Concerning E.M

by Frank Kermode

Frank Kermode assesses the influence and meaning of all of Forster's novels as well as his criticism, reflects on his profound musicality (Britten thought Foster the most musical of all writers) and offers a fascinating interpretation of his greatest work, 'A Passage to India'.

Genres: Literary Criticism, Biography, Literature, Nonfiction

194 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2009

About the author

Sir John Frank Kermode was a highly regarded British literary critic best known for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, published in 1967 (revised 2003).

Reviews

[Eddie Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this was Sir Frank’s last book (if not, one of his very last). Written beautifully, in a relaxed style, but choc full of insights and inspiration for further reading.

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank Kermode's brief study of E. M. Forster is in 2 parts. The first and more formal is taken from a series of lectures. The second is what the publisher calls a conversation on several aspects of Forster's life and work. As the word suggests, its tone is more casual, though just as sincere and learned. Kermode leaves no doubt that he considers A Passage to India to be Forster's most enduring work. His interpretation, perhaps not new but new to me, is a combination of the secular and divine, a vision of the universe embodied in the land of India itself, and the reluctant--as I take it--appearance of Krishna after having been invoked in the famous scene at the Marabar Caves. But the novel also spoke to the acceptance of death as being necessary to the idea of the greatness which comes over Mrs Moore in the novel. Though Mrs Moore becomes, in the end, divine, that death is without spiritual current. Kermode, who recently died, brought his 50 years as a critic to bear on someone he considered to be one of the better craftsmen in British letters. He knew him a little, apparently, and used that acquaintance to bring to light such topics as Forster's dislike of some contemporaries like Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Ford Madox Ford. Kafka, too, it seems, since Kermode notes twice that Forster never mentioned him. And if he wasn't comfortable with the experimental, including James Joyce and Wyndham Lewis, he admired Virginia Woolf and came to recognize her gifts as a novelist eventually exceeded his. His telling of the strained and shy relationship with A. E. Housman is fun to read. One of the most interesting things about Kermode's book is that it considers Forster from the angle of class literary preferences and attitudes. Early in the century, he explains, the working class was more literate than they've been given credit for. Forster more than most chose to reflect this perspective of the working class, one of his better known creations being Leonard Bast in Howard's End who lends an air of cultural gentility rather than unexposed indifference to the novel. Forster will always be an interesting subject. Kermode's portrait swings with the genuine admiration he felt for Forster's work, and that adds to the appeal of the book.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boken inleds med några teman, Musik & Krishna. Intressant är att Forster tydligen ursprungligen inspirerats av Wagners musik, känslostormar, även som litterär teknik. Efter sin första resa till Indien, återkom han via Frankrike 1913, och hittade Prousts första del av "På spaning efter den tid som flytt", läste den genast på franska, och inspirerades av Vinteuils 'lilla fras' - fiktiv tonsättare och stycke. Detta ville han själv skapa i sin siste roman, 'A Passage to India', som det dock tog honom ytterligare 11 år att färdigställa. Intressant och tankeväckande.

Jag hade dock förväntat mig er av den typen av litterära insikter, men istället är huvuddelen av boken ett kåserande kring Forsters samtid. Många författare passerar revy, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Galsworthy, Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence, HG Wells, och många många andra. Men alltför stor del rör sig kring småaktiga kontroverser, konkurrens. vilket snabbt sänkte mitt betyg. Jag är mer intresserad av det litterära skapandet, inspirationen, än personernas negativa baksidor, som har föga att ge.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Forster has always been a very special writer to me; his treatment of women in his novels was quite different from his contemporaries. As a teenager, I identified with many of his flawed but fascinating female characters - intellectually curious, slightly muddled, creative, sympathetic. While Kermode rightly notes that while his principal novels can seem outdated/Edwardian, Forster's writing about the ways in which race, class and gender are navigated by members of different classes is quite ahead of his time. There is a wonderful section in the book which deals in great depth about Forster's idolizing of Beethoven and Britten's idolizing of Forster; Alex Ross would appreciate the discourse on the musicality of writing. Kermode's pitting of Forster against Henry James is also interesting - a little lost on me, as I've not read a lot of James, but his point about the novel as an aesthetic exercise (James) versus a humanistic exercise (Forster) is well-taken.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

By no means a systematic or thorough examination of all things Forster, this book feels more like a conversational guide through certain aspects of Forster's life and work. When I read A Room With a View and Howard's End, the musical nature of them drew me in, so I found Kermode's discussion of Forster's musicality, specifically his use of rhythm and faking, to particularly shine. He also examined Krishna in A Passage to India in a brilliant reading I don't think I would have ever matched on my own. In all, this would be a worthwhile read for anyone who is fond of literary criticism or analyzing artists and the creative process.

[Eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first time reading Kermode, and I find his commentary on Forster's work mostly insightful and am duly impressed that he produced it at approximately age ninety. His wide-ranging attention to authors besides Forster is useful for placing EMF in context (his discussion of Muriel Spark, not an author to whom EMF himself seems to have paid much attention, is just one example of Kermode's engagingly unorthodox approach to considering EMF's literary place.) Kermode does, to my disappointment, subscribe to the old heresy that Maurice is an "inferior" work and thus barely discusses it, and he is also rather unfairly dismissive of EMF's posthumous short fiction (he oddly describes "The Life to Come" as "risqué.") In an otherwise thoughtful discussion of EMF's relations with D. H. Lawrence, he also appears to briefly confuse D. H. Lawrence with T. E. Lawrence (he assigns some laudatory comments about "Dr Woolacott" which were made by the latter to the former, who would certainly never have made them), but given the scope and depth of Kermode's impressive literary knowledge, such slips are cause for only minor complaint in what is overall a useful and engaging work.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book in two parts. The first concerns an analysis of Forster's writing and the second an exploration of his life and his place in English literature. I struggled with the first part and loved the second; the author infers meaning and insights to his novels that I not only fail to see, but also largely fail to comprehend! But on Forster the man and his place in English literature, Kermode is magnificent, and well worth reading.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kermode's theory of sequence/secrecy fits surprising well with Forster: the words with a double meaning which he explains in his analysis of Under Western Eyes align with Forster's fantasy and rhythm in Aspects of the Novel. Kermode's interpretation of the words "across" and "come" is exciting.

[Helle · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5)

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subject here is a great deal larger than E.M. Forster, though it includes discussion of all his work. Even more it delineates the particular niche of English literary society he occupied, and for which was at pains to define the requirements for membership. It's not always a pretty story, but consistently informative and, for me, a new way to look at Forster and his circle. Frank Kermode's class approach, while verging on cruelty at some points in the story, is the only way to speak about this, and he was well positioned to be the one to do it.

Only four stars, because it's a particular view of Forster, but it couldn't have been done better.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best for Frank Kermode's unfailing voice, his impatience with Forster's high class snobbery and the anecdotes about Forster's dislike of Henry James:

The differences between the two novelists may be expressed succinctly by comparing James and Forster on Tolstoy. To Forster War and Peace was the greatest of all novels; to James it was something of a disaster: 'what do such large loose baggy monsters, with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean? His example for others is dire.'

[M.k. Yost · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, concise analysis of Forster's use of music and Eastern influences on his work, as well as as a lengthy look at the the events of his life and how they shaped his writing.