A Room with a View (Dover Thrift Editions) (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

A Room with A View, written by E. M. Forster, is a story about a young upper class woman, Lucy Honeychurch, who travels to Florence, Italy. Lucy struggles with societal norms throughout the novel. She meets a father and son that happen to be staying at the same pension. Over the course of the novel Lucy and George Emerson, the son, have quite a few encounters and they slowly get to know each other. A Room With A View is a cute love story set in some beautiful locations.A Room with a View is E.M. Forster’s third novel, and is described as his lightest and most optimistic. He started writing it and 1901 and it was published in 1908. E.M Forster wrote five other novels, his most successful being A Passage To India, published in 1924.A Room With A View jumps right into the story and starts with Lucy and her cousin already in Florence. I enjoyed that Forster started it this way and didn’t crowd the beginning of the novel with backstory. I found the novel to be fast paced at the beginning but then it slowed down quite a bit. It was a fairly easy read. Since is was written in the very early 1900s, the language is a bit different then the books I am used to reading, but it was fairly easy to understand. This book is over a hundred years old but still manages to captivate readers, including myself. A Room with a View is written in a third person omniscient narration. The narrator was in the heads of all the character but stayed out of the action. I really enjoyed being able to know what all the characters were feeling throughout the novel.A Room with a View is similar to Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter. Beautiful Ruins is partially set on the coast of Italy, in Cinque Terre, and has humor and romance.This book was assigned to me in my intro to literature class while studying abroad in Florence. It was really cool being able to imagine the places the characters went in Florence, since I have been to those places. Knowing that I have seen the Arno river and Santa Croce, just like all the main characters did was exciting. I most likely would never have picked up this book if it wasn't required for my class. It's not exactly the kind of book I usually enjoy but reading A Room With A View wasn't as torturous as I thought it would be. I was entertained by the cute love story and the slight humor throughout the novel. Overall I think it is a good read and encourage others to give it a try.

Good grief, this has been my second and possibly third reading of this work (This is over quite a number of years and my long term memory is beginning to fail me...sigh), and I must say that I enjoyed it as much this go-around as I did the first. There is something about this work that simply appeals to me.Now this is not to say that it will be on every readers most favored list - no, far from it, and this is how it should be. For me thought it is an excellent read and if I last longer I will most likely read it again on down the road.This is one of those tales that touches on a wide range of the general overall human condition. It should also ne noted here that the time element covered by this novel is 1908 which is pre WWI and it IS NOT taking place during the `Victorian era' of which several reviewers have stated. No, we are talking the Edwardian era in England and while some of the morals and morays of Victorian times still linger, it is never the less a different age completely. This must be understood to understand the story.Anyway, back to the subjects covered in this work: Love, prejudices, betrayal, strong but understated humor, a snapshot of a previous era, sociological observation of the English upper middle class and of course the clashes of culture; of the rather painful differences between the perceived social classes in England at that time. It also investigates the dilemma of `self' v/s the expectations of society and family. All in all, if you look at it a certain way, not much has changed over the years and the issues addressed in this classical work are still strongly among us even to this day. It takes a long, long time for attitudes in society to fade. I know in my own case that I was raised very closely to grandparents who were as about as Edwardian as you can get and there is no doubt that their influence had a great deal in molding my personality and attitudes...for better or for worse. (Hey, I am old and yes, I can remember people of that generation quite well).We have a young lady; a young lady with brains, even though she does not realize it at the time, who is motivated and pulled apart by her true feelings and those feelings that she is either suppose to have or not suppose to have in a number of situations.Yes, the author has used a number of what we could consider stereotypes of the time but he has used them to good effect and used them to tell his story quite well. While this may bother some folks, I found it to make the overall story more understandable and easier to `go down.'This work starts in Italy and drifts back to England and again, to understand the story, you have to have some understanding of the cultural gap between England and the continent in those days. Good or bad, it was what it was.Few will deny that this is a well written work...it may not be to every ones taste, as I have stated, but good is good by most standards. I can get quite lost in the author's narrative prose and descriptive writing.I was delighted to see that this work is now free via your reading machines...it was about time.Don BlankenshipThe Ozarks

