BARBARA ROSECRANCE
603
Forster's ho nes ty in
Maurice
does no t make it a better novel. Nor do the
amb iguities and cross-currents in the o ther novels, discernibl e, as I
have lried to indica te, bo th in the progress of Forster's heroes and in the
movement of his philosophic ques t, invalidate their achievement as
fiction. Forster has obviously, through his fictional strategies, trans–
formed hi s personal fantas ies and biases into the broader concerns of
our modern world.
If
we reduce Forster's fiction to his particular
sexua lit y, then it is difficult to see how we can rescue such writers as
Proust or Gide or Lawrence from identifica tion with their own special
fixations. U ltima tely, wha t remains when we have penetrated Forster's
disgu ise are the same qualities for which we used to read the novels: the
social comedy, the virtuosity of language, the unders tanding-most of
a ll , the commanding narrative voice whose province is the meaning of
man 's fa te. Between the comrades and the mainstream to which Forster
aspired there is a contradiction , but the failures to connect implicate all
his characters.
It
is not as spokesman for a private ethos but as a skilled
and sensitive commentator on the human condition that Forster will be
remembered.
Henry Miller Titles
THE WORLD OF LAWRENCE:
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-HENRY MILLER ,
1932
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