Concerning E. M. Forster (review)

This short book, usefully supplied with a brief select bibliography and index, consists of two, almost equal, parts: the first is comprised of Sir Frank Kermode's Clark Lectures delivered at Cambridge in the spring of 2007; the second, entitled "E. M. Forster: A Causerie," is, in its author's words, "a loosely organized sequence of observations." Kermode rightly declares that the first part is "narrow," and that the second enjoys "a greater breadth of reference."

Not surprisingly, the tone varies: the formal academic occasion sets that for the first section; the slightly Edwardian title (causerie might be translated as "casual talk" or "chat") sounds the note for the second. The target audience is, of course, shared: these reflections, ranging widely over diverse topics, are aimed at the nonspecialist, that is, an audience with some familiarity with the Forster canon, perhaps even including his nonfiction, but neither deeply read in the critical literature about him, nor having labored long and hard to get a grip on his output and achievement in context.

Kermode, as far as his brief goes or as far as he interprets it, is a reliable and admirably sensitive guide. Opinions are capably stated—occasionally with real force and sometimes with a gesture toward humor; arguments are judiciously made; and summaries are ably deployed to make a specific point. To spice things up, a sense of pique about Forster's failings as a man and artist shows through and even forms a subtheme. At times, however, the proceedings merely resemble high table talk, which, whatever its essential geniality, is unlikely to appeal to the more advanced critic or the Forster scholar.

As its publication by commercial publishers both in England and the United States suggests, Sir Frank takes to the stage, literally and figuratively, in his role as eminent man of letters, one still having a mild vitality on what remains of the English literary scene. Now in his mideighties, with—the conventional phrase is apt—a long and distinguished career behind him, he plays the role with the polished skill that might reasonably be expected of the King Edward VII Professor in English Literature at King's College, Cambridge. To judge this book on more rigorous grounds would be unfair to its carefully circumscribed aims.

Kermode's three Clark lectures—"Aspects on Aspects," "Beethoven, Wagner, Vinteuil," and "Krishna"—deal, broadly, with Forster as critic and theorist in the context of his era, with Forster and musicality, and with Forster and the ineffable and technique.

The first lecture bounces off Aspects of the Novel (the print version of Forster's own series of eight Clark Lectures of 1927), looking at shifts in the sophistication of narrative theory since and taking in en passant Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Ford's The Good Soldier, Arnold Bennett's Riceyman Steps, and the James–Wells controversy. The range of reference is wide—Jane Austen, Faulkner, Ulysses, the great Russians, Proust, Ford on Forster, Trilling on Forster. What hasn't Kermode read, and read intelligently? The second lecture describes Forster's well-known love of music, his uses of it in his fiction, and the influence of Proust and Wagner, masters of the leitmotif, on the rhythms and procedures of his prose and fictional structures. The final lecture mainly focuses on "greatness" and A Passage to India, with Kermode even scolding socially inclined critics who fault that novel's apolitical stance and miss its subtleties and pleasures by taking a purist and a priori position.

The learning is profound but lightly worn, and the discriminations about writing, music, and love (under the guise of Krishna) sensitive and finely turned. The craftsmanship is apparent: each lecture is by tradition to last an hour in the delivery and not tax the listener overmuch.

On the whole, the book's Causerie section is, however, the livelier read. The tie is loosened, the gloves come off, and one is almost invited to agree, or not, with the casually offered opinions: Conrad...