E. M. Forster

A Novel

Maurice

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 A tale of passion, bravery and defiance, this intensely personal novel was completed in 1914 but remained unpublished until after Forster's death in 1970.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.

aybüke

After all, is not a real Hell better than a manufactured Heaven?

He hadn’t a God, he hadn’t a lover—the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease, because dignity demanded it. There was no one to watch him, nor did he watch himself, but struggles like his are the supreme achievements of humanity, and surpass any legends about Heaven. No reward awaited him. This work, like much that had gone before, was to fall ruining.

“...Ada has been telling me that you thought I was going to die. Why on earth do you worry about my health? There’s no fear. I shan’t ever have so clean and clear an experience as death.”

“I know I shall die some time and I don’t want to, nor you to. If either of us goes, nothing’s left for both. I don’t know if you call that clean and clear?”

“Then I’d rather be dirty,” said Maurice, after a pause. Clive shivered. “Don’t you agree?”

“Oh, you’re getting like everyone else. You will have a theory. We can’t go quietly ahead, we must always be formulating, though every formula breaks down. ‘Dirt at all costs’ is to be yours. I say there are cases when one gets too dirty. Then Lethe, if there is such a river, will wash it away. But there may not be such a river. The Greeks assumed little enough, yet too much perhaps. There may be no forgetfulness beyond the grave. This wretched equipment may continue. In other words, beyond the grave there may be Hell.”

“You care for me a little bit, I do think,” he admitted, “but I can’t hang all my life on a little bit. You don’t. You hang yours on Anne. You don’t worry whether your relation with her is platonic or not, you only know it’s big enough to hang a life on. I can’t hang mine on to the five minutes you spare me from her and politics. You’ll do anything for me except see me. That’s been it for this whole year of Hell. You’ll make me free of the house, and take endless bother to marry me off, because that puts me off your hands. You do care a little for me, I know”—for Clive had protested—“but nothing to speak of, and you don’t love me. I was yours once till death if you’d cared to keep me, but I’m someone else’s now—I can’t hang about whining for ever—and he’s mine in a way that shocks you, but why don’t you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness?”

“Someone to last your whole life and you his. I suppose such a thing can’t really happen outside sleep.”

Great was the pain, great the mortification, but worse followed. So deeply had Clive become one with the beloved that he began to loathe himself. His whole philosophy of life broke down, and the sense of sin was reborn in its ruins, and crawled along corridors. Hall had said he was a criminal, and must know. He was damned.

“Why children?” he asked. “Why always children? For love to end where it begins is far more beautiful, and Nature knows it.”

“I should have gone through life half awake if you’d had the decency to leave me alone. Awake intellectually, yes, and emotionally in a way; but here—” He pointed with his pipe stem to his heart; and both smiled. “Perhaps we woke up one another. I like to think that any way.”

“Oh, go to Hell, it’s all you’re fit for.” Never a truer word but hard to accept from the beloved.

I shouldn’t have said that. So do leave me. I’m thankful it’s into your hands I fell.

misha

"I'm thankful it's into your hands I fell."

[...] he saw that while deceiving others he had been deceived, and mistaken them for the empty creatures he wanted them to think he was. No, they too had insides. “But, O Lord, not such an inside as mine.” As soon as he thought about other people as real, Maurice became modest and conscious of sin: in all creation there could be no one as vile as himself: no wonder he pretended to be a piece of cardboard; if known as he was, he would be hounded out of the world.

He did not realize that this was the end, without twilight or compromise. . .

. . . beyond the barrier Maurice wandered, the wrong words on his lips and the wrong desires in his heart, and his arms full of air.

Am immense sadness—he had believed himself beyond such irritants—had risen up in his soul. He and the beloved would vanish utterly—would continue neither in Heaven nor on Earth. They had won past the conventions, but Nature still faced them, saying with even voice, "Very well, you are thus; I blame none of my children.“ 

. . . while deceiving others he had been deceived, and mistaken them for the empty creatures he wanted them to think he was. No, they too had insides. "But, O Lord, not such an inside as mine." As soon as he thought about other people as real, Maurice became modest and conscious of sin: in all creation there could be no one as vile as himself: no wonder he pretended to be a piece of cardboard; if known as he was, he would be hounded out of the world. 

Then darkness rolled up again, the darkness that is primeval but not eternal, and yields to its own painful dawn.

Rebecca Moraglia

'[…] I was yours once till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now - I can't hang about whining for ever - and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness?'

There was something better in life than this rubbish, if only he could get to it - love - nobility - big spaces where passion clasped peace, spaces no science could reach, but they existed for ever, full of woods some of them, and arched with majestic sky and a friend…

Yet he was doing a fine thing - proving on how little the soul can exist. Fed neither by Heaven nor by Earth he was going forward, a lamp that would have blown out, were materialism true. He hadn't a God, he hadn't a lover - the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease, because dignity demanded it. There was no one to watch him, nor did he watch himself, but struggles like his are the supreme achievements of humanity, and surpass any legends about Heaven.

When love flies it is remembered not as love but as something else. Blessed are the uneducated, who forget it entirely, and are never conscious of folly or pruriency in the past, of long aimless conversations.

'[…] and since you've brought it up I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I've ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.'

'I should have gone through life half awake if you'd had the decency to leave me alone. Awake intellectually, yes, and emotionally in a way; but here -' He pointed with his pipe stem to his heart; and both smiled. 'Perhaps we woke up one another. I like to think that anyway.'

