Cheap Where Angels Fear to Tread (Book) (E.M. FORSTER) Price

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Customer Reviews of Where Angels Fear to Tread

another winner by Forster
It's Italy. Older English woman falls in love with young Italian stud. They marry and have a baby. English woman's relatives disapprove of the match and kidnap baby to be brought up "properly" in England. But terrible storm. Carriage flips over. Baby dies. Forgive me if it looks like I'm trying to be too clever or curt. Seriously speaking, if you really enjoyed "A Room With A View", you'll enjoy this novel as well.

David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness"

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A Madame Butterfly type theme with a twist
Forester brought his characters to life, however the plot development and character contrast development was a bit lacking. I didnft quite accept the growth, I didn't quite feel swept over with the scenes, but it kept my interest going steadly none the less. It was another shaming story of the English speaking peoplefs mores and morals, some of it justifiable, some not, not well balanced anyway. It was also the Madame Butterfly theme but in this case the English, not the Americans, are the ones shamed: the English see life as a spectacle, view it from the third person, are prejudiced, and value the intellect, with all its faults, over feeling.

Forester, in a letter included in the Penguin edition, claims he has a limited intellect or grasp of philosophy. I would have to agree with him. He states, however, that there is another intangible quality that he brings to his writing, unique, another voice; I would agree with that to some extent, at least the method of delivery being so dialogue heavy, and it was fairly good, and the dialogue was mostly stupid, but then most of daily dialogue is stupid especially where intellect rules over feeling, and feeling and thoughts are not closely in harmony with the life one has chosen, and that seemed to be Forester's message, so something new might be jellying here and and he trys to show growth in this muck, although I didn't quite accept it. Byron said much the same thing about English mores and morals, and was much more passionate about it, eloquent, and brought more erudition to his views. Forester's effort is a minor contribution to literature.

If you like the humour in this novel you will probably also like Saki, HH Munro.

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Very British
This is a novel about character development. At the same time, the author enlightens the world of a few people. There is not so much story in this book; its strength lies elsewhere. However, having read Forster before, this novel made me a little bit disappointed. To me, the development of Philip is not thoroughly enough described. It does not seem so likely that such a development would occur, either. Philip goes from "blind" to "seeing". He does not take the world as is anymore, but thinks for himself. There is a chain of events that makes him develop, but the events in themselves are not so important. The other characters do not develop at all in my opinion. That is not to say that they are not complex; some are indeed, but they do not develop. Philip is naturally a complex character, too.

England is used to illustrate the world we already know, whereas Italy is used to illustrate "the foreign". This concept works today, still, although "the foreign" would probably have been moved further away. Irony is a big part of Forster's writing: anyone who "loves everything Italian" should laugh. Forster is very subtle here, too subtle in my opinion.

This is not to say that this is not a good book, but not as good as, for instance, A room with a view.