Reading Roundup, March 2023

[phantomtomato]

I finished my smut4smut fic early this week, leaving me some time to read/watch a bit. The bedside pile has grown too tall to remain tenable, so any progress is good.

I did not finish The Loom of Youth by Alec Waugh. I was disappointed by this! It’s one of the novels I’ve had on my to-read list for a while, so I’d built up the anticipation for a slightly more critical public school novel, especially after reading The Hill with all of its blind praise. Unfortunately, Loom was written by a seventeen-year-old and feels it. The characters are underdeveloped and forgettable, the plot, if it exists, is meandering, and I just could not make myself pick it up again after hitting 50%. All of that controversy over the implication of homosexuality—I wonder, why did this cause a sensation when David Blaize, a year earlier, had not? I suppose it’s down to Blaize treating it as a sin to be overcome rather than a mundane reality of school life, but really, unless something wild happens in the second half, Loom was unimpressive either as a standalone story or a reaction to the wider genre of public school literature. I’ve got one last public school novel to try before giving the genre a break. See you in a few weeks, hopefully, to talk about Feversham’s Fag.

I did finish Maurice by E. M. Forster. I’d gotten about a quarter in, forgotten about it, and then read the remaining three-quarters in two days. It’s extremely readable! And the prose is gorgeous, there are so many clever lines to enjoy. This is one of those books with a whole mythology around it, and not purely of the “popular on tumblr” variety—when I read Christopher and His Kind last year, I got to see Isherwood wax on about Forster’s genius and the special privilege of having been shown the Maurice manuscript. But Isherwood gave me what would prove to be the most useful warning: he said something like, Maurice was good because it so clearly expressed something of Forster’s emotional truth, but it was not good compared to Forster’s other work. Which is probably typically Isherwood, he’s rude (and it’s amusing), but… yeah. He was also correct.


I think what I struggled with most in Maurice is that Maurice is not the type of character that I like. In the end note, Forster acknowledges that Maurice was specifically written as a bit of a dunce. Maurice is also awful to his sisters and mother, who seem like perfectly reasonable people—there’s no sensible justification for why he’s rude and dismissive and mean. Forster’s descriptions of how Maurice feels love, around the midpoint when he’s breaking up with his first boyfriend, almost make me like him. But that’s really just Forster’s prose, not the character himself, and Maurice doesn’t have the personality to ruminate on those feelings in a way that would endear me to him. Bah. This is a real downer part of the late-Victorian/Edwardian era novels I’ve read, unfortunately; the ideal protagonist seems to have been a sort of golden-retriever type of man who thinks relatively little but feels and acts in big, demonstrative ways. It’s just not for me.

However, also true to my experiences of the form, there’s a delightful antagonist in Clive, Maurice’s first love interest/the boyfriend behind that break-up. Clive is fantastic! His internality is precisely the sort of self-denying repression that I fall for every single time. Forster gives us so many wonderful Clive-POV chapters in which to really appreciate his perspective on the love affair, and especially on its breakdown. While Maurice is being nasty to his sister, Clive is telling himself that he’s become normal and is only attracted to women now. It is completely unbelievable, especially when we get the description of his flaccid sex life with his new wife. “They never see each other naked,” we learn, like that’s a normal way for a man attracted to his wife to behave. Clive is that type of neurotic character who lets his fear of action/commitment chase him into hiding, and each sentence drips with justifications for what seems like a deeply unsatisfying life. Yes, yes, you’re doing such a wonderful job of platonically appreciating your friend-slash-former-lover. No, burying yourself in a profession you once disdained doesn’t reek of avoidance and compensation at all. You’re doing so well, love! Keep at!

I adore Clive.

But the final leg of the novel is so occupied with him, and with Maurice getting over him, that it hampers what should be the happy second love affair between Maurice and the working-class Alec. And this specific version of class differences is not my preference at all; Alec gets the literal transcription of an accent treatment, he attempts to extort Maurice for like half of his existence on the page, and the entire start to Maurice/Alec is hokey nonsense. This also all happens in the last third of the book, while Clive is still around because Alec is Clive’s gamekeeper, and the result is a very flat romance between two fairly uninteresting characters. I appreciate that it is a happy ending for a gay couple! It’s just not a romance that I liked, so I am not moved by the happy ending.


And then of course I watched the movie adaptation of Maurice—the original cut, not the one with deleted scenes. I’m not a deleted-scenes sort of person.


The movie had nice costuming and lovely settings, but I didn’t really enjoy it (on its own, separate from the issues I raised with the story above).

