Recommended: "Howard's End" by E.M. Forster

Most of you will yawn at the thought of reading an early 20th-century novel involving two sets of English families. If you are in law school, just ignore this, as you clearly don't have time for outside reading.

BUT:

Howard's End is a fantastic book. I decided (since I have FAR too much time on my hands at the moment) to read a lot of classic books that I never got around to reading before, and this one was at the top of my list. I am a fan of the author, E.M. Forster, and his book A Passage to India is one of my favorite books.

Anyway, some various reasons why you might want to read Howard's End:

1. It provides one of the best literary depictions of England in the period directly before World War I. This book is all about money: the final death of pastoral, colonial England and its inhabitants, who had for too long lived on inheritance and a sense of to-the-manor-born entitlement. This group was about to be replaced by another: a group far richer, more business-oriented, and less artistic. The intersection of the Wilcox and Schlegel families in the book provides the backdrop for this change in the social hierarchy. Of course, World War I would forever change England's position in the world again, but this novel provides a good snapshot of a particular period directly before that time.

2. The book talks directly of women's rights. The main character, Margaret Schlegel, inherits a property of her own (Howard's End) and must learn to abandon her artistic pursuits to manage her newfound property, stave off a family who expected to inherit the countryside manor from its owner, and protect her sister Helen and brother Tibby from outside forces. It's not quite a book that comes out directly in favor of women's suffrage, but it provides one of the stronger women characters of Forster's period. Look for Margaret's direct confrontation with Charles Wilcox late in the novel as an indication of how far women have come in Forster's estimation in English society.

3. Forster uses a narrative voice throughout the novel, constantly interspersing the narrator into the dialogue in a way that allows the land of England to become as real to the reader as any of the characters in Howard's End. The symbolic wych-elm tree at Howard's End remains in place, throughout all of the novel's turmoil, the conflict between the two families, and the ever-changing position of England itself. Everything around it changes, but the tree never dies.

Basically, I like Howard's End because (in addition to being an entertaining novel) there are so many different ways to approach reading the novel. It is not often that an author succeeds in addressing more than one social issue at a time, and Howard's End juggles a large variety of them. If you have the time, I recommend it.