Rating: 
Summary: A great novel and a great heroine for all time
Review: Don't let the negative reviewers fool you! The worst they can say of Howards End, a period piece with timeless connotations, is that the charachters "aren't especially interesting". Since 2/3 of the book revolves around Margaret Schlegel, an unmarried woman in her late twenties (an "old maid" in the parlance of supporting charachters), their criticisms are no doubt directed at her. Margaret is one of the great heroines of all literature, the misunderstood woman of any age. Excitable, talkative, political, feminist, gentle, courteous yet courageous and fiercely compassionate -- she is Forster's vision of what a human being should be. Her love affair with the rude but attractive Henry Wilcox and the compromises it makes upon her charachter are painfully true and of her own making. On a purely human and non-academic level the novel is about Margaret's efforts to put into practice all the high minded things she believes. Incredibly, save but a few lapses, she rarely fails. In spite of the easy pacing of the book before its dramatic conclusion (a pregnancy, murder and imprisonment are rained down upon us in the closing chapters) the book is intense and satisfying. It has much to teach in the way of human relations and Margaret, in spite of her Edwardian mannerisms, could step from its pages and still be relevant. A classic read that can be read again and again -- and which should be attempted at least once.
Rating:
Summary: Classic novel.
Review: E.M. Forster is a master of prose. It is important to emphasize "prose" rather than language, because Forster, for all his lyricism, never confuses prose with poetry as so many novelists have done. At times, it's true, his sentences are a bit bogged down by metaphors, by "stars" and "Eternity" and all that. But he keeps it within the rhythms of fine prose. In this respect, as in others, Forster's main model is Jane Austen. He is also a culmination of the great Romantic tradition of the 19th century. Yet he paves the way for 20th century literature by traveling deeper into the human experience, with personal and social concerns that are thoroughly modern. While not a gay or feminist work, _Howards End_ is everywhere involved in these things. I won't give away the plot, but, to tempt you into reading the book, I will say that it is never boring-- sometimes nothing much happens, but Forster's lightness of touch, especially in dialogue, sweeps things along; and often many things do happen. Forster takes greater chances in this novel than he did in _Room With A View_, meaning a wider range of moods, more changes of perspective and location, and a plot that is almost Dickensian in its complexity. At times, I miss the comedic elegance of the former work, but Forster deals with serious issues in a way that is rarely, if ever, sentimental. Among these issues is the importance of roots, a home, of making a connection with people as well as places. But I will let you discover these wonders for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Howards End: tranquility or a curse for the worst?
Review: E.M. Forster's English characters as never before, exploring the underlying class warfare involving three distinct groups--a wealthy family bound by the rules of tradition and property, two independent, cultured sisters, and a young man living on the edge of poverty. The source of their conflict--Howards End, a house in the countryside which ultimately becomes a symbol of conflict within British society. The seemingly absured fight to gain Howards end, ends with a death, a leaving, and a bastard child.
Rating:
Summary: One of the all-time classics
Review: Forster's earliest fictional writings were short stories, many of them fantasies about men and women who wanted to escape, from the stuffy social milieu that hemmed them in - from a dry colourless world into an infinitely expanding one. In later works, Forster had them desperately seeking the freedom to respond to a higher call. This higher call was not religious in the conventional sense. E.M.Forster did not belong to any religion, and it is clear that his philosophy of life was man-centred, not God-centred. But personal development was important to him and he passionately believed that human beings need not stay stuck in groove but should be free to develop. Thus, what begins as a collection of seemingly unrelated events in Howards End gradually knits into a tightly woven story of tragic misunderstandings, impulsive actions, and irreparable consequences - and, eventually, "connection", though Forster leaves the reader free to interpret "connection" as he or she will. "Only connect!" beseeches Margaret Schlegel as she contemplates the state of her soul (and others'). Maybe it is best that we decide for ourselves what form this 'connection' should take. There are happy marriages in Forster's novels, but they do not come as the culmination of passionate love affairs. Forster himself was homosexual and, in view of the repressive climate of the time, decided to confine his less inhibited descriptions of sexual encounters to those between men in his novel Maurice and the later short stories which were not published till after his death. The first sexual incident in Howards End is a fumbled chaste kiss in a rose garden and the only other carnal exchange takes place offstage, its fruit coming as a bit of a surprise to the reader! The proposed marriage between Margaret and Henry is not so much the consummation of physical love but rather a device for bringing together the conflicting ideals of two families, the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes. Weaving its way through the story is the theme of balance, the need to integrate two essential qualities which tend to go to extremes. Margaret Schlegel, the central character, strives to integrate the opposing tendencies. As so often in Forster's work, it is not a question of one or the