AFAReads discussion

As you delve into Lucy Honeychurch's world, here are a few questions to consider.

1. What aspects of travel are the same in A Room With a View as they are today, more than 100 years later?

2. Have you ever met someone while on a trip who changed the trajectory of your day/week/itinerary/life?

3. How do you think these characters might be different (or similar) in a 2020 version of the story?

Thank you for suggesting this book. I have tried to read it before and never appreciated it as I do now. The relationships and characters are so well developed.

The protocol to speak to strangers is still intact for the different generations. Many conversations that are started with other travelers are welcomed and sometimes not welcomed.

Personally, I struggle with meeting people traveling because I do not want to offend anyone. I know too many Ms. Bartletts and was raised with similar standards. Perhaps this book will loosen me up for my next travels.

I look forward to responses from other readers.

1. I used to laugh at the Miss Alans of the world as I traveled in my twenties with nothing but a slim backpack (not the insanely large kind, it was just a simple regular book bag). There are still people who seem intent on traveling with all of their creature comforts - you see them lugging around so much you'd think they are moving. Nowadays in my forties I am much more understanding of the need to keep these things handy.

Tourists with their travel guides are still alive and well, of course. I chuckled tremendously at Lucy's despair at having to see the Santa Croce without her Baedeker. Indeed - who can make sense of what without the guide book, especially in a place so bedecked with history and art such as Florence? I bought art history books, too, and it was so hard to not feel overwhelmed. I suppose the unfamiliar in travel always brings on some feeling of alienation initially, then afterwards, if you allow yourself to relax, appreciation of beauty.

2. It was in Florence where my husband, who never cares much for old things, decided that we should try to find a way of living there. I suspect it was the local cafe owner who charmed him into thinking that. We had gone across the street from our ridiculously old and expensive hotel to find cheap and early breakfast. The owner was fantastic - making jokes to us in Italian (yelled at my husband for not having an espresso, thereafter he was dubbed 'the Americano') and insisting on giving my daughter the largest stuffed pastry (cornetto) he had. We ended up having breakfast every day there. When it was time to leave, we were so sad. They had made it feel as though we were exceptions to the large hordes of tourists descending on the place, even though we clearly weren't (we barely speak anything other than the tourist guidebook Italian).

3. Perhaps they wouldn't be that different. I imagine that the fear of missing out on the best things to see and the urge to vet acquaintances with strangers would still be the same. Or maybe they will be different - are travelers less inhibited in the 21st century? I am thinking maybe my traveling has become more staid and boring as a parent of a young child so I don't see those aspects and am unable to give a more objective view!

April wrote: "Thank you for suggesting this book. I have tried to read it before and never appreciated it as I do now. The relationships and characters are so well developed.

The protocol to speak to strangers..."

April, that's a really interesting perspective. Whenever I read this book I think about the whole propriety/dinner table scene that starts everything and then think how different my own experiences were as a young person traveling solo staying in hostels. The shifting social expectations apparent in this book are so fascinating to me--even the stark differences between how the Vyses and the Honeychurches behave and entertain in their own homes.

I think speaking to strangers, in addition perhaps to being generational, is especially personal, I am very comfortable speaking to strangers, and often do. When I’m with my oldest friend and do that, it makes her uncomfortable. I have had a few bad experiences due to speaking to strangers, but many more wonderful ones. I treasure the people and experiences that I’ve had and wouldn’t trade them away for anything. One meeting a couple in Greece ended up with their daughter visiting with me on her Grand Tour of the US, and another acquaintance afforded me an opportunity to make a good friend and spending a week at her farm in Sweden.

Kleros wrote: "1. I used to laugh at the Miss Alans of the world as I traveled in my twenties with nothing but a slim backpack (not the insanely large kind, it was just a simple regular book bag). There are still..."

The guidebook thing is so interesting, I think--of course, these days people don't travel with hard copy guidebooks as often, per se, but since we often travel with our smart phones we have even more information available to us than what a Baedeker would have allowed, so maybe we're even worse now than they were then in terms of allowing for spontaneity. But it is nice to have context for certain places we go. (I have to admit after I studied abroad in Italy and had gone on SO MANY museum and site tours, I was so tired of learning context and for awhile after that I simply refused to read any museum placards and just let myself experience the art/space. I probably missed out on some interesting details, but I was tired of getting all the context, ha!)

There have been many people who I've met on my travels who changed my trajectory, though none as hugely as with George and Lucy. Certainly many of the people I met in hostels and tooled around cities with and never saw again loom large in many of my travel memories! I love the idea of becoming a regular somewhere even on a short trip--it really does make the experience a bit more magical.

reQ#3: I imagine that today the younger characters like Lucy would be so reliant on their smartphones that they would have far less sense of being in a foreign country, since they could call home anytime and get instant translations or info if needed. I hope they'd look up from their palms often enough to appreciate Florence. And I hope Florence wouldn't be reduced to a series of Instagram-worthy shots.