“No Baedeker Needed”

Some Thoughts on E.M. Forster’s, A Room with a View

What is this place that we have found ourselves in? It is so very different from anything we have ever known. It is beautiful, yet frightening; overwhelming to our senses. It is loud and pushy, violent with emotion, forcing us to action. It is real and full of life. All of this is Italy.

Perhaps Miss Lavish was right when she told Lucy to do away with her Baedeker. Why should we be told what to think? Where to go? Why should it all be spelled out for us? Why should we only visit the places referred to in our guidebooks? What if we went off the beaten path? What if instead we witness a murder after buying some postcards? Or experience a passionate kiss after wandering into a field of violets?

I actually looked on eBay for an antique Baedeker. I have a whole collection of books about Italy and what a welcome addition an early 1900s guidebook to Italy would be! I found one, perhaps the exact one Miss Honeychurch had taken from her. I wondered what history the pages would hold? I thought, for a moment, a book like this could transport me to another time and place. I tried to think of myself as an early 1900s woman, fresh for an adventure. And then I realized how very different things were back then. It was a different time, one where women would not be allowed to say too much or feel too much. A time my own grandmothers called their own. Yes, things were on the verge of changing. Even within the tiny frazioni of southern Italy, where ancient traditions prevailed, our grandmothers were beginning to form a voice and soon these whispers became a lion’s roar. The world was opening up for them. They heard of faraway places where people could be whomever they wanted to be and make their own choices.

Forster imparts, through the pages of “A Room with a View,” that we all have a lens through which we see the world. British society of the early 1900s was extremely rigid and there was no breaking of conventions allowed. The Emersons disrupted these conventions at every turn. They spoke without airs or pretense to them—here it all is!—good or bad, whether you like it or not. To be alive is first and foremost and merely breathing is not enough to be truly alive. The raw beauty of Italy forces visitors to experience Life. And sometimes what we see on the outsider of our windows has the power to change the course of things forever. It is up to us to see this and to act.