other, reason or emotion, prose or passion, the outer life or the inner life, but of finding a middle way between the two. The two families are forever contrasted, but the novelist's aim was to bring them together, to bridge the gulf. The Wilcoxes - all except Mrs Wilcox - are for the outer life of business and getting things done, the life, as Helen puts it, 'of telegrams and anger', while the Schlegels are for the inner life of refinement, through culture and personal relations. At the two extremes are Helen Schlegel on the one hand, and Henry Wilcox on the other. For Helen, the emotions and personal relations are everything. Speaking of them, she often echoes Keats famous phrase, 'the holiness of the heart's affections'. In complete contrast, Henry Wilcox says of himself: ''I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside'. Outwardly he was cheerful and brave: but within all had reverted to chaos'. The whole drama of the novel turns on the conflict between these opposites. Margaret's function is to strive to reconcile them, to bring about what seems an impossible union. She is the one to make the vital connection. 'Only connect...' is the famous epigraph of the novel. She has to 'build the rainbow bridge' as Forster puts it, between the prose and the passion, the prose of the Wilcoxes with the poetry of the Schlegels.. It's never easy reading a novel that was written almost 100 years ago. Sentence structures change. Word usage alters - sometimes imperceptibly other times more overtly. Yet Howards End, Forster's 1910 novel, has a timelessness that makes it good for another 100 years yet. And just like Fortser's other works (especially Passage to India), Howards End looks at class, nationality, economic status, and how each of these affects personal relationships. Read it with a sense of relief that, just maybe, things have not changed as much as we might imagine !
Rating: 
Summary: Class British Literature
Review: Forster's famous novel made the century's top 100. This is the story of the Schlegel family which consists of three young adults: Margaret, Helen and their effeminate brother Tibby. They are passionate for the arts and care about the poor. The Schlegel's befriend the Wilcox's. They are the opposite from the Schlegel's: they are extremely wealthy and scorn the poor. Through the course of the story Margaret becomes engaged to the widower Mr. Wilcox. They eventually marry, but Margaret realizes that Mr. Wilcox is not what he is all cracked up to be. He was an adulterer in his previous marriage and Margaret finds herself comprising her values and interests to please Mr. Wilcox and keep face. Tragedy accompanies the story when Helen and Margaret befriend Leonard Bast: a poor worker caught in a forced marriage. The Schlegel's try to help Leonard, but each time they do it ultimately makes matters worse for him. In addition, Mr. Wilcox is somewhat responsible for Leonard's problems (although Wilcox would never admit to it). Forster writes a story about the social classes and the problems between the rich and the poor. In addition, Forster mentions woman's rights. I did enjoy the book for the most part. Although, I was thrown off by the many disjointed events that took place. They do come together at the end of the book, though. Also, I had a bit of a hard time reading parts of it -- as the story tended to drift and lose focus. The book is worth reading, especially if you like British literature. Forster's descriptions of the English countryside also are well done and the characters are engaging.
Rating:
Summary: Multi-perspective analysis.
Review: Forster's splendid novel of middle-class Edwardian
England is presented here specifically for college
students, with supplementary material and critical
essays from the psychoanalytical, cultural, Marxist,
feminist, and deconstructionist perspectives.
The general reader will likely find the essays of
varying interest, with some surprises: Judith Weissman's Marxist
criticism is refreshingly free of the tired dogmatism
one might expect, and J. Hillis Miller's deconstructionist approach is not only readable, but interesting.
Well worthwhile book for anyone wishing to penetrate
further into the mysteries of Forster's work.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting
within Amazon's format. This reviewer does not
employ numerical ratings.
Rating:
Summary: A CLASSIC STORY OF GOOD INTENTIONS GONE AWRY
Review: Howard's End begins with a muddle and ends with a muddle - in between, characters from three distinct classes collide and all involved are forever changed. The independent, free thinking Schlegel sisters encounter Leonard Bast, a young man desperately trying to keep from falling into the abyss of poverty. They are determined to help him and pass on advice which they think is sound, but is actually a thoughtless comment, from a wealthy businessman, Henry Wilcox. When Leonard acts upon this information his situation is worsened greatly and the younger Schlegel determines to make things right. Henry's wife, Ruth, scribbles a death bed message bequeathing her family country house, Howard's End, to the elder Schlegel - someone she barely knew, but with whom she made a special connection. Ruth's message is dismissed by her family as a dying woman's delerious last words. This is the set up and it only gets better from here! Forster is a master at weaving complicated stories filled with emotion and irony where even small details can result in major consequences. His ability to create such fully formed characters makes the reader feel strongly about what happens to them. This is a fascinating and bittersweet story which rings true ninety years after it was written. I saw the brilliant Merchant/Ivory film before reading the book, so I was able to envision the characters and settings vividly - I often wonder how I would have felt if I had read the book first. I love this book and look forward to reading it a many more times in my life.
