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Where Angels Fear to Tread
by E.M. Forster
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Vintage (1992-02-18)
ISBN: 0679736344
EAN: 9780679736349
Dewy Decimal #: 823.912
Paperback: 192 pages
Release Date: 1992-02-18
SKU: WB204953
Condition: Very Good
Comments: 0679736344 MMPB. Previous owners name inside; he has made a few helpful notes. Its cover shows only minor shelf wear and soiling with a few creases. Your book will be carefully protected for transit in sturdy, weather-resistant packaging. We are prompt, efficient, communicative.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
"Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what she doesn't understand! Look at this letter! The man who wrote it will marry her, or murder her, or do for her somehow. He's a bounder, but he's not an English bounder. He's mysterious and terrible. He's got a country behind him that's upset people from the beginning of the world."
When a young English widow takes off on the grand tour and along the way marries a penniless Italian, her in-laws are not amused. That the marriage should fail and poor Lilia die tragically are only to be expected. But that Lilia should have had a baby -- and that the baby should be raised as an Italian! -- are matters requiring immediate correction by Philip Herriton, his dour sister Harriet, and their well-meaning friend Miss Abbott.
In his first novel, E. M. Forster anticipated the themes of cultural collision and the sterility of the English middle class that he would develop in A Room with a View and A Passage to India. Where Angels Fear to Tread is an accomplished, harrowing, and malevolently funny book, in which familiar notions of vice and virtue collapse underfoot and the best intentions go mortally awry.
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Customer Reviews
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What I remembered
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-03-15
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
What I remembered from this novel was the opera scene (still glorious) and the tragic climax (still brutal so that I slowed down coming up to it in hopes of preventing its appearance). What I forgot was how witty it was, how warm, how accomplished for such an early novel in a writer's career. In short, it was actually better than I remembered, a rare accomplishment for an author I love so much. Not as magnificent as Proust nor as fine a writer as James, but equally as wise as both and much more welcoming than either.
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The First Step in the Right Direction
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-01-19
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
The first novel written by E. M. Forster is a perfect introduction to his fiction. He is not yet a master so he will not frighten you off with his form and style but he will gently let you see the world the way he saw it. This relatively small and slight book can make a charming read if you are sensitive enough to detect delicate mood changes, notice off-hand remarks which reveal the true meaning of the story. The style and language alone make it worth your time.
And yet there is more to it. It is a book about "us" and "the other". Philosophers have pondered on the issue for years and brought hefty volumes of studies but Forster can make it without unnecessary ado. This history of an English widow who did not fit in affluent suburb and, when sent abroad, married an Italian youth only to become the victim of his macho ways will certainly make you think. The second part - the unfortunate family rescue operation sent to save a baby from being brought up in wrong faith and wrong part of the world will also be food for thought. Have we changed really? Are we ready to accept that other people's ways may be as good as ours? Forster leaves these questions unanswered and the ending open - you have to fill in the blanks of the novel and the way you see the world.
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Where Angels Fear to Tread
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-07-25
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
In E. M. Forster's first novel, an effete English family and their acquaintances encounter an authentic and vital society in the hills of Italy. Vacuous Lilia visits Monteriano in Tuscany and impulsively marries. She realizes her mistake too late to save herself but her English in-laws attempt to rescue the issue of her marriage. Upon arriving in Monteriano, they find that their wealth and education count for less than they thought. Rigid Harriett breaks herself against the local culture and provokes a tragedy, but the more sensitive members of the rescue party, Philip and Miss Abbott, profit in ways that they did not expect.
Forster uses a quiet, simple style that lets the reader be moved by his rather sudden plot revelations. While this is a short novel, Forster finds room for a sincere appreciation of the charms of fictional Monteriano and some gentle humor. I imagine that this very approachable novel would appeal to many different types of readers.
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Italy Charms Everyone in the Worst of Times [98]
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-05-09
If one wishes to learn how Britain's rich entertained, lived and acted during the turn of the century, E.M. Forster and Evelyn Waugh deliver depictions as well as anyone of their generation.
This book delves little with interpersonal thoughts. Instead, it deals with dialogue. Rich, gooey, luscious dialogue where the characters reveal their characters, their thoughts, their inner beings by what words they choose to deliver to others.
In the staid world of turn-of-the-century Britain, the dialogue must be masterfully written as the people did not directly say what they felt. They were polite, but in a cold British manner. And, Forster's ability to write that type of British dialogue is unrivaled.
Additionally, this book - which is amid the wonderfully warm Italy - delivers a great ethical question: what to do with a baby born of a British mother (who dies in child birth) related to very impudent and snobby persons residing in the outskirts of London. Who does he belong to? His wealthy British relatives where he will be brought up well but little loved? Or with his loving Italian stallion 23-year-old father who has little money, knows nothing of rearing children and probably would fail (at least in a British perspective) in raising the child?
Forster delivered a similar ethical issue in "Howards End" where the last wish of a dying wife to her husband of many years (through oral bequest and written - but unwitnessed note - which contradicts her written will) is not followed by her husband and family who wish to keep their inheritance in exchange for dishonoring the matriarch's last wishes.
But, each issue is not finished with the sudden first response. In each book, more events occur which gloss the issue.
Read this book soon in time to "A Room With A View." Italy obviously touched Forster - this book and "Room With A View" are its derivatives. Thank you Italy for being you to Forster, who wrote that Italy ". . . sent me going as novelist."
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Somewhat dated but still a worthwhile read
Rating (4)
Date: 2007-02-02
0 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book suffers from dated style and tone. Also, its one of those book where nothing much happens until EVERYTHING happens. Still, the characters are drawn with universal qualities and weaknesses and so it was a book to which I could relate. Forester is a subtle master in developing the theme that everyone is different than what they initially appear to be. A cad really can be a gentleman in disguise. "Angels" is a worthwhile read.
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