• The movie adds in a public indecency trial/conviction for a side character so as to explain why Clive withdrew from his relationship with Maurice, which in the book had been explained by the aforementioned “I’m normal now” assertion. I like this much less! I preferred the introspective messiness of Clive deciding for himself that he must fall out of love, because he couldn’t contemplate actually living his adult life in the rejection of social norms that he espoused as a university student. “Remember, homosexuality was illegal” is just such a heavy-handed replacement for that, imo.


• The kissing and the fighting was so stiff and awkward. Uh. I did not expect this, every social media post I’ve seen about this film mentions loving these scenes, but they felt like they were being acted for the stage and I hated it! If the camera is right there with the actors, I don’t need or want big gestures. The result felt unconvincing and took me right out. I think the only bit of affection that I bought was a look that Maurice gives Alec when they’re playing cricket, which was notably not physical contact.

Also just, like. Clive didn’t get any POV moments. We hear letters narrated by Maurice and Alec and they get some dialogue adapted from what had been internal thoughts, but Clive is confined to his dialogue lines from the book. I’m sure it was meant to make him more clearly serve as the antagonist and to downplay his romance versus Alec’s, but boo. The movie also sort of implies Maurice and Clive never had sex, when as far as I can tell that is not the intention of the novel.

Comments

[edwardianspinsteraunt]

Oh, it's a shame that Loom turned out to be a dud, and nowhere near as incendiary or candid as most writing on public school literature would have you believe! I shan't be perusing it more closely, then.

I read Maurice when I was eighteen, and I remember similarly loving Clive and being unconvinced and underwhelmed by Maurice/Alec. It feels so like an iddy wish-fulfilment fantasy of Forster's, and, like, that makes sense given the context of the times and his own relationship with his sexuality, but the Clive storyline is just so much more compelling!

[yourlibrarian]

I've only ever seen the movie, which was ok but I didn't love it. It's interesting to read your comparisons to the novel.

[phantomtomato]

Thank you! Yes, the movie is understandably on more people’s radar than the book, and with good reason, as it is a well-made movie! If I liked the story more overall I would have been a fan. As it was, the closest I come to really loving Maurice is all exclusive to the novel.

[phantomtomato]

Yes, Loom wasn’t what I had been hoping for, but I’m glad to save you (and myself) some time.

“Iddy wish-fulfillment fantasy” is exactly the correct takeaway, ha. Not my id, though! Which I had hoped for it to be, since I do love commentaries on social class, but Alec just wasn’t a full enough character to appreciate. (And Maurice is a sack of bricks.) I’m now scrounging AO3 for Clive fic in order to get my fix of him, since Forster didn’t want to do it!

[regshoe]

I agree with a lot of your thoughts on Maurice! Especially the beauty of Forster's writing about Maurice's feelings vs. Maurice's actual likeability as a character, and the frustrating under-development of Maurice/Alec. I think the gay happy ending is far more satisfying for its cultural significance than for what it is in itself. And oh dear, Clive... Have you read Forster's The Longest Journey? I might recommend it (tentatively, because it's a really weird book, but it is my favourite)—it's not textually queer but it is heavily subtextual, and while the main character doesn't have Clive's explicit self-awareness I like him for a lot of the same reasons I like Clive.

Also agree about the clumsy heavy-handedness of the film introducing the Risley trial as an explanation, although I suppose Clive's introspection wouldn't have worked so well on screen. I did get the impression from the book that Clive and Maurice's relationship was not sexual, but it's been a while, perhaps I misinterpreted it.

[phantomtomato]

It’s really incredible how Forster can make one feel so deeply about the experience of loving and losing, all while bundling that narrative up in a character who is not compellingly engaging with these thoughts.

I have not read The Longest Journey, but I unexpectedly blew through Fevershame’s Fag tonight and so I’ll pick it up next! Weirdness noted, and if there are any specifics of the weirdness that might be a helpful warning then I’m open to hearing them. Clive-style characters are my favorite, so I will happily chase them where they appear.

I’m a huge fan of introspective, slow-paced films, and I think there’s a version of Maurice which could have done Clive’s book storyline well—but I think that adaptation would have needed to let Clive be the subject, not the object, and it’s reasonable that Merchant and Ivory put their energy into developing Maurice/Alec over that. It isn’t Clive’s story, as much as I want it to be!

Also, I’ll admit I might be bringing too modern a lens to the book discussion of Clive/Maurice (or reading the gaps as though they’re from a Renault novel). I read their final night together in bed, wherein Clive keeps his distance, as one of those fraught farewells showing that Things Have Changed and while once they might have touched or been intimate, now they were strangers. But, again, this might be more “possible to read into the novel” than “Forster’s intention.”

[regshoe]

I have not read The Longest Journey, but I unexpectedly blew through Fevershame’s Fag tonight and so I’ll pick it up next! Weirdness noted, and if there are any specifics of the weirdness that might be a helpful warning then I’m open to hearing them.