Rating:
Summary: One of 20 books I'd choose to take to a deserted isle
Review: Howard's End can be read again and again and again - and the reader comes away with something fresh each time. Like all of Forster's tales, it's concerned with the deep and petty differences in the various classes of English society, as well as economics and education, and how these issues come to affect personal relationships. Set in the early 20th century, Howard's End follows the two Schlegel sisters. Margaret, the elder, rather suddenly finds herself engaged, then married to Mr. Wilcox, a much older widower, a rather superficial and bombastic English gentleman. Meanwhile, her sister, Helen, becomes involved in politics, good works, and the attempted salvation of Leonard Bast, an impoverished clerk and intellectual. The ownership of Howard's End, the country estate of the late Mrs. Wilcox, becomes central to the story; the wrangling this bequest causes is a metaphor for the class struggles that weave like tangled braids throughout the whole of the book. The tragedy chronicled in the book is seen to have resulted from chance encounters, foolish pride, and petty misunderstandings.
A deeply sad and beautiful book.
Rating:
Summary: Praising the beauty of Howards End.
Review: Howard's End is a book of supreme beauty. Forster has matered the subtelty of the English language and conveys his understanding of aural appeal in every sentence. Howard's End goes much further than merely examining the class strucutre of England. Forster probes into the nature of human existence and human love. He ventures intrepidly into the realm of the unseen, and the spiritual. And, produces a book of the utmost lyrical continuity and depth.
Rating:
Summary: Almost the best English novel ever
Review: Howards End is a literary masterpiece of the "chick-book" genre. The plot moves very slowly, especially in the first half, and is largely subservient to the subtle shifts in relationships between the characters, whose thoughts and feelings are often examined in depth. Without spoiling any surprises, Margaret and Helen Schlegel are two independent young women in pre-war Britain whose lives are thrown into turmoil by a series of seemingly random interactions with the very wealthy and very conservative Wilcox family. After a very brief tryst with one of the Wilcox brothers (during which Mrs. Munt provides some welcome comic relief) the sisters are stunned to find the Wilcoxes moving into their neighborhood. A friendship develops between Margaret and Mrs. Wilcox, which though short, has long-lasting consequences. In the second half of the book, Margaret is faced with the task of reconciling her flighty liberal-minded sister Helen with the very practical down-to-earth conservatism of Henry Wilcox. It's only fair to point out that many men will find this novel melancholy and occasionally downright insipid. The relationship between Margaret and her prospective husband is utterly lacking in warmth or even in humanity, and his decision about the disposition of the house around the middle of the book is so contemptible that one just wants him to go away. Indeed none of the male characters are the least bit admirable, and only the hapless Leonard Bast is even sympathetic. The obsession with a sense of place that is at this novel's core is neither sufficiently enchanting nor adequately believable. And the final resolution has been roundly criticized by feminists who see the once-proud sisters settling into exactly the sort of lives that they hadn't wanted for themselves. It's true that Margaret is able to convince her husband of the importance of the "inner life", but only at the price of his virtual destruction, leaving her, like Helen, caring for a helpless infant. As to Forster's famous aphorism "only connect", the only characters who really unite on a spiritual level are Margaret and a woman who dies fairly early on in the story. But for most women, this is one of the finest books in the literary canon. Forster's language is superb, and his insight into the female mind is impressive, but what really sets this novel apart is its excursions into the philosophical concerns of modern society. What responsibilities do the rich have to the poor, and how should these responsibilities best be discharged? How do personal relationships fit into the context of a social order that needs leaders, builders, and entrepreneurs? Is the unexamined life really not worth living, or does self-analysis too often result in dilettantism and paralysis? Forster not only raises these questions, but debates them at some length, making this book a perfect choice for an English class or a book discussion group. Guys, feel free to skip this one, although you can always give it to your mother. She'll love it.
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