WATCH - 'E.M. Forster - His Longest Journey'.
Hope there are some other fans here who enjoy this.
Whether or not the name E.M. Forster is of meaning to you will depend largely upon your age and the set texts that were assigned whilst studying. As a novelist, Forster is best known for works such as A Room With A View and Howard’s End although it is as likely that you will know his work for the television adaptations as you would for the original texts.
He was a member of the famous Bloomsbury group and has remained relevant in the years since his passing as one of the 20th Century’s most notable British authors.
This quaint, if somewhat niche documentary delves into one of his earlier (and lesser-known) novel – The Longest Journey – a book which is the most explicit of all his works in its evocation and focus on same-sex relationships. It remains the only one of his six novels to have not been adapted for the screen (large or small) but, as the documentary explores, was by far his most personal.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 38 | November 11, 2019 3:23 AM
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OP put an apostrophe in Howards End. He cannot be trusted.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | October 12, 2019 9:27 PM
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Oh dear.
1. A breathless narrator
2. An illiterate commentator in the first minute uses present-tense verbs to describe an action which took place over a century ago.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | October 12, 2019 10:25 PM
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The narrator is James Wilby.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | October 13, 2019 5:34 AM
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OP here, I always thought Forster had a miserable gay life, was pleased to see he had a good life. With anal included
by Anonymous | reply 5 | October 13, 2019 6:03 AM
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Author, Christopher Isherwood on E.M. Forster. Looks like not only did he have a good life, the finale was gracious and wonderful too.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 6 | October 13, 2019 7:29 PM
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[quote]As a novelist, Forster is best known for works such as A Room With A View and Howard’s End although it is as likely that you will know his work for the television adaptations as you would for the original texts.
I believe most people know those works from their FILM adaptations.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 13, 2019 8:40 PM
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Well this certainly gives lie to common misconception that Edwardian and Victorian gays lead totally unhappy and loveless lives.
True it paled in comparison to modern times, but fact even E.M. Forster was able to "lose respectability" more than a few times, and picked up a few lovers does show things weren't always so grim.
Have put Longest Journey down on my winter reading list. Maybe instead of a Maurice redo, someone ought to put that book into film, or maybe something on television/streaming.
Watching above clip helps put Maurice into perspective. Have gained a better understanding of Clive, Maurice, Schudder and even Lord Risley.
EMF was writing about the gay life he knew, which while extremely dangerous, could also have moments of reward. Clive isn't willing to take those risks, Lord Risley did and it ended badly. Maurice and Schudder put their own happiness above societal conventions, which was pretty brave for the time.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | October 14, 2019 1:59 AM
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Almost no one in the Bloomsbury group could claim a scarcity of sexual exploits, except maybe Leonard Woolf.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | October 14, 2019 3:29 AM
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I might have trout Forster too prissy to write explicitly of sex. Silly me.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 14, 2019 4:40 AM
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^trout? Really spellchecker? Trout?
Thought.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | October 14, 2019 4:42 AM
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The opening scene of ‘The Longest Journey’ is crap: the fucking cow will always be there, regardless.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 13 | October 14, 2019 5:54 PM
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Very interesting. I recall reading Isherwood's diaries and being amused by an account of a visit that Forster paid to his house in Santa Monica. Forster spent many a happy hour thumbing through gay porn magazines which at that time were not easy to source in England.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | October 14, 2019 7:48 PM
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^ Isherwood may have flippantly claimed Forster spent many an hour thumbing through magazines but did his aged visitor do anything about it?
Lytton Strachey said Forster had a "bat-squeak" between his legs.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 15 | October 15, 2019 6:09 AM
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Glad to see a few Bloomsbury scholars here. I feel so alone.sometimes.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | October 15, 2019 8:23 PM
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I used to a 'Bloomsbury fan' but that was a long, long time ago now.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | October 15, 2019 11:03 PM
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Bat-squeak is a faint echo, something tiny and faint (as in sound). In this case comment meant that EMF was size challenged below the waist.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | October 17, 2019 8:16 AM
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Evelyn Waugh gives his heterosexual hero a 'bat’s squeak' in the second half of 'Brideshead Revisited' in 1945.
Charles Ryder says “It was the first time in my life that anyone had asked this of me, and as I took the cigarette from my lips and put it in hers, I caught a thin bat’s squeak of sexuality, inaudible to any but me.”
by Anonymous | reply 20 | October 17, 2019 8:35 AM
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Looking for a lover for one night. My naked photos and videos here - na.to/gayfottos
by Anonymous | reply 21 | October 17, 2019 8:43 AM
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R20
I was not her man. She told me as much, without a word, when she took the cigarette from my lips.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | October 17, 2019 9:21 AM
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R20 I think of the 'bat squeak' is that silent, two-second nexus between the intellectual and the physical.
It's the neurological signal which says ‘release the sperm’.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | October 19, 2019 1:12 AM
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The trouble with the Bloomsbury set— Virginia, Lytton, Mansfield etc — was that their lives were frequently more interesting that their art.
Michael Holroyd's through, homosexual study of Strachey and his friends' "amatory gyrations" was much more titillating than their published work.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | October 19, 2019 3:55 AM
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Apparently gay life wasn't so dull for many others either; but there were consequences.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 25 | October 19, 2019 4:11 AM
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I'm sure I can find the documentary with a little digging, but it would've been nice if the OP told us exactly where to find it
by Anonymous | reply 26 | October 19, 2019 4:37 AM
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R26 You can seek out a skewed, superficial video full of second-hand people or you can go to the source—
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 27 | October 19, 2019 4:50 AM
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As a young gay boy in high school, I read all available books by Forster in my local library. Although, really enjoyed Vita Sackville-West, probably because we both enjoyed gardening (really into topiaries) and I was a little lezzy myself.
by Anonymous | reply 28 | October 19, 2019 5:02 AM
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R26 I posted it at the top, on the original post. Are you special?
by Anonymous | reply 29 | October 19, 2019 10:58 PM
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“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.” ― E.M. Forster
“Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.” ― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View
by Anonymous | reply 30 | October 19, 2019 11:02 PM
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Is bat-squeak sort of like pipsqueak?
by Anonymous | reply 32 | October 20, 2019 2:43 AM
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R24 I'm only half way through the OP's linked video but, as you suggest, it fixates more on author's life rather than their printed work.
by Anonymous | reply 33 | October 20, 2019 10:52 AM
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Virginia Woolf said back in the 20s that Christopher Isherwood looked like a horse-jockey, short and spry.
But the clip at R6 shows that he also talked like a horse-jockey with a childish, high-pitched voice. I feel I can say he spoke like a gelding horse-jockey.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | October 20, 2019 9:27 PM
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R33 His work has been talked about endlessly, his actual life has not
by Anonymous | reply 35 | October 20, 2019 9:34 PM
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I can understand why Forster's second story has NOT been filmed and why this equivocating, schmaltzy video bends over backwards to make it relevant to us.
The hero of the story called 'Longest Journey' is physically crippled and emotionally crippled.
The writer of the story is rather emotionally crippled and has a very long, unproductive and rather joyless journey until his death.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | October 23, 2019 1:08 AM
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Oh dear, R36. You are using present-tense verbs when you should be using the past tense.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | October 23, 2019 1:51 AM
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R17 There are lots of Bloomsbury haters as well as Bloomsbury lovers. Modern millennials hate them for being upper-middle class and intellectually exclusive.
DH Lawrence warned a virile young man (Mark Gertler, I think) to avoid 'the Bloomsburies' because they preyed on others like beetles.
Walter J. Turner said they had 'nothing below the neck'.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 38 | November 11, 2019 3:23 AM
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