And for the Schlegels, there is a masochistic thrill in having the Wilcoxes baldly dismiss their most deeply held ideals - about the equality of women and the classes - as “bosh.” For the staid Wilcoxes, watching the young and pretty Schlegel sisters fend for themselves as they go through life is exciting and appalling at once. When Schlegels and Wilcoxes meet, each family finds the other alienating and titillating in equal measure. (See also North and South.) In this case, the central families are the Schlegels - half-German and half-English, bohemian, and carelessly cosmopolitan - and the Wilcoxes: thoroughly English, bourgeois, and casually imperialist. Howards End is one of those novels where different classes are represented by different families, and the marriage that unites the families also symbolically unites the classes. The conflict of Howards End would feel right at home in a think piece about coastal elites Such an elitist. Howards End is, Daniel Born once wrote, “ the most comprehensive picture of liberal guilt in this century.” And in our current era of weekly think pieces on the voters of “Trump country,” their mysterious ways, and how liberal cosmopolitanism has failed them, Howards End will have you wincing in recognition. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |