Author: E.M. Forster
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: 2005 (1971)
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Genre: Modern Classics
Source: Bought Copy
Maurice Hall is a young man who grows up confident in his privileged status and well aware of his role in society. Modest and generally conformist, he nevertheless finds himself increasingly attracted to his own sex. Through Clive, whom he encounters at Cambridge, and through Alec, the gamekeeper on Clive's country estate, Maurice gradually experiences a profound emotional and sexual awakening. A tale of passion, bravery and defiance, this intensely personal novel was completed in 1914 but remained unpublished until after Forster's death in 1970. Compellingly honest and beautifully written, it offers a powerful condemnation of the repressive attitudes of British society, and is at once a moving love story and an intimate tale of one man's erotic and political self-discovery.
I loved Maurice from start to finish. In this work, Forster offers us a tantalising glimpse of the life of a gay man in Edwardian England. Any sex happens off-page; however, the book oozes sensuality. I was right there with Maurice as he navigated his way through two very different relationships, both of which deeply affected his sense of self. I have enjoyed all of Forster's works that I have read so far, but I have to say, I think Maurice is my favourite, both for its theme and its prose style, which is less dense than some of Forster's other writing. It's a book that will definitely stay with one, and one I hope I will also reread in the future.
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