Books on Tap met on July 3 to discuss Howards End  by E.M. Forster. Forster, one of the most successful Edwardian English authors, received an astonishing 22 nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Howards End was published in 1910, the fourth of five novels published during Forster’s lifetime. 

Reactions to the book were mixed generating some lively discussion. Some readers loved Forster’s use of language and thought it was beautiful and descriptive. Others found the book wordy and boring. One reader went so far as to suggest that you could read the first few chapters, skip the middle, and read the last few chapters and have gotten the entire story. Some found the story funny in a soap opera way. Others didn’t think the 100-year-old jokes translated well for a present-day audience.

Action in the book is centered around the house, Howards End, the family home of Mrs. Ruth Wilcox. As one reader noted, the house is almost a character itself. The relationship of the various characters to the house drives much of what action there is in the book. Mrs. Wilcox had a strong, personal connection to the house and wanted to share it with someone to whom it would mean as much. Forster based the house on his childhood home, Rooks Nest House in Hertfordshire.

A primary theme of the book is class relations, especially the British middle class. The Schlegels are upper, middle class and independently wealthy. The Wilcoxs are a family of businessmen. The Basts are impoverished, but aspire to act like the middle class, as exemplified by the Schlegels. The Schlegels are a privileged class, one to which Forster himself belonged. One reader drew parallels between them and the Bloomsbury group of which Forster was a member. Another disliked the characters and found it hard to understand their motivations. For them, events seemed random with lots of coincidences. Another reader pointed out that members of that class don’t have to do things or work, so life is more random. 

One reader was struck by the difference in the way Helen Schlegel and Jacky Bast are treated over their affairs while unmarried. Helen gets pregnant after sleeping with Leonard Bast and is forgiven and taken care of. Jacky, who had a youthful affair with Henry Wilcox, is written off. In fact, she is the only character whose ending is left out of the book. Because of her class, she has no importance and none of the other characters care about what happens to her. 

One reader wondered why Leonard stayed with Jacky. Suggestions included that he had no prospects. He didn’t see his life as having any options. Leonard aspired to move up in class, but no matter how many books he read, it was never going to be possible. His contacts with the Schlegels were aspirational, and he described them as poetry. They were an escape from his actual existence.

Readers felt Henry Wilcox expressed the typical attitude of the upper middle class at the time towards the poor. While the Schlegels debated the best way to help the poor, Wilcox was convinced that if wealth were divided up equally and redistributed, in a few years it would be back to the same situation. From his perspective, the poor somehow deserved to be poor. Wilcox was also determined to hold onto things. As one attendee pointed out, he didn’t actually want Howards End, but he also didn’t want anyone else to have it. 

Some thought the Schlegels, on the other hand, showed their wealth by taking things and money for granted. Meg was more interested in people than things. But as one reader pointed out, it’s easier to be that way when you’re rich. Another pointed out the younger brother, Tibby’s, statement that he didn’t think he wanted to work and so why should he. 

While issues of class dominated the discussion of the book, some readers noticed other themes. While the Schlegel sisters have a great deal of independence due to their class, they also are hemmed in by patriarchy. One reader expressed frustration, wanting Meg to tell Henry off, but she always acquiesced up until the very end when her sister was the one threatened. Another member of the group pointed out that no one appears in the book who isn’t white.

Perhaps the class dynamics in the book can best be summed up by a quote one of the group shared. Meg says, “I began to think that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love but the absence of coin.”