I was prompted to finally read this because of the mini-series on PBS. I haven't watched it yet, even though it aired months ago, because I was trying to finish the book first. Maybe I'll watch it this weekend.
As of now, my impressions of Howard's End. The clearest things about this are it's evaluation of the class system, and how or when people should be thinking for themselves. The main characters are women who in the designated time frame should really not be running their own lives. But they are and are managing to do a decent job of it. They get caught up in weird fascinations, and strange human situations due to their unique take on human nature.
Money is an abstract concept to them sometimes, but in others, they are very clear that without money people are nothing. The entire story centers around a house that the main characters don't even own. We don't even find the house until partway through the story, and then it features only in fairly minor ways except to skim along in the background until nearly the end. We know details about it that the main characters do not, and it is fairly significant to some of the actions of some characters but the home at Howard's End is never really a very major part of the story until the very end.
It's an interesting story, and I was intrigued to find out where it was going, but I found myself having to read passages over and over in order to fully grasp what the story was trying to tell me. Sometimes the logical was quite flawed, and in order to understand the actions, you needed to have a handle on the thought process that wasn't necessarily clear.
I can't say I didn't enjoy the story though when all is said and done. It''s not something that I will ever endeavour to read again, I think but it wasn't wasted time.
#64-2020
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