A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster by Wendy Moffat (PDF)

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A REVELATORY LOOK AT THE INTIMATE LIFE OF THE GREAT AUTHOR—AND HOW IT SHAPED HIS MOST BE LOVED WORKS With the posthumous publication of his long-suppressed novel Maurice in 1970, E. M. Forster came out as a homosexual— though that revelation made barely a ripple in his literary reputation. As Wendy Moffat persuasively argues in A Great Unrecorded History, Forster’s homosexuality was the central fact of his life. Between Wilde’s imprisonment and the Stonewall riots, Forster led a long, strange, and imaginative life as a gay man. He preserved a vast archive of his private life—a history of gay experience he believed would find its audience in a happier time. A Great Unrecorded History is a biography of the heart. Moffat’s decade of detective work—including first-time interviews with Forster’s friends—has resulted in the first book to integrate Forster’s public and private lives. Seeing his life through the lens of his sexuality offers us a radically new view—revealing his astuteness as a social critic, his political bravery, and his prophetic vision of gay intimacy. A Great Unrecorded History invites us to see Forster— and modern gay history—from a completely new angle.

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⭐The great novelist E. M. Forster on the subject of his posthumous legacy wanted everything told. Wendy Moffat, to her credit, certainly does just that. In A GREAT UNRECORDED HISTORY, a quotation from Forster, as are all the chapter headings, Moffat draws from his journals and a “locked diary” that he kept for sixty years as well as interviews with his friends. She also includes voluminous notes and an extensive bibliography at the end of this most informative and heartwarming biography.It of course has been long known by readers that Forster’s novel MAURICE and a collection of short stories THE LIFE TO COME, dealing with love and sex between men, were published at his direction only after his death in 1970. Moffat writes extensively about MAURICE. One of the most moving portions of this biography appears early when Forster– he was called “Morgan” by friends and family”– showed a typewritten copy of the novel to Christopher Isherwood. His eyes wet with tears, Isherwood told Forster that he found the novel “wonderful and brave.” Isherwood encouraged Forster to publish the novel– in 1928, 1948, 1951– to no avail, however. Forster finished MAURICE before he ever touched another man– he had his first sexual encounter when he was 37– and certainly that is one of the saddest facts about Forster’s life. Sergeant Leonard Matlovich– discharged from the USAF for being openly gay– said something similar in his autobiography when he remembered that he had never touched another human being until he was well into adulthood. Through the years a copy of MAURICE made the rounds of Forster’s friends although T. E. Lawrence chose not to read it. The author later in his life revised the novel to give it a happier ending.In an example of life imitating art, as in the novel, Forster chose men from the lower classes as lovers. He, for example, remembered forty years after his affair with the Egyptian tram conductor Mohammed el Adl that this friendship was one of the two ‘”greatest things”‘ in his life. The two men had a single suit made for each of them to wear. It was slightly too big for Adl and a litle small for Forster. He was devastated when Adl died of consumption at the age of 23. He kept for the rest of his life studio photographs of Adl, the ticket stub from their first tram ride together and Adl’s letters to him: “Do not forget your ever friend.” Forster’s longest relationship was with Bob Buckingham, a British policeman he met in 1930 who like Adl, married and named a child Morgan after Forster. Buckingham and his wife May– with whom Forster became good friends in the most interesting of triangles– were with him when the writer died in 1970.Forster’s homosexuality was at the center of who he was. He essentially stopped writing fiction for publication after A PASSAGE TO INDIA, which became a best seller and made him rich, because he believed he could not write about gay characters although he would never have used the word “gay” to describe the love between two men. Throughout his long life–he died at the age of 91– Forster met other writers and moved in literary circles, both gay and otherwise, around the world, including the United States where he made two visits: D. H. Lawrence, W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, C. P. Cavafy (Forster believed that meeting the very “out” Greek poet was one of the most fortunate things that happened to him), Henry James (to whom he did not warm) and Gore Vidal whom he did not like at all. He also wrote the libretto for Benjamin Britton’s opera from Melville’s BILLY BUDD and became friends with Paul Cadmus who included him in one of his paintings and George Platt Lynes who photographed him and Bob Buckingham on their visit to the U. S.In what has to be one of the most unusual dinner parties ever held–“Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?”– on their visit to the United States, Forster and Buckingham were the guests of honor at a party hosted by Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler. Also in attendance were Joseph Campbell and Dr. Alfred Kinsey. What the two Brits did not know was that the theme of the party–Wescott and Wheeler’s parties always had themes– was sex although Forster and Buckingham rose to the occasion. Bob invited Kinsey to visit England to see Scotland Yard’s confiscated pornography and Morgan took comfort in learning– as did he– that Kinsey believed that homosexual men were as much a male as heterosexual men although he chose not to discuss his sex life with the sex researcher.It is easy to criticize Forster for the life he chose to live– his relationship with his mother, for example. Apparently he always bowed to her wishes. In his own words: ‘”We were a classic case.”‘ Other writers published gay works without having their careers ruined: Christopher Isherwood, James Baldwin Andre Gide, to name three, although Forster quipped that Gide did not have a mother. There is much, however, to admire about his life. He spoke out in defense of D. H. Lawrence and Radclyffe Hall and their right to publish LADY CHATTERLY’S LOVER and WELL OF LONELINESS. He also later in life advocated– if cautiously– for gay rights, supporting the Wolfenden Report that recommended that “homosexual acivity between consenting adults over the age of twenty-one be no longer a criminal offense.” And Forster tried to bridge the gap between social classes, no easy task for a man of his time and station. Finally his friend Eudora Welty in her review of Forster’s collection of short stories THE LIFE TO COME said that “his greatness surely had root in his capacity to treat all human relationships seriously and truthfully.”Ms. Moffat in this biography has created a really fine portrait of E. M Forster that brings to life this great writer and– more importantly– decent and good person.

