Topic started by S.O.Keizer (@ node16c3e.a2000.nl) on Sun Jan 28 23:33:25 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

Dear fellow subscribers,

At the moment I am reading E.M.Forster's novel "The Longest Journey". Although I was warned by the editor of the edition I am reading, I have to confess that this is the most difficult novel Forster has written. Therefor I am eager to receive any information about this work, especially about its symbolic structure. I know there are plenty of Wagnerian allusions, but what about my theory that Rickie's lameness is an symbol for homosexuality? I would be quite interested to hear from you.

Responses:

• From: David Roberts (@ 228.mucd.nyrk.nycenycp.dsl.att.net) on: Thu Aug 9 15:27:59
  
  You are not the only one to have the opinion that Rickie's lameness and Forster's homosexuality share a symbolic linkage. I have always thought so, and Francis King, in his "E.M. Forster and his World", which I have just finished reading, agrees. I also agree with you that it is the most difficult of the Forster novels. There is a lot of "in" Cambridge slang and cant, which I , as an American, am entirely in the dark about. It, together with " Maurice", are the closest to autobiography we get from Forster. Sawston is Tunbridge Wells, where Forster was a "day boy", and he had a rich aunt in Wiltshire. There are many personality similarities between Rickie and Morgan as well.
  I think it is signifigant that it is the only Forster novel which hasn't been made as a film.
  
  
• From: Paul Adams (@ n500-t3.batelnet.bs) on: Fri May 21 11:35:23
  
  I'm an englishman educated at Cambridge. but even for me some of the slang is rather antiquated, as is the world in which the characters move. The book is also difficult because some of the conversation is almost Jamesianishly elliptical. It is clearly tne work of a young writer, and has many awkwardnesses. But it sure is passionate and makes one think!
  
  

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