I haven’t read EM Forster since I was 16 when I read them all in a fury of Merchant Ivory. From that point of pure ignorance and my dubious feelings about A Passage to India, I had to be told that my favouritest book Zadie Smith’s On Beauty was a tribute to Howards End. Now, two whole years later, I am re-reading Howards End and enjoying it enormously. It is an incredibly energetic, witty novel, only foiled by my On Beauty flashbacks. I am halfway through the novel and still comparing it to On Beauty. This is a bad thing. Like being abroad and constantly converting local prices into rupees. Very unfair to a brilliant novel.
UPDATE: It’s wonderful and wonderful. Go read.
