A few weeks ago, I overheard the following conversation while watching the view of Hollywood from a plateau in Runyon Canyon.
Mid-20s starlet: “I’m working on a movie, The Beautiful and Damned.”
Friend: “Is that by Anne Rice?”
Mid-20s starlet: “No, Forster.”
Just in time to set the record straight on what Forster actually did write, or to prevent his work from being recognized solely through Merchant Ivory Productions, two new biographies of Forster have come out, so to speak, and Michael Levenson’s review in Slate.com compares their merits. One, A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster, by Wendy Moffat, focuses almost exclusively on Forster’s personal life. The other, Concerning E.M. Forster, by Frank Kermode, restricts its focus to the art of making fiction.
Levenson’s review implies that each of these biographies offers a partial picture of Forster that the other book could help to complete. But perhaps it’s through Forster’s own work, that we may find the most revelatory insights into his personal struggles, the secrets he kept -- especially from his mother, and his work life. Levenson says, “In the long-suppressed novel Maurice the title character blurts out his truth, ‘I’m an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.’ ”
Perhaps the under-read starlet was right -- Forster may have written the original book on being beautiful and damned.
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