Revisiting a Favorite Book

The 2002 film adaption of "Howards End"

"Dearest Meg,

It isn't going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and altogether delightful -- red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is, and the dear knows what will happen when Paul arrives tomorrow. From hall you go right or left into dining-room or drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room. You open another door in it, and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the first floor. Three bedrooms in a row there, and three attics in a row above. That isn't all the house really, but it's all that one notices -- nine windows as you look up from the front garden."  E. M. Forster, Howards End

Howards End by E.M. Forster is one of those books I reread every year or so. It feels like an old friend. Each time I read it I discover some new pearl of wisdom. I picked it up over the summer and read it in a few days. I wondered what made me pull it down this time.

Maybe it's because I have been spending a lot of time at home and this book is very much about the love of a house.

"You are coming to sleep, dear, too. It is in the morning that my house is most beautiful. I cannot show you my meadow properly except at sunrise."

Maybe it's because it was summer and the roses were blooming. Dog-roses play a prominent role on the old brick walls of Howards End.

"The dog-roses are too sweet. There is a great hedge of them over the lawn -- magnificently tall, so that they fall down in garlands, and nice and thin at the bottom, so that you can see ducks through it and a cow."


It could be because I went to England and Scotland in June. We took a train from London to Edinburgh and this book celebrates the romance of train travel.

"Like many others who have lived in a great capital, she had strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return. In Paddington all Cornwall is latent and the remoter west; down the inclines of Liverpool Street lie fenlands and the illimitable Broads; Scotland is through the pylons of Euston; Wessex behind the poised chaos of Waterloo...And he is a chilly Londoner who does not endow his stations with some personality, and extend to them, however shyly, the emotions of fear and love."

It may be that I am craving the kinds of discussions that Margaret and Helen Schlegel host at their London home. My book club's Christmas tea is always so much fun.

"The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they were both full of the same subject there were few dinner parties that could stand up against them. This particular one, which was all ladies, had more kick in it than most, but succumbed after a struggle...The dinner party was really an informal discussion club; there was a paper after it, read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room, but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some topic of general interest."

It could be because Margaret and Helen Schlegel are two of my favorite heroines. I read Jane Austen in the spring and noticed the trend of sisters with different temperaments appearing in so many classic books. The Schlegel sisters and the Dashwood sisters are probably my two favorite sister acts.

"Helen advanced along the same lines, though with a more irresponsible tread. In character she resembled her sister, but she was pretty, and so apt to have a more amusing time. People gathered round her more readily, especially when they were new acquaintances, and she did enjoy a little homage very much. When their father died and they ruled alone at Wickham Place, she often absorbed the whole of the company, while Margaret -- both were tremendous talkers -- fell flat. Neither sister bothered about this, Helen never apologized afterwards, Margaret did not feel the slightest rancour..." 

Of course it may be the Beethoven concert scene, one of my favorites (especially in the beautiful film adaptation of the book). We booked tickets for a Beethoven concert at the Disney Hall in October.

Photo via here

"It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that ever penetrated the ear of man."

But it is probably because Howards End is a classic and classics never go out of style. You can reread them and see something new each time, as well as savor the beauty and universal truths that you already knew were there.

Happy reading. What classic book do you like to revisit?

P.S. I was sad to read about the passing of E.M. Forster's biographer P.N. Furbank last summer. Many years ago when I was just starting out as a freelance book reviewer, one of my first assignments was to review Furbank's landmark biography of Forster for the San Francisco Review of Books. I'll never forget how excited I was to get that job. It was the moment I fell in love with E.M. Forster and his books.