a moving book and an important work in the canon of gay literature. I have to say, I recommend it thoroughly.