WL's Mainstream Gay Book Reviews - 24. Maurice by E.M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3103.Maurice

I am restarting my review series with probably the most well-known and “beloved” gay fiction story of the 20^th century. I think many of us have seen or heard of the 1987 British movie, which was created and released just a year prior to when Margaret Thatcher Administration ushered in sweeping Anti-Gay laws, including the infamous Section/Clause 28, “prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality”, along with local measures at the height of HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s. I watched Maurice before reading the book around 2003 through a file sharing site, I read the book before I learned about the Sodomy laws of Forster time or what the movie creators had to face in the 1980’s. Knowing what I do now and re-reading this book, I am proud of E.M. Forster for offering hope through his book of a loving gay relationship. I am grateful of Ishmael Merchant and James Ivory for creating a movie that gave hope to a generation of gay and bisexual men during our worst times. I watched this movie decades after HIV/AIDS epidemic and read the book even further in the future of its publication, but even so, I felt it's message of hope resonates for those of us with undying desire for love.

The book is around 256 pages long and it is 6 hours 22 minutes on Audible. I think this is a decently length book for most readers to finish in one day.

Note: I will try not to spoil too much with my plot summary and reserve more for my review, but be aware, I will provide some spoilers.

Plot: The story chronicles the life of Maurice Hall, a middle class Englishman, who grew up during the turn of the 20^th century. We are given insights into his formative years of primary schooling and public schooling, while we begin to learn about his growing interests in males. It is not until he attends Cambridge University through a meeting with Clive Durham that he understands what his feelings were in fact his homosexuality. Clive said he loves Maurice, then went about teaching Maurice about the classical same-sex relationships through ancient Greek and Roman sources. Maurice reciprocates these feeling, but things just before Clive goes off on a trip to Italy and Greece. Clive realizes he no longer loves Maurice, while Maurice desperately still loves Clive. Maurice tries in vain to cure himself of his homosexuality and unrequited feelings for Clive, without success as he continues to hover in Clive’s orbit, which Clive allows despite the lost of passion between them. However, unbeknownst to Maurice, Alec Scudder, Clive’s young gamekeeper, has fallen in love with Maurice. In a heat of passion, Alec and Maurice begin a passionate affair, but Maurice learns Alec is destined to leave to Argentina. The story, unlike most gay stories of the time, ends in a happily ever after for Maurice, who comes out fully and finds love.

Review: I am bias about this story, because of the movie and what it represents to me and I can guess for a lot of other gay guys. It was and maybe still is the foundation of the modern gay romance fiction story structure with stable protagonists and lovers.

While I can appreciate James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room from 1956, I didn’t like the main character, David, who was selfish and acted without regard to his lovers. I also dislike many early gay fiction novels of the period from 1940’s-1970’s, because they had horrible characters and endings for gay characters. The most representative story of this type to me is Gore Vidal’s The City and Pillar from 1948; though a breakthrough in depicting gay male relationships, it made us seem more like predators and at the end either murderers or rapists for our desires. While Alec may not have asked for Maurice's permission before embracing and making love with him, Maurice was no damsel in need of rescue, he consented to having gay sex in a repressive society that couldn't utter the word. Their liaison afterward was fully consenting and mutual, no predatory undercurrent at all.

E.M. Forster treated gay relationship with respect, treated what gay and bisexual males want in a lover with a candor that makes me wonder how much of this was based on first-hand experience. While there maybe many gay male writers, E.M. Forster charted a course against the grain of his time, when he wrote this book. This book had self-loathing, angst, and fear like other writers in gay fiction, but what I loved about it most of all, his characters like him accepted their sexuality and their "method" of love, despite the need to keep it secret. There's a difference between expressing your truth in private with full honesty versus living in an open lie with society's expectations, there is a sense of acceptance in being honest. Other gay and bisexual authors from James Baldwin, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote couldn’t accept who they were without adding tragic flaws. E.M. Forster never doubted himself or his titular character, Maurice, for loving a man; though, they out of necessity had to hide it for fear of persecution and prosecution to unjust society. Maybe it's me, but I think gay male writers need to remember this about themselves and their characters; we have just as much right to love as others and acceptance of your nature cannot be shelved for paltry gains of social conventions.

This book represents the beginning of modern gay fiction. Yes even after 1971, there may have been throwbacks to sadder tropes and topics, but the precedent of happiness was set, but we had our first real happy ending. The story-line wasn’t overly dramatic, but there are parts that feel like gut-punches. Clive’s confrontation with Maurice that he no longer has love for men or Maurice may seem abrupt at first, but we’re given a few chapters of progressive distancing between Clive and Maurice. While E.M. Forster may not have had the word “Fluidity” during his lifetime, the concept is well known in our community today. While many gay readers will hate Clive’s abrupt shift in sexual preference, it is no different than gay romance novelist writing a seemingly heterosexual man falling for another man after self-discovery. In retrospect, I honestly think Clive may be on the asexual spectrum as well as being gay in his early life. E.M. Forster opens the possibility of sexual fluidity in his novel for the first time with Clive, a man who believe himself a homosexual but he loses his sexual attraction to men; though, it is hinted towards the end that he is not really in love with his wife either, it is just "expected". However, he does not make Clive the only example of human sexuality; otherwise, Maurice would be proof that things like "Ex-Gay" movement is universally applicable. Maurice despite the use of psychology and hypnosis remained homosexual, demonstrating an important fact as well, not all men are fluid. Furthermore, not all men need to choose based on "expectations". Alec, despite seeming heterosexual and later revealing himself to be bisexual, chooses to be with Maurice forever rather than be with a woman. These 3 men represent important concepts in sexual orientation that were not explored before E.M. Forster together: fluidity, fixed, and choice. At the end of the day, Clive just did not love Maurice enough and could live his life with a woman without passion, hinting at his asexual traits with homosexual interests. Maurice requires deep love to and from his partners, so could not stay with Clive, who at best offers him Platonic love, and living a lie. Alec requires the freedom to choose who he loved for himself, he wants to love without reserve for Maurice as the epitome of passion.

Lastly, there are 2 lines that I think best explain what gay love and stable relationships should be, rather than relationships based on dependencies and abuse of a lover's feelings:

"Did you ever dream you had a friend, Alec? Someone to last your whole life and you his. I suppose such a thing can’t really happen outside sleep."

This line epitomizes what I yearn for in a partner, like Maurice, I think that's at the heart of a gay relationship. Yet, I believe such things can happen outside of sleep and should happen. It make me cry every time I hear it, because I am very sentimental 😢

“You care for me a little bit, I do think," he admitted, "but I can't hang all my life on a little bit. You don't. You hang yours on Anne. You don't worry whether your relation with her is platonic or not, you only know it's big enough to hang a life on…I was yours once 'till death if you'd cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now - I can't hang about whining forever - and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked, and attend to your own happiness?”

This line outlines why Maurice and Clive's love faded and ended, while Alec and Maurice flourish to the end. True love and a stable relationship is based on mutual acceptance and respect, a partnership in spirit and emotions, if not in fact initially, then both are willing to sacrifice to make it a partnership.

I believe that E.M. Forster did more than just give gay romance fiction a happy ending, I think he gave us the modern gay relationship framework and the concept of being “partners” from his novel. Love has to be more than one partner’s sacrifice for another, it has to be mutual between both partners, just like Alec and Maurice, who belong to each other. Before Maurice, gay and bisexual men existed in fiction, but were tragedies or worse to one another. Social conservatives back then argued that was our nature, but I think it’s a matter of society pushing a prejudicial view on gay and bisexual, including many famous gay and bisexual authors, who perpetuated negative self-image. There was no healthy relationship to point to in fiction, or understanding of what being “partners” entailed between two men. This book and the 1987 movie gave guidance on what love and respect is needed, while offering a happy ending that so many of us longed for and still long for today in our relationships.

Historically for those interested, E.M. Forster was in an unconventional 40 year same-sex relationship with a married police officer Robert Buckingham, whose wife, May, served as his nurse late in life. By most accounts, they were all honest with one another, if not completely faithful, E.M. Forster even became godfather to their child, Robin. It’s a fascinating triangle relationship, there was anger, love, fears, hope, desires, need, and so much more that seriously could be a dream project of an enterprising historical filmmaker or historical fiction writer. With that backdrop and a man who could be in love with someone in such a complex relationship, you can see why I believe E.M. Forster may have written the template of modern gay and bisexual relationships.

My Rating: 5 out of 5, it’s a true classic in gay fiction for a reason. It’s worth reading at least once for every gay and bisexual man, not just for curiosity, but also to give you insight as to one of the foundations modern gay literature and I would dare to say gay relationships.