E. M. Forster's Shorter Fiction and Essays

Book Reviews, Volume 32:1, 1988 E. M. FORSTER'S SHORTER FICTION AND ESSAYS Judith Scherer Herz. The Short Narratives of E. M. Forster. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988. $29.95 Professor Herz in her book attempts to demonstrate the close connection in the Forster oeuvre between the short stories and the discursive essays. Each genre illustrates, in its own way, the narrative impulse which is, according to Herz, all-powerful in almost everything that he wrote. Even his Commonplace Book is, in her view, an attempt at self-dramatization rather than an attempt to collect memorable obiter dicta from other authors and to reflect his own miscellaneous thoughts. The link between the short fiction and the essays is closer, Herz contends, than most of Forster's critics have granted. Early essays, such as "Malcolnia Shops" and "Cnidus," are not only discursive but contain within them pronounced narrative elements; conversely, in the short stories Forster's emphasis is not only upon the ordering of incident but upon thematic content as well. Some stories which emphasize mood and vivid particulars are, in actuality, sketches rather than fully plotted tales, whereas the personal and narrative elements informing such works (ostensibly essays) as "Cnidus" and "Malcolnia Shops" give them the looseness of form that might allow them also to qualify as sketches. Early essays such as "Cardan" and "Gemistus Pletho" have a biographical aspect that is present also in some later efforts such as the critiques of Voltaire and Gibbon. Forster's peculiar narrative impulse suffuses whatever he wrote and gives rise to his distinctive "voice"-or shall we say-unifying sensibility. Throughout, Herz stresses Forster's writings as process wherein the element of self-discovery predominates over that of intellectual pronouncement . Her chief concern is with how he reaches his conclusions rather than with the evaluation of these conclusions. Herz's readings reveal much subtlety and intelligence, though we might occasionally wish for a more synthetic view of his universe than she can give us with her method. What we have is a series of shrewd close readings of Forster's shorter texts (and, we should perhaps admit, his minor ones). How Forster reaches his conclusions and formulates his values is fascinating to follow. A judicious appraisal of these values is, for the most part, missing from Herz's critiques. Herz is excellent, however, in tracing the presence of Demeter, Pan, and Hermes (especially the last) in the tales. She finds Hermes, for example, in texts like "The Point of It" and "The Life to Come" where he is not explicitly mentioned. She also deftly traces his presence in "Other Kingdom," "Dr. Woolacott," and "Story of a Panic." As for the 105 Book Reviews, Volume 32:1, 1988 essays, Herz is excellent on Pharos and Pharillon, though the book is perhaps slighter than she would be willing to admit. She argues, on the whole convincingly, for its crucial place in Forster's development and finds that in it private concerns have become transmuted into public ones, those predominating in the essays written in the 1930s and later. She also argues well for the vital presence of Montaigne, Voltaire , and Gibbon in Forster's discursive prose. Forster not only paid lip homage to these three men of letters, she contends, but assimilated their world views, their ethical predispositions, and their sensibilities into the very fabric of his nonfiction. There is no doubt of the thoroughness and the originality of Herz's readings of Forster's best shorter works. We attend to these readings as they enable us to understand more fully the Forsterean mind and sensibility. We are grateful for her careful and enthusiastic book, a book that represents the newest addition to first-class studies of this writer. Frederick P. W. McDowell _______________________________University of Iowa__________________ BLOOM'S RETURN OF THE NATIVE Harold Bloom, ed. Thomas Hardy's 'The Return of the Native'. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. $19.95 Included in Professor Bloom's gathering of interpretations of The Return of the Native, according to his title page, are D. H. Lawrence, From "Study of Thomas Hardy: The Return of the Native"; Irving Howe, "The Return of the Native," from...