Room With A View

Gabi's Review

EM Forster's classic A Room with a View is a heart-warming exploration of romantic love, and an examination of the tension between individual desires and societal expectations about gender roles and class distinctions.

Given that the novel was first published in 1908, it’s hardly surprising that contemporary readers and critics have been critical of its portrayal of the main female character, Lucy Honeychurch. While her journey of self-discovery is compelling as well as progressive for its time, the story affords her limited agency. The novel has also been criticised for its perpetuation of colonialist attitudes, evident in its idealised portrayal of Italy and its inhabitants. Nevertheless, A Room with a View will continue to resonate with readers for its wit, charm, and incisive social commentary. 

Publishers Review

Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance.

Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini- flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiance Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?