I first heard of E. M. Forster’s novel, Maurice, as an undergrad English student, not through one of my courses, but on a visit to my grandparents. At that time, my grandfather was a retired clergy and a staunch member of the Community of Concern, a group hellbent on keeping the dreaded homosexual out of United Church of Canada pulpits. Shortly before my grandfather retired, there was a quasi-famous “incident” where, in the name of pastoral care, he told a lesbian couple they were sick and he offered the name of a reputable therapist. After retirement, my grandparents moved to London, ON and became members of Metropolitan United Church, one of the largest United Church congregations in Canada. The lead minister was Maurice Boyd, among the finest preachers I have ever heard. He was a well-read and learned man whose sermons crackled with scholarship, philosophical quotations, literary allusions and humorous anecdotes all delivered in an easy manner that held the congregation spellbound.
On one occasion, the Reverend Boyd spoke on names and the importance of naming. I don’t remember the precise context. Maybe he used the story of Peter’s naming – “Thou art Peter and upon this rock … ” (Matt 16:18) – as the starting point for his twenty minute riff. He talked about how some people have great literary precursors – Oliver, for example, or Emma or Jude or Juliet. He turned to his own name and observed that its literary heritage was not so well-developed. “Although there is this one novel. It’s called Maurice, by E. M. Forster. You remember E. M. Forster, don’t you? He wrote A Passage to India? The only problem is: Maurice is about a homosexual.” The pews were all atwitter with snickers and guffaws.
From Metropolitan United, Maurice Boyd went on to hold the prestigious post at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. As far as I’m aware, there are no homosexuals in the Presbyterian Church – or in all of NYC for that matter. Maybe things have changed since then.
Maurice Boyd didn’t say anything overtly demeaning or cruel or hateful, not like my grandfather. On their face, his words were unimpeachable: Maurice is, in fact, a novel by E. M. Forster about a homosexual. But he delivered his words with an understanding, in a context, with a glint in the eye. Given the sermon topic, what Maurice Boyd supposed is that the novel, Maurice, with its character of the same name, could never form a strong precursor for the naming of a real person – not like Dickens’ Oliver. And that supposition in turn rested on a whole raft of other suppositions:
• Maurice isn’t a great novel;
• a great novel can’t be about homosexuality;
• a great novel is great because it is morally edifying;
• homosexuality can’t be a morally edifying theme
… all the usual suspects.
As seems to be the rule, speech reveals more about the speaker than it does about the object, which is unfortunate, because so often the object deserves our attention. In this instance, the object is a novel published posthumously in 1971. Forester had completed it in 1914 but left it to molder for fifty-six years until his death. The reason is obvious: publishing would have outed him and in England homosexuality was a criminal offence until 1967.
The novel concerns a respectable young man named Maurice Hall who goes to Cambridge, is guaranteed a partnership position in his late father’s investment firm, and is expected to lead an unremarkable middle-class life, just like his father before him, complete with wife and children in suburbia. However, at Cambridge, Maurice discovers desires that suggest a different life for him. He falls in love with Clive who appears to reciprocate. Alas, Clive announces that he no longer cares for Maurice; he prefers women, wants to marry, wants to provide his family with an heir, be a serious man, etc., etc. Clive’s apparent change of heart is both hurtful and puzzling to Maurice. He wants what Clive has: a calming of his desires, a normal life without the terror of being found out as something else. Maurice seeks the help of various quacks but with no success. Even as he consults a hypnotist, he falls in love with a servant on Clive’s estate.
Like all of Forster’s novels, Maurice is written in a beautiful controlled prose that has a few equals, but no betters. I recall an interview of Anthony Burgess in which he was pressed about his own output: would the public not tire of someone so prolific? Burgess answered by pointing to Forster and stating that one of his great laments for English literature was that Forster wrote only six novels. If a man has something to say, he should say it. However, as already noted, Forster’s output may have been curtailed by the fact that most of what he had to say was unlawful for him to say.
I prefer the opinion of Anthony Burgess to that of Maurice Boyd: as a novel, Maurice is eminently worthy to serve as the precursor in name of any living man. One simply has to get over the fact that it is about a man who desires other men. It attends closely to the psychology of this discovery, to the social fears attached to matters of human sexuality, to the terrors of religious orthodoxy, and to the controlling power of class in pre-war England.
The novel opens with a brilliant scene which poses a question. Forster is too subtle to make the question explicit. Nevertheless I can’t help but wonder if the rest of the novel doesn’t stand as a question mark to the question posed by this scene. A young Maurice is about to graduate from his prep school and the headmaster, recognizing that Maurice is fatherless, undertakes the paternal duty of explaining the facts of life to the boy. Together, they walk along the beach and, using a stick, the headmaster draws diagrams in the sand. Later, the headmaster realizes that he forgot to scratch out the diagrams. He sees in the distance that another party – which includes women – is approaching the stretch of beach where the headmaster had given his talk. Maurice allays the man’s embarrassment by pointing out that the tide is coming in and waves will scour the sand clean before the women ever see the diagrams.
What would life be like if we scoured away all our crude suppositions about our sexuality? How would it feel to live free of the accusation that one is sick or sinful and needs to be cured or redeemed? In Maurice, Forster tried to work out this problem. It is too bad he never felt he was as free as the freedom he conferred on his character who was able to rise above the constraints not only of sexuality but also of class.
If you enjoy Maurice, then you may also enjoy Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask.