Good morning!

[erastes]

Sun is shining (after a rainy day yesterday) and the birdies are all tweeting outside my windows. Cats are snoozing in various places around the room and all is well with the world.

I’ve done my monthly post for Unusual Historicals (the theme this month has been Literature and Education) focussing lightly on “Maurice” by EM Forster – which, in the light of the recent upholding of Prop 8, seems a very well-timed post. (Makes a change for me!)  As I say in the post, although Forster was ahead of his time writing a HEA for his characters, perhaps he should have thought twice about sending them to America…

Anyway, it’s here – Enjoy! (it’s well worth going to look, if only for a picture of the cast (not a movie still) that I’d never seen before. Now I really want to write threesome Maurice fic.

Talking of Prop 8.

f you are a registered voter in California or have friends who are, the repeal movement has a site right here:

http://www.yesonequality.com/

They are collecting signatures.  We know the pressure of voters WORKS. Let’s wipe this thing off the face of the earth. - - -

Comments

[aunty_marion]

Hmph. We had a sunny day (mostly) yesterday, after an initial sprinkle of rain; today it's showery.

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I'm wrong, but I know this book and film pretty well and I'm certain that Forster did not send his characters to America at all? I'm not sure where that info has come from?
As far as I can ascertain, the two men headed off to live quietly in the 'greenwood' (in the unpublished epilogue discussed in some papers in research I have done, they live as woodcutters and are 'happened upon' by Maurice's sister Kitty some years later).
The whole sense I have from the book is that they were proud to be British and would never have left.
I am not entirely sure why Forster did leave out the epilogue, but from what I can gather, it was written some years after the main novel (possibly on request of those he showed the manuscript to) and it seems he firstly felt that the epilogue was not necessary, and further to that, with the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 (roughly one year after the novel's close) would be unrealistic, as in the circumstances one or both of the men would almost certainly have died, whuch would have rather spoilt the happy ending.

There is a 'fanfiction' style sequel available on Amazon, which I won't discuss in detail due to problems with my blood pressure, but anyway, as far as I am aware, Alec and Maurice did not go to America.
Apologies if I've got the wrong end of the stick here, but I'm confused!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I have the book here, and as far as I can tell, Alec was supposed to hop a boat for Buenos Aires but decided to miss it and stay with Maurice in England. This edition has a final note from Forster that mentions the woodcutters scene but points out that the physical changes to England caused by WWI made it impossible to write that scene realistically--the greenwood was gone.

On the other hand, if the film sends 'em both to America, it wouldn't be the first time a movie has goofed up an ending.

On the 3rd hand.. or appendage... America in those days did still have remote areas where a couple of 'bachelor farmers' might go unremarked. Hard to picture them in Lake Woebegon, though...

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's right, and no, I have 2 versions of the book, a 1971 (I think) first and the new one with notes, and the dvd. The film is pretty faithful, story-wise, and Alec doesn't go to Argentina as planned. The ending is open, and leaves us with the symbolic image, as did the novel, of Clive closing his bedroom shutters.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I reckon they would have gone - he wanted them to have the happy ever after - and they wouldn't have had that if they'd stayed in England, from the war, at the very least.

[kittymay.livejournal.com]

They might well have gone. It's just I'm trying to recall if there was any mention of it and I'm sure there wasn't.