Maurice: A Novel
Registered by 
GoryDetails
of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 7/13/2006
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 7/13/2006 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I read the book some years back and enjoyed it - and I also liked the 1987 film version by James Ivory, which was among the more faithful book-to-film adaptations I've ever seen. [The young Rupert Graves was stunning as Alec, the gamekeeper, which didn't hurt!] I picked up this copy (different cover than shown - the movie tie-in cover, in fact) a few years back, and now find that I've got two copies so I can release one...
The story combines the coming-of-age of Maurice, a (rather stuffy and complacent, at first) young upper-middle-class fellow, and his eventual realization that he's gay - or, as he puts it, "an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort". His first love, Clive, a fellow student at Cambridge, denies the physical side of their affection and insists that they should put all that behind them once they're grown, but while Clive eventually marries and claims to be content, Maurice can't deny his own nature - though he gives it a good try, visiting doctors and so forth. When he meets the lusty young gamekeeper Alec, his resolve crumbles, and... well, the novel ends in a way that's highly satisfying to the reader, if not perhaps quite believable for that time and place. [There's a "Terminal Note" here from Forster himself, written in 1960!, explaining some of the background of the story - very interesting!]
The TV Tropes page for the novel and film has some entertaining entries.
The story combines the coming-of-age of Maurice, a (rather stuffy and complacent, at first) young upper-middle-class fellow, and his eventual realization that he's gay - or, as he puts it, "an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort". His first love, Clive, a fellow student at Cambridge, denies the physical side of their affection and insists that they should put all that behind them once they're grown, but while Clive eventually marries and claims to be content, Maurice can't deny his own nature - though he gives it a good try, visiting doctors and so forth. When he meets the lusty young gamekeeper Alec, his resolve crumbles, and... well, the novel ends in a way that's highly satisfying to the reader, if not perhaps quite believable for that time and place. [There's a "Terminal Note" here from Forster himself, written in 1960!, explaining some of the background of the story - very interesting!]
The TV Tropes page for the novel and film has some entertaining entries.