I hope you enjoy it! As for potentially helpful warnings—there is a lot of character death, and some ableism (in the context of drawing implicit parallels between physical disability and homosexuality—so the bad ideas are not necessarily endorsed, but they are dwelt upon and it's very much using the ideas of the time). Mostly what I meant by weirdness is that the story is meandering and in some ways doesn't really go anywhere and in some ways that's the point, it's kind of self-absorbed, and there are a lot of more or less obscure philosophical, literary and musical references discussed at some length. Anyway, I'll be interested to hear what you make of it!

I read their final night together in bed, wherein Clive keeps his distance, as one of those fraught farewells showing that Things Have Changed and while once they might have touched or been intimate, now they were strangers.

Yeah, I see—I had thought that Clive stuck to his ideas about Plato, but flipping through the book now there's less of that stuff in the Maurice/Clive bits than I expected, and perhaps I'm remembering the film. There are certainly gaps, and I can understand reading them like a Renault novel :D (Well, Renault's actual Ancient Greek characters who follow Socrates himself don't necessarily carry out his ideas about Platonic love, I suppose...)

[myhaus_spaeter]

It's really interesting to hear your thoughts on this! Thanks for sharing! Clive is quite a fascinating character! I am intrigued by your impression that the novel suggests that Clive and Maurice had sex (!). I read the novel around a year ago and came away with the impression that Clive had rejected Maurice's advances and that Maurice's first night with Alec had been his first time. Please share which (between the) lines / passages could be interpreted as suggesting Clive/Maurice consummation (!!!)

[myhaus_spaeter]

returning to this comment to add that I've always thought of Clive in the second half of the book as the sort of person that Laurie would have eventually become had he not been reunited with Ralph. The way Clive eventually ruminated his way (with the help of The Phaedrus) into being "normal" is very reminiscent of Laurie thinking his way into denial and unhappiness :((((

[phantomtomato]

Ah, thanks so much for popping over to DW! I thought you might have read Maruice, so I'm really excited to hear from you. :)

I had to get up a bit early this morning anyway and took a stroll back through those critical Maurice/Clive chapters to pick out some quotes for comment. And again, disclaimer that this is all just how it hits me; I have no special expertise in Forster or his writing. But if I were to do a fic that touched on this part of Clive's life, I would feel pretty comfortable stating that they had had some sort of sex, based on these.

Chapter 16:

"We’re up this staircase by ourselves." - Clive says to Maurice, which sounds like an invitation to fooling around if ever I've heard one. This implication comes back up later (though I didn't look for a chapter reference) when Alec and Simcox make obvious that there's been downstairs chatter about how Clive and Maurice used to behave at Penge. Something must have transpired beyond conversation for that sort of blackmail/insinuation to land, imo.

“I'm a bit of an outlaw, I grant, but it serves these people right. As long as they talk of the unspeakable vice of the Greeks they can't expect fair play. It served my mother right when I slipped up to kiss you before dinner. She would have no mercy if she knew, she wouldn't attempt, wouldn't want to attempt to understand that I feel to you as Pippa to her fiance, only far more nobly, far more deeply, body and soul, no starved medievalism of course, only a—a particular harmony of body and soul that I don't think women have even guessed. But you know.” - Even when Clive talks about the Greeks here he gets all mixed up in the physical act, mentioning the body and connections of the body, and discussing the "unspeakable vice" as though he disapproves of that designation.

“If you introduce the human figure you at once arouse either disgust or desire. Very faintly sometimes, but it's there.” - Sorry, I just adore Clive's internalized homophobia here. He's definitely admitting that he's sexually attracted to Maurice (and also that he cannot emotionally handle that at all lol).

Chapter 18:

“During the next two years Maurice and Clive had as much happiness as men under that star can expect. They were affectionate and consistent by nature, and, thanks to Clive, extremely sensible. Clive knew that ecstasy cannot last, but can carve a channel for something lasting, and he contrived a relation that proved permanent. If Maurice made love it was Clive who preserved it, and caused its rivers to water the garden. He could not bear that one drop should be wasted, either in bitterness or in sentimentality, and as time went on they abstained from avowals ("we have said everything") and almost from caresses.” - A few things here: the use of the phrase "made love," which Alec also uses towards the end of the novel explicitly to mean sex; "almost" from caresses, which says as well as anything that caresses still happened; the way that time is flowing towards a less-physical relationship, hinting that there was some higher degree of physical affection to move away from.

Chapter 19:

“But every Wednesday he slept at Clive's little flat in town. Weekends were also inviolable. They said at home, 'You must never interfere with Maurice's Wednesdays or with his weekends. He would be most annoyed.'” - Well, every Wednesday and weekend certainly is a lot of time for fucking!

