Is A Room with a View worth reading?
Yes, very much: A Room with a View (1908) is Forster's lightest and most optimistic novel: a young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, goes to Florence with a fussy chaperone, meets people who don't follow the rules, and has to decide what kind of life she wants. It is short, very funny about English snobbery abroad, and full of Italian light. The 1985 Merchant Ivory film is a faithful delight, but the book's narrator is wittier than anything on screen.
Zestasy Wiki: our reference answers. Checked for facts and sources; less curated than the magazine.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) is best known for A Room with a View, Howards End and A Passage to India. A Room with a View was his third published novel but, according to Wikipedia's profile of Forster, it was the first he started, in 1901, under the working title Lucy. It is his lightest and most hopeful book, and many readers' favourite way in.
The story, without spoilers
The novel is in two parts. In the first, Lucy Honeychurch and her older cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett, arrive at the Pensione Bertolini in Florence and are put out to find their rooms don't have the promised view of the Arno. Another guest, the outspoken Mr Emerson, offers to swap rooms with them; his son George goes along with it. Charlotte is horrified by this lack of decorum. From there come churches, guidebooks, carriage outings to Fiesole, gossiping fellow guests and a few moments that unsettle Lucy's sense of how a well-brought-up young woman should feel.
The second part moves back to Surrey, to Lucy's family home, and to the question of whether she will marry Cecil Vyse, a London aesthete who looks perfect on paper. Wikipedia's summary of the novel describes it as both a romance and a humorous critique of English society at the start of the twentieth century. That's exactly right.
Why it's worth reading
It's genuinely funny. Forster's narrator is ironic and affectionate at once, especially about the English abroad: the clergymen, the novelist who promises to show Lucy the "real" Italy, the travellers clutching their Baedeker guidebooks. If you've ever watched tourists arguing over a map in a piazza, you'll recognise them.
It's about something real. Under the comedy is a serious question: do you live by the rules other people set, or by what you actually feel? Forster takes Lucy's confusion seriously without ever getting heavy.
Italy is a character. Florence and the hills around it are not just scenery; they are what breaks Lucy's routine. The light, the noise, the frankness of Italian life work on her the way they work on many travellers.
It's short. Comfortably a weekend's reading, and a perfect book to take to Tuscany.
Book or film?
The 1985 film, directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, with Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy, Maggie Smith as Charlotte, Julian Sands as George and Daniel Day-Lewis as Cecil, is a classic in its own right. According to Wikipedia's article on the film), it was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won three, for adapted screenplay, art direction and costume design. It follows the novel closely, even borrowing the idea of chapter titles on screen.
What the film can't fully give you is the narrator: Forster's sly asides, his commentary on his characters, the way he lets you see their pretensions while still liking them. Read the book first if you can, then enjoy the film as a beautifully dressed companion. Our page on whether to read the book before the film has more on that question in general.
If you like it
Forster's other Italian novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), his first published novel, is darker and also very funny about the English in Italy. For another sunlit escape with English travellers transformed by Italy, try The Enchanted April.
FAQ
Is A Room with a View hard to read?
No. The prose is clear and the chapters are short. A few Edwardian conventions need a moment's adjustment, but it is one of the most approachable classics of its era.
Do you need to know Florence?
Not at all, though it adds to the pleasure if you've walked around Santa Croce or the Piazza della Signoria. If you're going, it's a fine companion.
Is it a romance?
Partly. It's a love story, a comedy of manners and a story about growing up, all at once.
Is it considered a classic?
Yes. The Modern Library placed it at number 79 in its 1998 list of the hundred best English-language novels of the twentieth century.
Sources
Written by the Zestasy editors. General information for curious adults, not medical, nutrition or training advice.