They cared for no one, they were outside humanity, and death, had it come, would only have continued their pursuit of a retreating horizon.

Clive being repulsed by Maurice and Alec like he wasn’t trying to crack on day one 

Cate

envee

ok but that break-up monologue was GIVING

There's so much to think about this book, yet—so much to unpack, so much to say about it. Like Maurice, I'm slow at seeing—insensitive in a way that I need an extension of time to feel. There are no other words I have for the book other than it's great—exquisite. This piece of literature means a lot to me; I identified with it more than any of the books I had so far read. It simply understood my soul precisely as it is. I may have to reread more thoroughly and come back here when I have the words to elaborate, but the overall impression I will leave here is that: Maurice is—for lack of a better term—frightfully an underrated novel and in my opinion, the paragon of gay literature.

This novel, like many from its time, is somewhat exhausting to read and I found myself putting my read of it on hold because of the sheer volume of obtuse academic Edwardian language. It is a story I would not necessarily sit through had it been written now, but given the context of its time (1913-1914 time), I forced myself onward. It is an excellent observation of character and circumstance, and I find myself glad to have read both Colm Tóibín’s THE MAGICIAN and Tom Crewe’s THE NEW LIFE before, which seem to be contemporaries of MAURICE. Having received two degrees in Creative Writing, I am somewhat surprised that I have not read it before, as it sits in my mind beside Faulkner and Virginia Woolf in terms of its “classicality,” though I suppose it’s content is far enough outside of the Literary Canon that it makes sense. Regardless, if you can suffer through the drudging language of the 1910s, it is good to read at least once.

Maurice (Penguin Classics)

forever grateful for the message of hope that this book gives to lgbtq+ people, despite it being written when homosexuality was still a crime. i’ve also watched the movie but in my opinion this was better, though i love both. a fun coincidence that i finished reading this during pride month :)

Jamieson

“I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.”



this book sent me all the way through it and I was genuinely moved by the tenderness.. the yearning... the way e.m forster wrote a happy ending for two men because he thought it was time gay men got to be happy in fiction... the explorations of class and freedom and longing... Maurice's journey to self-discovery and coming of age ... the way that clive his first love is depicted and the closure he gets from him .. the fact the end of this book is literally "I fucked your gamekeeper in your bedroom and then in a hotel and now I realise I don't care for you at all gotta bounce!".. also e.m forster has such beautiful and emotional writing


  “A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood.”



I adore this book and e.m forster

Maurice (Twentieth Century Classics)

wildemononoke

finn

great prose! and this book really had some great moments, but i had a hard time getting very invested since i wasn't a huge fan of Maurice as a character. his sexism and classism didn't really make him the most enjoyable protagonist. it had some potential for more expanded class commentary, considering Maurice's relationship with Alec, but it was pretty non-existent. while Maurice's classism can be seen as a commentary in itself, it would have been nice to actually see some more change in him. his love for one person of lower class than himself ultimately isn't a change, in my opinion, and doesn't provide much for the class commentary it had potential for.

despite my own problems with it, it is a very important novel, and i wouldn't discourage anyone from reading it. Maurice's struggles with himself and his sexuality are relatable still, which makes this book feel like an almost contemporary read despite its age.

Emma

not bad, just not what I was expecting it to be.

Emma Nash

There is a lot that doesn't entirely work here—the demise of Maurice's relationship with Clive is a little too abrupt, and the development of his relationship with Alec a little too rushed(though seriously, how great is that scene in the British Museum?)—but I am too much of a romantic to really care ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (It's possible I rated this a little more highly after watching the movie, which corrects for some of these issues. But I am glad I read the novel first! A sentence like "By now they were in love with one another consciously"—you love to read it!!!)

Georgia Carr

I can't recommend this book enough. It's a beautifully written exploration of sexuality in a time when being gay is not accepted. If nothing else, read it for the descriptions, which are sometimes breathtakingly gorgeous. A firm favourite now, for sure.

Sophia De La Garza

Maurice is a book that I had mixed feelings on as I read, constantly switching between enjoying the book and not enjoying it as much. However, I will say that this book (despite my mixed emotions) deserves to be read. A progressive book from 1914/1915 regarding a man and his struggle to come to terms with his homosexuality is a book that I think needs to be taught in more schools no matter their level. 

The story flows steadily enough, but it is the characters and their internal and external struggles that capture the readers. Maurice is a character I bounced back and forth between liking and he himself also goes back and forth between liking and not liking himself and the emotions he feels. 

This book brings up many different issues that were and are prevalent when excepting LGBT+ people and how these struggles have carried on for decades. 

ALSO THAT ENDING!! 

Overall, 4 out of 5 stars because this book surprised me with how much I had come to care about these characters in the end.

Melissa Eder

Update: haha Im not okay 🥶 this was good! Maurice is still an annoying brat but he seemed more mature at the end of the novel, also, this is the OG of dark academia and no one can convince me otherwise



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Dnfed at around 82% 

I LOVED the beginning, loved it so so much i was certain it was a 5 star read for me, but then after a certain point it just went downhill and Maurice got even more annoying? I understand the reason behind this, but it didn’t work for me personally.

Blom

Didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. Maurice is definitely not a character I'd like in other circumstances, but considering everything he went through and how difficult it was for him to find his place in the world and accept who he was, I ended up feeling very emotional about his journey.

Stavros Kosmas

Meh. I found the backstory of the book more interesting than the plot itself. But I do think the end was hilarious and I rooted for Maurice, felt like a huge middle finger towards Clive.

Maurice A Novel

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