And ofc, the passage about the separation in a shared bed that I mentioned in a comment above, which also reads like it's indicating a change in status. I just took the whole of that romantic affair as one which was romantic during those first two terms of friendship at Cambridge, was consummated during the initial visit to Penge, and continued to be physical through their two years of closeness (Cambridge + travel) and the couple of years of friendship following that but in a declining fashion, as Clive began to focus more on his "family duty" and they grew apart. Their breakup felt entirely natural to me anyway, with the illness being a forced period of distance which allowed Clive to see it as both necessary and possible. They had so little in common other than being gay. Then of course I read Clive's assertions of normality as him lying to himself, but give the man a few years to recognize that, you know? He's rebounding and trying to change his life after a very bad breakup, he hasn't got any clarity. The unspeakable vice of the Greeks probably holds appeal to him again when he's rounding 30, self-hating as he will be about it.

Anyway this is probably much longer than you really wanted haha. But I really adore Clive, he's sort of a perfect character for me, and goodness knows that if I get an excuse to write him, I will write him fucking.

I do take your point re: Laurie, as well—Laurie has so much of that same willful self-denial, and the way he behaves around Nurse Adrian is not dissimilar from what Clive probably did with Anne (or, indeed, with the female nurse who got him through his sickness! Poor English nurses, man; what's a woman got to do to avoid becoming a repressed gay man's escape to "normality" in 20th c. England?). I respect that Laurie didn't actually go through with any sham marriage!

[myhaus_spaeter]

Thank you so much for digging through the book and sharing your reading of those passages! I’d interpreted those references to caresses and love-making as non-sexual but intimate physical affection, “sensibly” avoiding sex due to Clive’s unwillingness to cross certain personal boundaries. But I can see the other interpretations, now that you’ve brought it to my attention 👀
Reading Clive’s journey as a slow process towards weaning off sex is really interesting. Perhaps it isn’t all driven by his internalized homophobia and repression? Maybe he begins to believe he could be “normal” because he has gradually lost sexual interest in Maurice as they grew apart? Maybe this (quite natural and understandable) growing apart from his first and only boyfriend is the “evidence” he needed to convince himself that this is all just a phase? I like your observation that the only thing they have in common is being gay lol. Like, Clive honey, you’re still gay —you just haven’t met the right guy yet 😂

[myhaus_spaeter]

And re: nurses: now that you mention it, it’s actually surprising how “straight” Nurse Adrian seems in TC, since in Renault’s other two hospital romances (Purposes of Love, Return to Night), the main couple has been: ambiguously bisexual nurse / female doctor and ambiguously bisexual male doctor / actor “escape” queerness by falling into each other’s arms 🤣 (not a lavender marriage per se, but it reads like a lavender romance? If that makes any sense?)

[myhaus_spaeter]

I would not recommend reading Purposes of Love for enjoyment, but speaking of fleeing into heterosexuality after a breakup: in that novel, when the main couple gets together, the protagonist Vivian had just broken off a casual lesbian relationship with one of her fellow nurses, and the male love interest Mic had just been dumped by Vivian’s brother…

[phantomtomato]

Yeah, I can understand your reading! To get into the gritty details, I think it’s unlikely that Clive and Maurice had penetrative sex—but consummation by some other means feels entirely within the range of possibility, and still plenty scandalous so as to fuel years of servant gossip.

And yes, I totally agree with you that Clive is either misreading or willfully misinterpreting the end of a relationship. That’s where I think the internalized homophobia comes in most strongly, tbh: “Oh, I’m not attracted to my boyfriend anymore and I can’t imagine falling in love with any other man (that’s scary), so I must be straight now!” It’s all there in how Clive describes the feeling of flirting with women for the first time—he likes that they’re openly responsive to him, he feels validated as a person, this must be the same as sexual interest in women! (It isn’t, sweetheart, but I love you so much for trying.) I just really love breakup narratives, and this is a very good one, because it’s so clear that these two characters don’t belong together. But I also really want to make Clive work with someone else—maybe Frank Maddox from David Blaize. ;)

[myhaus_spaeter]

Apologies for the late reply! I am intrigued by the idea of Clive dating Frank! They can bond over their experience in dating golden retrievers 😂
I actually imagined more of a new money type for Clive’s next beau. See, I thought it was interesting how Clive knew that marrying into (new) money would make it easier to save his ancestral home & fund a political career. Maurice’s sister, or someone of her class, made sense. But after the disaster with Maurice’s sister, he ends up marrying another impoverished aristocrat, perhaps subconsciously out of a desire to make things harder for himself. But I see him being perpetually drawn to men like Maurice in the future, for both financial and personal reasons. He has “legitimate”, public reasons to court the favors of industrialists and financiers (and their sons), which also opens up opportunity for more ~personal~ involvement 😏