⭐I wanted at least a week to think before reviewing this biography of Forster; I wanted to “do justice” obviously to the author, Wendy Moffat, to Forster, and to my own sense of critical integrity, I guess.Moffat’s work is an exceedingly important addition to the current canon of Forster biographies, and I liked the book and came away with some very pointed feelings, which tells me, at least, that I have been a bit thrown, a bit unsettled, what have you. If a bio can do that without being blatantly provocative, then the author has hit a worthy mark. The book is not provocative.It is also not without its problems.Where to begin? How about my opinion as a reader?Moffat’s writing is tight, sharp, and as graceful as you can get in terms of launching potentially controversial biographical material. She is studious, as one would hope in writing a serious biography, but her writing is engaging as well. I must give her plaudits for that.The tone of the bio is, however, based upon a major agenda, whether Moffat would admit to that or not, and I can’t imagine she would deny it. This biography very much seeks to define Forster’s entire life, existence, and ouevre according to his sexuality. Moffat trundles out some pretty hard-core evidence, too; access to Forster’s diaries/journals was an extraordinary coup. Moffat makes a strong case for her “Forster’s Work Must Be Seen Solely Through His Gayness” theory.I guess I could have accepted that theory, if she had closed her case. I Was not ultimately persuaded. First of all, it frankly seemed, to me, dangerous ground to seek to define an author’s entire body of work through a prism of sexuality. Moffat reports properly and soberly and lets the details speak for themselves in that regard, but she also–unquestionably–seeks to “sell” her underlying theory. When one proclaims that ‘Maurice’ was the only “honest” novel that Forster ever wrote, there you have it. Massive agenda, flat out.Clearly, Forster’s sexuality was an overwhelming issue for him for life. The details are often quite repulsive: He engaged in sadistic pederasty in India (then felt immense guilt about the incident); he was sexless for the first 30 years of his life, yes, and then became rather promiscuous (rutting for casual sex in public parks in his 50s? How evolved); he basically allowed friends to pimp-out sexual encounters for him across the world. Etc.All the tawdry evidence being considered (as Moffat uses the evidence), we are encouraged to believe that Forster ceased writing novels in his prime because he felt he could not write or at least publish “honest” (i.e. GAY) novels.I don’t accept this theory, even though Forster clearly wrote a great deal of “searching” literature with repeated homosexual motifs. Moffat seems to push the idea that Forster’s abandonment of the novel was somehow noble, in this context. But she defeats her premise, I think, unwittingly.From her account of Forster’s life, as I interpreted her interpretation, he abandoned the novel because he was sex-obsessed and promiscuous once he started discovering sex.Is this a depressing way to look at Forster’s life? For me it was a tad depressing. Gee, Forster just became a horny old queen who, when not preoccupied with sex opportunities and masturbation, fired-off some gallant editorials and essays and kept a diary. Okay, I can accept that. No judgment on Forster as a human being. But Moffat strains credulity when she so poorly explores the Bob Buckingham “relationship” . Really, if your bio’s point is to demonstrate how Forster MUST be viewed as gay, first, and human second, then let it all hang out. Forster PAID a working-class man and his wife (and their child!) so that he could have an ongoing sexual dalliance/love affair with the husband. Moffat portrays this “arrangement” as some sort of poignant, deep romance-for-the-ages. Give me a break. Forster was also meddling in another working class man’s marriage (Reg Palmer), so why, if Moffat is emphasizing the all-encompassing Sexuality Motif in her rendering of Forster’s life, did she not explore the obvious? Forster was essentially paying lower classes for the privilege of rather tawdry, complicated lifetime “sex benefits,” and he did this obviously selfishly, but also probably desperately and misguidedly. Moreover, why did Moffat not push her case to the natural biographical conclusion by exploring the very real likelihood that the furtive, repressed Forster was being taken advantage of by some cheesy grifters!? I mean, if you’re writing THAT kind of bio, then write it. Don’t make the Buckinghams seem “artsy” and progressive, while Forster is the interfering baggage. That “arrangement” was clearly a two-way street. That aspect of Moffat’s book was insulting. Explore the Buckinghams as the possible dirtbags they were.Moffat truly bungled matters in that regard and, as a result, I do not (in the end) believe I have been privy to a fullsome, accurate portrayal of Forster. Muddled work, though I must emphasize that it is well-written. I mean, Forster’s spiritual struggles are barely even broached in this bio, and I always thought that Forster’s pseudo-atheism/agnosticism was a stunning, powerful force in his work, his life. As one commentator said, “Morgan didn’t feel the need to believe in God because God was all around him, so familiar to him, that he completely saw no need to believe.”Forster’s struggles in that regard would have been a welcome exploration, here. I don’t mind if he was a bit degenerate; that’s life, that’s humanity. I did not enjoy reading about so many of Forster’s sexual escapades, but if Moffat was going to really make her particular case, she did not seal the deal, if you like. The bio has a distinct truncated aura, along with the other problems I have mentioned, and perhaps I am quite off-base, but such is my opinion.Even so, the book is a “must” for students of Forster. It certainly will not be the definitive treatment, but if you admire Forster and his body of work, this book deserves a place in your library.

