[показать]"A Room with a View" is a social comedy that explores a period of the transition in British society from Victorian to Edwardian philosophy, as well as a coming of age story. The main heroine, Lucy Honeychurch, is a young girls who, being brought up according to Victorian tradition, struggles to make a choice between love and propriety after a trip to Italy opens her eyes to a world that had been previously unknown to her. Constrained by the norms of the society she belongs to, Lucy finds it difficult to follow her heart right away and ends up in a difficult situation of having to chose between convention and passion.

While the story revolves around a single character, "A Room With a View" is full of colorful personages whose views and actions illustrate a number of contradictions that existed in Britain during that transitional period. The place of a female in the society is undoubtedly one of the major topic of the book, in which the author constantly juxtaposes the conventional believes about women being inferior to the opposite sex to more progressive ones that give the weaker gender a little more credit. Along with a gentle critique of traditional views on gender roles, E. M. Forester offers a certain degree of satire on many of outdated norms and stereotypes of the society.

The book is written in a very lively manner, with abundance of dialogues and hardly any lyrical digressions. The story flows well and is a rather pleasurable read. A reader should be advised that even though the novel's premise suggests some romance, it has hardly any place in "A Room in the View" -- the main story line serves just as a background for exploring the aforementioned social issues. While Forester's style is pleasant, it took a little getting used to, mostly because I find language of older books (this one was written in the beginning of the 20th century) a little convoluted compared to modern English. I can definitely say that I enjoyed reading this novel; it did not, however, join the ranks of my favorite books.

Осталось прочитать 28 книг списка на 2010 год