Forster's Howards End, read aloud one chapter at a time
Howards End by Edward M. Forster presents the novel itself, read aloud, with episodes named for the chapters they carry. Margaret and Helen Schlegel keep colliding with the Wilcoxes, while a young man named Leonard Bast reads Ruskin in a dark, stuffy flat at 'the extreme verge of gentility'.
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Howards End by Edward M. Forster is an audio reading of Forster's novel, with episodes named for the chapters they carry. The format needs little explanation. What arrives is the book, heard aloud, and the pleasure lies in the prose, which is wry, observant and often very funny about people who take themselves seriously. Margaret and Helen Schlegel are at the centre, sisters of Wickham Place who were left motherless when Tibby was born. Their Aunt Julie, Mrs. Munt, has rarely been able to help them, so a sudden note from Helen gives her a mission. She insists on going to Howards End herself to make inquiries, convinced that Margaret, anxious for her sister, would ask one of her impetuous questions and offend the whole family. Helen's telegram, 'All over. Wish I had never written. Tell no one,' reaches Margaret after the aunt has already gone. The Wilcoxes arrive amid petrol fumes and a throbbing motor-car, and Mrs. Wilcox, stooping to smell a rose, tells her elder son that the engagement is off. Nobody escapes the narration's eye. Mrs. Munt has a remarkable power of distorting the past, and within days her part in the fiasco has become 'The one time I really did help Emily's girls was over the Wilcox business.' Helen's own account of Paul is gentler and more rueful: two people who rather lost their heads, and a young man frightfully ashamed after breakfast. The sisters are beginning to diverge. The younger is apt to entice people and be enticed in turn, while the elder goes straight ahead and accepts an occasional failure as part of the game. Tibby, at sixteen, is summed up as intelligent but 'dyspeptic and difficile'. Other chapters step outside the family circle. A concert of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, hailed as 'the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man', finds each listener hearing something different: Helen sees heroes and shipwrecks, Margaret sees only the music, and Tibby keeps the full score open on his knee. A young man's umbrella goes astray at the Queen's Hall, and the episode lingers with the women as a 'goblin football', a hint that all is not well beneath the wealth and the art. Leonard Bast stands at 'the extreme verge of gentility', not in the abyss but able to see it. He tries to form his style on Ruskin in a flat that is dark as well as stuffy, while Jackie calls to him. The narration is blunt about his position in a way that belongs to its period. And when the Wilcoxes take a flat in the ornate block opposite Wickham Place, Aunt Julie calls it a most unfortunate thing, while Helen, a soapy hand raised, swears never again to fall in love with any of the Wilcox family. Comedy and unease sit side by side here, and that pairing is much of what makes the book worth hearing.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants a classic novel read aloud in chapter-sized episodes and who enjoys dry social comedy about sisters, a meddling aunt and a family they keep running into, shadowed by questions of money and class.
What sets it apart: Rather than talking about Howards End, the show reads it, so Forster's own sentences, asides and ironies included, arrive one chapter per episode. The appeal is the prose itself, from Mrs. Munt's comic self-regard to Leonard Bast's precarious footing at the edge of gentility.
It's sad, but true to say that today Edward Morgan Forster's works are known more from their film and television adaptations rather than from their original novels. Yet, these adaptations have spurred many a fascinated viewer into going back to the library and finding the book that the film or miniseries was based on and this is ultimately the power of Forster's literary appeal. Howard's End was published in 1910 and it marked Forster's first taste of critical and commercial success. He had published three other novels earlier, Where Angels Fear To Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907) and A Room With a View (1908) but none of them had been received with so much acclaim.The plot concerns…
A lost umbrella after Beethoven's Fifth gets you closer to the class divide than the concert seats.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Mrs. Munt's well-meant interference turns a journey to Howard's End into social comedy.
Mrs. Munt tries to protect Margaret from what she sees as dangerous foreign investments, then breaks her own resolve not to interfere again. Her trip toward Howard's End turns into a small comedy of railway anxieties, a red-leather motorcar, an uneasy conversation with Young…
Helen's romantic confusion becomes a crisp comic study of family influence, memory, and manners.
Chapter IV sits in the uneasy afterglow of the Wilcox affair, watching Helen realize she has been drawn less to Paul than to the whole Wilcox atmosphere. Mrs. Munt, meanwhile, begins repairing the story by quietly improving her own part in it.
A Beethoven concert turns an umbrella mistake into a quietly comic test of trust and hospitality.
Chapter 05 treats Beethoven's Fifth as more than concert-room grandeur. At Queen's Hall, the same music draws out sharply different temperaments: Mrs.
Leonard Bast reaches for culture as the episode studies the gap between aspiration and gentility.
Chapter 6 uses Leonard Bast's fragile bid for gentility to test a society that speaks of equality while quietly measuring people by the props of respectability.
Mrs.
Helen describes the Paul Wilcox kiss as "the poetry of that kiss," then recalls the Monday breakfast at Wickham Place with Evie, Charles, and Mr.
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony at Queen's Hall becomes a shared but sharply divided experience for Helen, Margaret, Tibby, Mrs.
Leonard Bast walks from Wickham Place to Camellia Road, thinking about gentility, "the abyss," and whether he can afford a tram fare.
Margaret Schlegel says money lets the rich escape relationships that poorer people cannot leave.
Margaret Schlegel apologizes to Ruth Wilcox after a mistaken letter about Helen and Paul, who has sailed for Nigeria.
Margaret Schlegel’s Christmas shopping with Ruth Wilcox becomes a test of friendship when Ruth asks whether Wickham Place’s lease can be renewed.
Considered item by item, the emotional content was minimized, and all went forward smoothly.
This episode is a reading of Chapter XVI of Howards End, focusing on a failed tea visit with Leonard.
This episode is a reading of Chapter 18 of Howards End, where Margaret receives a letter from Mr.
This episode reads Chapter XXV of Howards End, where Evie learns of her father's engagement and reacts with resentment, leading to her own rushed wedding.
A reading of Chapter XXVI of Howards End, describing Margaret's morning at Oniton.
This episode reads Chapter 34 of Howards End, describing the death of Aunt Julie from pneumonia.
This episode features a dramatic reading of E.M.
A reading of Edward Forster's novel Howards End, focusing on Leonard's remorse after an affair.