A Room with a View

Part One of E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View stages Italy as a space which wrings the truth out of what Holden Caulfield would call the “phonies” of a “pension” at the Bertolini Hotel in Florence. In a space both the location of self-conscious touristic colonization and claims about the exotic and adventurous as distinctly different from this touristic territory, the ways in which the figures of A Room with a View encounter the landscape, people, and art of Italy defines them, and not Italy. None of the pension members make a mark on Italy; it’s Italy that makes their characters visible and highlights the irrationality behind English society. By far the most interesting moments are between George and Lucy, the understated and awkward romantic basis for the novel, particularly when George throws Lucy’s blood-stained photographs into the Arno, and when he kisses her in violet-filled field. The flower-strewn landscape makes Lucy ecstatic and inspires George to “insult” her. The photographs are the only time where the English make an impact on Italy itself. The photographs, (mis)representations of Italy, are ruined by Italian blood, spilled over a 5 pound note, and thus must return to the river and away from sensitive English eyes. Miss Lavish attempts to pen a romantic Italian novel, but instead operates only as a conglomeration of what appears to the English mind as alternative and radical, when really she is only a stereotype. I’m also interested in how Lucy encounters art in Italy, how she becomes more self-conscious of her enjoyment of her own piano playing and at the same time is only interested in being pointed in the direction of the “important” pieces of art/history. In my own experience here, we’re the site of entertainment. I have loved the tours we’ve had with Daniella and Domitzia, but they make me feel like I should be self-conscious of my tourism, when really I feel most like a tourist when I’m out at a bar…dancing on a bar. Going wild, being adventurous, isn’t this just another type of tourism?