The whole process by which a book becomes regarded as a classic will always be a mystery to me. I tend to grab books like this to read on airplanes since they blow by pretty quickly. This little stinker is filled with enough nauseating Victorian era UK personalities that a reader without prior exposure to real examples of modern Brits might be forgiven a little sadness that WWs 1&2 had the outcomes they did.Basically the story is: British girl with three functioning brain cells goes to Florence on holiday with chaperone having three fewer. UK man of lower class and young son staying in the same pension gallantly offer to trade rooms so that the female couple can have a room with a view. Female couple moronically interpret this offer as impertinence. Young son demonstrates his own lack of taste and judgment by becoming interested in British girl. Very faint flicker in the back of British girl's head suggests to her that maybe this is not such a bad thing, but her primary cultural antibodies go to work on double shift to suppress the idea as thoroughly as possible. When their respective vacations end, parties return to England and, fortuitously for the continued plot of the book (and less so for the reader who could have otherwise been done with this little dog), find they are domiciled in the same general area and thus continue to interact in their culturally straight-jacketed style, where our leading lady becomes engaged on the basis of just about nothing at all to a young man who is nearly as boorish as she is and thus would obviously be the perfect match but for that annoying little Florentine flicker that won't quite go out. If this is romance, sign me up for the priesthood.

Even if you have never read this story before you are probably aware of the plot as it has been a film and a TV drama. As well as being a favourite of mine this has always been enjoyed and, along with 'Howard's End' both books have similarities with the works of Jane Austen.Written in the Edwardian Age before the First World War this book starts to show how society was gradually changing at that time, and which was the beginnings of our modern society. Written with a lightness of touch this in a way conceals the issues that arise here, such as independence, freedom of religious thought, politics, class structure, and the stiff upper lip. Both a social comedy, and a comedy of manners there is much to have a chuckle at. Right from the beginning with a father and son offering two women their hotel rooms as they have better views, we can see how the structure of society and etiquette is brought into question. We tend to forget that a hundred years ago society was much more rigid than it is today, which as shown here does lead to all sorts of situations that are funny to us these days. With romance thrown in as well this is well worth reading, by men and women and I hope that it gives you as much entertainment as I have got from this story over the years.

Even if you have never read this story before you are probably aware of the plot as it has been a film and a TV drama. As well as being a favourite of mine this has always been enjoyed and, along with 'Howard's End' both books have similarities with the works of Jane Austen.Written in the Edwardian Age before the First World War this book starts to show how society was gradually changing at that time, and which was the beginnings of our modern society. Written with a lightness of touch this in a way conceals the issues that arise here, such as independence, freedom of religious thought, politics, class structure, and the stiff upper lip. Both a social comedy, and a comedy of manners there is much to have a chuckle at. Right from the beginning with a father and son offering two women their hotel rooms as they have better views, we can see how the structure of society and etiquette is brought into question. We tend to forget that a hundred years ago society was much more rigid than it is today, which as shown here does lead to all sorts of situations that are funny. With romance thrown in as well this is well worth reading, by men and women and I hope that it gives you as much entertainment as I have got from this story over the years.

I was wanting to read the original novel to compare it with the film that I had seen recently. Always much better to read literature rather than just see it in film adaptations. An enjoyable read - certainly a more comfortable novel than some of E.M. Forster's others, so no wonder it is probably his most popular. Highly recommended - one great thing about Kindle is that it makes you read from start to finish, so no riffling the pages and skipping to the end!

Even if you have never read this story before you are probably aware of the plot as it has been a film and a TV drama. As well as being a favourite of mine this has always been enjoyed and, along with 'Howard's End' both books have similarities with the works of Jane Austen.Written in the Edwardian Age before the First World War this book starts to show how society was gradually changing at that time, and which were the beginnings of our modern society. Written with a lightness of touch this in a way conceals the issues that arise here, such as independence, freedom of religious thought, politics, class structure, and the stiff upper lip. Both a social comedy and a comedy of manners there is much to have a chuckle at. Right from the beginning with a father and son offering two women their hotel rooms as they have better views, we can see how the structure of society and etiquette is brought into question. We tend to forget that a hundred years ago society was much more rigid than it is today, which as shown here does lead to all sorts of situations that are funny. With romance thrown in as well this is well worth reading, by men and women and I hope that it gives you as much entertainment as I have got from this story over the years.

Young Lucy Honeychurch is at a defining moment in her life. She is torn between what she perceives to be expected of her and what she really wants, which is true love. Cecil is a supercilious, pompous snob, who clearly believes himself to be superior to all those around him. He wants Lucy as an ornament, a possession, his own 'Leonardo'. George is open, affectionate and idealistic, he wants Lucy because he loves her. E M Forster's classic novel is a beautifully written observation on class, social manners, social boundaries and a young girl's awakening from a sheltered life. His writing style is witty, poetic and intimate, often engaging the reader with personal asides. The characters are all well drawn, with individual foibles which either endear themselves to the reader, or irritate: either way they involve the reader emotionally. As a novel written at the beginning of the 20th century, where society was emerging from strict Victorian values into a new Edwardian world, it paints a picture of society at a time of change. It is definitely worth a read.