How I suffered. It’s not like
any of this was unexpected (quite the opposite as, thanks to the help of Merchant-Ivory
productions, the plot had very few surprises for me), but it’s all so heart-breaking.
I very much like to identify with poor Mr Bast (it’s not as if I came from a
poor family, but I am still the first kid to go to university, and went to another
country – and LSE and Cambridge at that – and scrubbed dishes six nights a week
for three years in order to pay my own expenses and feel like a
pseudo-proletarian). Seeing him ultimately mistreated by people who (in some
cases) mean well but fundamentally only see him as their own little project and
not as, erm, a person, is just too much.
Sure, Charles will go to jail
following Bast’s death, and his own kid (whom he will never meet) is going to
inherit Howards End and be all posh – but that doesn’t even begin to make up
for a stupid death under piles of books or the awfulness of not being in
control of one’s own life because some do-gooders who are completely out of
touch with reality secretly (or not so much at times) think that they know what’s
best for everyone.
Being Forster, it’s obviously superbly
written, but this story just gets me so very worked up!
