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Journal Entry 1 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Monday, April 16, 2007
 Howards End tells the story of three families, the Schlegels, the Wilcoxes and the Basts, each of which represent different tiers of the early 20th century English middle class. The Wilcoxes are business oriented and economically comfortable, while the Schlegels -- nearly as well off as the Wilcoxes -- are more concerned with ethical, cultural and psychological issues than with the commercial world. Twenty-something year old Leonard Bast, a clerk struggling to better himself through exposure to literature and the arts, represents the lowest rung of the middle class. The poor (as Forster himself tells us early in the novel) are invisible in the pages of Howards End -- they dwell in an "abyss" which is unknowable to families like the Wilcoxes and the Schlegels, who catch only occasional whiffs of that reality and when they do so, turn away.
Howards End is all about dualities: England vs. Germany, the Wilcox's "outer life of telegrams and anger" contrasted with the Schlegel's fixation on the inner "I"; Henry Wilcox's preoccupation with "concentration" contrasted with Margaret Schlegel's equal preoccupation with "connection"; the relative emancipation of Margaret and Helen Schlegel contrasted with the domestic containment of the Wilcox women; the city versus the country; permanence vs. mobility; sexual authenticity vs. artifice; and on it goes. Howards End itself (reportedly based on Forster's childhood home of "Rooksnest", see top left), a house in the Hertfordshire village of Hinton which has been owned by Ruth Wilcox's family for generations, represents rural permanence, a connection with nature, the land and the inner spirit, and -- some critics say -- England itself. Or England as it was (in 1908 - 1910, when Forster was writing the novel), not as it was becoming.
Throughout the novel the signs of urban "progress" are everywhere: in the demolition of Wickham Place, the Schlegel's London home, to make room for an apartment building, and in a rusty streak on the horizon as seen from the village of Hinton. The Wilcoxes embrace such progress together with the mobility it brings (they are constantly moving house), while Mrs. Wilcox, and Margaret and Helen Schlegel, resist it.
Critics say that the central theme in Howards End is "who will inherit England", that is, which faction of the middle class as it existed in 1910. The novel's conclusion posits an interesting answer to this question -- that England as it was in 1910 would be somehow transferred from the control of the upper middle class into the hands of a more eclectic, soulful and culturally diverse amalgam of classes and cultures. It's not my sense that this prediction has come true, though some may continue to wish it would. In the meantime, the abyss remains as a larger unknowable reality.
(Top left: "Rooksnest", E.M. Forster's childhood home in Stevenage, England.)
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Journal Entry 2 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Cast of Characters: The Schlegel Family - Margaret "Meg" Schlegel: at twenty-nine the eldest of the three Schlegel children, she was thirteen when her mother (Emily) died and eighteen when she lost her German father (Ernest). Continues to live with her siblings in the family home at Wickham Place, London.
- Helen Schlegel: the middle of the three Schlegel children, twenty-one year old Helen was five when her mother died, and ten when her father died. Lives with her sister and brother in a house in Wickham Place, London. Prettier than Margaret, but also prone to excessive and dramatic behavior, Helen was briefly engaged to Paul Wilcox.
- Theobald "Tibby" Schlegel: the youngest of the three Schlegel children at sixteen, his mother died giving birth to him and his father died when he was five. Suffers from hayfever. Lives with his sisters in a house in Wickham Place, London.
- Aunt Juley Munt:
- Frieda Mosebach: the Schlegel sisters' cousin.
The Wilcox Family - Henry Wilcox:
- Mrs. Ruth Wilcox: fifty-one years old and born at Howards End in the village of Hilton, Hertfordshire. She and her family take a flat in London in an apartment building across the street from Wickham Place where the Schlegels live. Vague, ethereal and unpredictable, when she dies in the first half of the novel, Mrs. Wilcox leaves Howards End to her new friend Margaret Schlegel, although Margaret isn't told of this fact. Mrs. Wilcox is a very different character from her husband and children, replacing their materialistic hard-headedness with a kind of selfless, loving sensitivity to those around her.
- Charles Wilcox: first encountered by Aunt Juley when she visits Howards End to investigate the engagement of her niece Helen to Paul Wilcox (for whom she mistakes Charles). Early in the novel Charles marries Dolly Fussell.
- Dolly Fussell Wilcox: Charles' annoying young wife.
- Paul Wilcox: briefly engaged to Helen Schlegel, early in the novel he travels to Nigeria to make his fortune.
- Evie Wilcox: Henry's youngest daughter.
The Basts - Leonard Bast: just shy of his twenty-first birthday (he'll turn twenty-one next November 11th), Meg and Helen meet him at a concert when Helen inadvertently makes off with his umbrella. Bast's relative poverty is evident from his agitated response to the loss of his umbrella, and he declines a lunch invitation with the Schlegels. Bast lives with his thirty-three year old girlfriend Jacky in a furnished flat on Camelia Road. He has promised to marry Jacky just as soon as he turns "of age", and in the meantime is self-consciously improving himself through exposure to literature and the arts.
- Jacky: thirty-three years old, lives with Leonard Bast at the beginning of the novel and is married to him when he reaches the age of majority. It turns out Jacky (who it's hinted may have been a prostitute in earlier life) had an affair with Henry Wilcox in Cyprus.
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Journal Entry 3 by goatgrrl at Starbucks @ Cherry Lane in Penticton, British Columbia Canada on Monday, June 18, 2007
Released 4 yrs ago (6/19/2007 UTC) at Starbucks @ Cherry Lane in Penticton, British Columbia Canada WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
I'll be leaving this book, along with a copy of On Beauty (a modern day re-telling of the same story) at the Starbucks at Cherry Lane mall, around 10 am Tuesday morning. Best wishes and happy reading to whomever picks it up.
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Howards End
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
