Howards End
HOWARDS END (E.M. Forster) - One Star
Howards End is now the fourth book to fail the 100-page test (After The Power and The Glory, A House for Mr. Biswas and American Pastoral).
Every book I start I insist upon reading at least 100 pages before giving it a rating. I figure that, if after 100 pages I still don't have the slightest interest in the story or the characters, I stop reading and give it a one-star rating. Sometimes I trudge through and read the whole novel anyway (Lolita, Under the Glacier).
Not this one. Mind-numbingly dull characters, a paper-thin (and boring) plot arc, some unusual story structure choices (why a whole chapter on Leonard Bast so early in the novel? I understand he becomes a major character later in the story, but he's a peripheral character in ONE SCENE in the first hundred pages: we do not need a chapter devoted to setting up his character that early in the novel), and some excessively florid writing are the four major flaws I had with the book.
That, and the first 100 pages was nothing but social faux pas and the awkwardness of cross-class relations in early twentieth century England. Which I'm sure was riveting at the time it was written, but now it's like trying to choke down drywall.
Howards End is now the fourth book to fail the 100-page test (After The Power and The Glory, A House for Mr. Biswas and American Pastoral).
Every book I start I insist upon reading at least 100 pages before giving it a rating. I figure that, if after 100 pages I still don't have the slightest interest in the story or the characters, I stop reading and give it a one-star rating. Sometimes I trudge through and read the whole novel anyway (Lolita, Under the Glacier).
Not this one. Mind-numbingly dull characters, a paper-thin (and boring) plot arc, some unusual story structure choices (why a whole chapter on Leonard Bast so early in the novel? I understand he becomes a major character later in the story, but he's a peripheral character in ONE SCENE in the first hundred pages: we do not need a chapter devoted to setting up his character that early in the novel), and some excessively florid writing are the four major flaws I had with the book.
That, and the first 100 pages was nothing but social faux pas and the awkwardness of cross-class relations in early twentieth century England. Which I'm sure was riveting at the time it was written, but now it's like trying to choke down drywall.
posted by Kevin at 5:03 PM
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