⭐This used book was exactly as described by the seller, and I really appreciated the photos of the book that were included in the description so I knew exactly what I was getting – most sellers don’t provide that. Great service, thanks!

⭐I also read the Furbank biography and it too is very good. This biography however gives a more complete picture of E.M. Forster. It includes a lot more detail about his gay life. This is more possible today and there have been additional papers and diaries come available between the two biographies. Without this aspect of Forster the picture is not at all complete. I felt when reading the first biography a number of years ago that Forster came across as a sort of weak mama’s boy. With the more complete picture presented in the new biography he does not come across that way to me at all. Both biographies are good but this second one is the better one in my opinion. E.M. Forster had a very interesting life. I very much enjoyed reading about it. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in E.M. Forster, for anyone who enjoys biographies in general and for anyone interested in gay history.

⭐The week has been happily spent reading Wendy Moffat’s superb new biography of E.M. Forster, A Great Unrecorded History. It’s a cliché to say that a book is revelatory, and it’s a cliché that doesn’t need to be used here, because although there are some new things in it (principally how many lovers Forster had from the mid-1920s: more than you’d probably thought), most of the detail is already known. There is, though, I think something fresh and inspiring about it.Part of the freshness no doubt comes from how well written it is. Moffat writes very engagingly, with care, a good sense of pace, a feel for story-telling and, above all, a sense of human discrimination. (It’s tempting to say that she’s done her subject proud, although I suspect that her subject, who embodied all these values in his own writing, attracted her in the first place – Moffat’s admiration for Forster, while never uncritical or cloying, is clear.)And so although Moffat explores Forster from the potentially crass perspective of his sexuality, the result is believable and convincing. Indeed, instead of the situation described by Forster in A Passage to India – `There is always trouble when two people do not think of sex at the same moment, always mutual resentment and surprise’ – Moffat is persuasive enough to make us believe that this is the sort of biography Forster would have wanted. In 1932 Forster wrote: `I wish I could get [a biography] written about me after I die, but I should want every thing told, everything.’ P.N. Furbank’s excellent 1977-78 biography was that biography, and it was upfront enough about Forster’s homosexuality. Yet since then biographers have been increasingly insistent on exploring the significance of Forster’s sexuality, and Moffat’s is the most tell-all biography yet.Forster’s caveat that a tell-all biography should be published after his death is significant, and surely a key to understanding him. The flipside to the courage Forster displayed in his personal life, amounting at times almost to a sort of gay militancy (Moffat reminds us that Forster died the year after the Stonewall riots), is that he was super-sensitive to the opinion of others, even when he did not respect the moral or intellectual reasoning of those opinions. When a friend encouraged Forster to come out publicly, pointing to the example of André Gide, who had done so, Forster retorted: `But Gide hasn’t got a mother!’ Forster did have a mother, Lily, and even after she died in 1945 he remained cautious, resisting publication of Maurice for fear that it would lead to too much trouble. There’s a passage in The Longest Journey which I think sums up this aspect of Forster well. `Rickie [Forster’s most autobiographical hero] suffered from the Primal Curse, which is not – as the Authorised Version suggests – the knowledge of good and evil, but the knowledge of good-and-evil’; in other words, life, and other people, not in black and white terms, but in connections between people, in not taking sides, in not being left exposed or vulnerable.Moffat handles both sides of Forster sensitively and well. Her biography feels natural because she is aware of the complexity of Forster’s attitude towards his sexuality, and towards the people who surrounded him in life. She allows the contradictions, evasions and inconsistencies to exist without trying to smooth them away or harness them to some agenda.A superb book.

⭐Voyueristic and poor.It is a distasteful postmortem.It has only sensational value and a prying,badly written book.Go in for Furbanks biography of forster

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