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The description on the back of this book reads, "A Room With a View brings home the stuffiness of upper-middle-class Edwardian society in a tremendously funny comedy that pairs a well-bred young lady with a lusty railway clerk and satirizes both the clergy and the English notion of respectability."
To summarize for those who have not read the book, and to provide a reminder for those who have, the basic plot of the book is this: The well-bred upper-middle-class young lady, Lucy Honeychurch, visits Italy and is drastically changed by her experiences there, most notably the sublime death, before her eyes, of an unfortunate Italian man. Later, she returns to England and is soon engaged to Cecil Vyse, a well-bred, well-educated, and well-connected man, a fine match according to her station. However, Cecil is completely abominable. It takes some time, but Lucy finally realizes that fact and breaks off her engagement with him. After that, in a bout of madness, she makes plans to run off to Greece, but instead she is convinced to marry George Emerson, the lusty railway clerk she met in Florence. They return to Italy together, and are happy.
In the beginning of the book, Lucy and her cousin Charlotte Bartlett, who has accompanied as a chaperone (and to take advantage of her aunt’s money for a trip to Italy) have two very simple problems: they don’t have “south rooms with a view close together” as promised, but instead “north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart” and they are not getting the authentic Italian experience they apparently hoped for. The owner of the pension, the Bertolini, where they are staying is “a Cockney,” a low-class English woman. Clearly they expected a quaint Italian innkeeper and a picturesque view of Florence. From there, things only get worse. They soon meet some of “the ill-bred people one does meet abroad,” namely George Emerson and his father.
At this point, A Room With a View appears to be an anti-tourist novel. Forster satirizes the pushy, impatient, dissatisfied tourist facing culture shock and criticizing everything (such as when Charlotte declares “This meat has surely been used for soup.” or Lucy complains that their rooms smell.) More specifically, he satirizes the well-bred English tourist who manages to be intolerable while still attempting to retain “the English notion of respectability.” (One of the gossips in Pension Bertolini can’t bring herself to say the word “stomach” for example, since it’s such a vulgar, bodily term.)
Not much later, however, Lucy and her cousin meet another tenant of Pension Bertolini, Eleanor Lavish. Mrs. Lavish is herself an anti-tourist, the sort of tourist who would prefer to be called a “traveler.” She refuses the aid of guidebooks, and recommends the same to Lucy. “I hope we shall soon emancipate you from Baedeker. He does but touch the surface of things.” She goes on to say, “The true Italy is only to be found by patient observation.” Largely by virtue of having been in Florence longer, Mrs. Lavish has plenty of advice to dispense, and she is at first considered a “clever lady.” However Lucy soon loses patience with Mrs. Lavish after she robs her of her guidebook and leaves her alone in the city. She only grows more irritating. Thus, Forster provides an anti-anti tourist novel as well.
The larger part of the novel, however, and the more important problem, comes after Lucy leaves Italy and returns to England. Part II begins with Lucy accepting an engagement to Cecil Vyse, an exceptionally eligible man she met in Rome. Cecil is described thus: “He was mediaeval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with... a head that was tilted a little higher than the usual level of vision... Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically...” However, like Ruskin’s favorite Gothic structures, Cecil is imperfect. In fact, he’s completely intolerable. He finds Lucy charming, but he will not let her be herself. He dislikes her family and the requisite pre-marriage activities, such as the garden party Mrs. Honeychurch holds for them. He’s positively unkind to people- ironically, he arranges for the Emersons to move into a nearby rental property as a joke- and he refuses to do even simple things, like be a fourth for tennis, for the sake of others.
The engagement with Vyse is a source of great anxiety for Lucy. If this were any other nineteenth century novel, she might simply end up marrying him in spite of his faults. After all, he has money and position; personality would be secondary. At any rate, Lucy’s aversion to him could be explained away as a result of her travels; perhaps it would even be something from which he must save her, in the same way that the British Empire set out to “save” territories it considered uncivilized. Thankfully, Forster was an author in favor of liberation. Yes, Lucy’s trip to Italy changed her, but this is not meant to be seen as something negative. Instead, Lucy is allowed to be true to herself and her own desires and to make the decision that the reader at this point should want her to make; she breaks off her engagement with Vyse.
Now Lucy is faced with another problem. She is again single, and not only is this a cause of embarrassment and disappointment for the people close to her, it is a threat to the very well-being of the empire. If she is not married soon, she risks spinsterhood, which would mean she wouldn’t be contributing any good English babies. Far from being content, Lucy becomes so upset that she makes plans to travel to Greece. If Italy is a less-civilized place than England, Greece is downright savage. Going there could be positively fatal for a young lady like Lucy (in terms of her English sensibility) especially considering how much she has already been affected by Italy. Now she does need to be saved, and the man who accomplishes this is none other than the ill-bred Mr. Emerson, who convinces her to marry her son. Of course this is exactly what Lucy has desired all along, almost from the moment she met George at the pension.
Lucy’s marriage to George is, in some ways, a safe ending- a truly transgressive novel would have Lucy choosing to remain single and thus completely free. She would go to Greece, and wherever else her New-Womanly heart desired. However, although in this scenario there will no doubt be English babies, Forster’s ending is still scandalous. George and Lucy’s marriage is not immediately accepted, since George comes from a lower class, and the two return to Italy not only for its romantic setting, but also to escape English society’s disapproval. Further, it is also a hopeful ending, suggestive of the potential for upward mobility even in repressive English society, and it is also a critical ending. If Cecil was Gothic, George is Romantic. By discovering "the holiness of her direct desire" and going against societal norms, Lucy actually moves toward a more enlightened existence. Overall, then, I would say Forster is in favor of tourism, at least as long as it broadens one’s horizons and facilitates liberation.
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