Go Fug Yourself Book Club discussion

I am a few days early, but I have a busy week ahead so I am getting on top of this now. Apropos of nothing but further justifying to myself the early post, I have my first in-person panel discussion Wednesday. I am a panelist, so it is not a huge deal, but the last live public speaking I did was in October 2019. Two whole freaking years. I am concerned that I might need a spa weekend, or at least bottomless old-fashioneds after this. I fully expect to be incapable of discussing anything which requires a scintilla of intellectual energy after I am done, so here I am, 4 days early talking about this lovely book.

So I guess that is someplace to start. I am so glad we read this because I really truly loved the read, It was so lovely to watch Lucy come of age, to see her develop a philosophy of life, to question all she knew, to relinquish everything so that she could live life as more that an ornament.

It is easy to forget E.M. Forster was a radical, but he most definitely was. He hung out with Virginia Woolf, he was (obliquely) public about being a homosexual at a time when that was a dangerous choice, he championed gender equality, and he rejected the strictures of upper crust British life in theory if not always in practice. When I read this in my 20's I don't think I realized how revolutionary some of this was. That may be in part because discussion about the rights of workers and women gets mashed up with overly romantic somewhat nauseating messaging about how love is the answer to all things. Anyway, reading this many years later I was astonished by how ahead of its time much of this was. George says that the future must be one in which men and women are equal. This is really quite shocking. More shocking though is the subtle way in which Forster conveys Mr. Beebe's homosexuality, and hints at Cecil's in the early part of the last century. Most shocking perhaps is Lucy's rejection of money and family to run off and find passion with a socialist aesthete. Could anything have been a more clear rejection of the tenets of 1920's British mores? And Forster makes the reader feel good about all this, casting the horrid Charlotte and the effete Cecil as the exemplars of things proper and English and casting the sweet, shy, depressive George and his loving and defiantly innocent father as the exemplars of modern thinking. How could anyone root for Charlotte and Cecil in that matchup?

I know this is primarily a love story, passion over propriety and all that. I love a love story, but honestly reading this as just a love story it doesn't really do it for me. There is, literally, not a single conversation or interaction between George and Lucy that would indicate why he loves her. It is hormones pure and simple. At least Cecil loved her for her music. George thought her beautiful most definitely, he felt her to be in need of his protection (to save her from ugliness like the blood covered postcards.) But George and Lucy never exchange any personal information. Lucy loves George at least in part for his awkward decency shown in the ceding of his rooms and their view and the postcard incident, and for his honesty and spontaneity in expressing his feelings, and hormones too. There is something there in Lucy's regard, but George's regard for Lucy? No. There is not a lot to root for when boiled down to romance. Luckily the book is so much more than that. It is a wonderful and witty slice of life, it is a call for a new day in England, it is an ode to Forster's beloved Italy, and it is a coming of age story (as regards Lucy.) A joy to (re)read.

My one real issue, I still don't get how the scales fell from Cecil's eyes when Lucy broke their engagement. Suddenly he understands it all, he becomes a potentially decent person.. I really want to understand that better.

What say you Fug Nation?

Why am I not swanning around Italy, is what I want to know!

I was delighted to get to reread this book. I only read it for the first time in 2015, so not much changed for me this time around, except for getting to enjoy the little details with full knowledge of the plot (I'd seen the movie before but it was vague in my memory).

I agree the love story is the least justified part of it! My interpretation is that they discovered a similarity of spirit, someone experiencing the world in the same way -- and yes, hormones -- and that just doesn't seem like a solid foundation for a marriage, but what do I know? I'll root for them anyway. Good luck, kids!

I enjoy the sharpness of Forster's voice and how passionate the book is about its subversiveness. Lucy and George riding the swell of their feelings mirrors the swell of social change that fills out the book. The modern reader can see how prophetic it is, which is a layer of the experience not available to its contemporaries. It greets the 20th century with joy.

I think Cecil is the target of a morality play, in a way. He gets to become aware of his sins and repent them. He does have a fair point that Lucy could've said something earlier and salvaged the relationship, but of course, she didn't actually want to. And everyone gets redeemed in this book, including Charlotte and Miss Lavish for potentially having been accessories to romance.

I kind of just want to sum up this book with an "Ugh, MEN." 'Cause it's like poor Lucy just escaped a fiance that wouldn't stop telling her what she was feeling or how she should be, and then guy-she-kissed-in-Italy-once's DAD is like, "Oh but you love my son, I know you do even though you say you don't, because I am a man and obviously what I think is more important than what you think."

But I struggle a lot with interpreting satire, so I'm not 100% sure that Forster's not just fucking with me, but I don't know how else to read this. It definitely picked up and got way more interesting in the second half, once Lucy and Charlotte left Italy. (HOW on earth did Forster manage to make an Italian vacation sound so dull!? I'm with Sara, I would be thrilled to swan about in Italy!) I don't know how I feel about Charlotte - she never came across as entirely sympathetic even on her best pages, and her meddling and wishy-washy-ness was annoying to me (maybe because I also have family members that are like this lol.)

Also, how awesome would it have been if, instead of elderly spinster sisters, the Miss Alans had in fact been life partners that just couldn't be out because of Victorian Constraints or whatever.

Bonnie, in regard to Cecil's response after Lucy breaks it off with him ... I don't know that I entirely buy it. He wanted to save the relationship, perhaps he would have said anything to get her back, only to slowly revert back into what he was before. It seemed too sudden and out of character, for me at least. I don't know men who make huge changes to their thinking or attitudes without at least having to think about how they feel about it (outside the moment of the conversation) first?

Allie wrote: "I kind of just want to sum up this book with an "Ugh, MEN." 'Cause it's like poor Lucy just escaped a fiance that wouldn't stop telling her what she was feeling or how she should be, and then guy-s..."

I am pretty sure out and proud ladyfriends would have been a bridge too far when this was published in 1908 - such a thing would have been criminal indecency (and no one would have published.) I think a lot of spinster sisters/cousins of that era were likely not related at all and were lesbians. Honestly, even if they were not lesbians they lived in committed relationships with women. I often find the spinsters to be the most intriguing characters in books from the late 19th and early 20th.

We had such a different reading experience! I love the part in Italy.. It is not really about Italy, but a satirical comic look at the horrible moneyed British, Forster pounded on how they deny anything human, how they they see the world only as a point of comparison to England (of course with England and its maniacal Victorian repression as the platonic ideal.) Charlotte and Miss Lavish and of course the old priest (I have forgotten his name) are absurd - one further step would pitch them from satire into melodrama and then it would be less fun. (Forster was an avowed aesthete, a sensualist, who saw the rutting coachman and the murderous vendors as the ideal, and that fetishization of the passionate hot-blooded Italians is a also problematic of course.) I will say that though Charlotte was absurd, unlike the others of the party Forster painted her sympathetically. There were not many options for spinsters dependent upon family members for support so Charlotte's obsession with getting everything "right" in chaperoning Lucy was really a matter of survival. If she messed up and did not have the support and protection of Lucy's mother who knows what she would have had to do to stay alive.

I am in for the swanning around Italy btw. I always love to explore new places when I travel, but when this Covid crap is under control my first trips are to Paris and Rome and perhaps some quiet time in Aix en Provence -- the comfort and beauty of old favorites all the way. And no one-week vacation either. A proper getaway! One cannot swan in a week.

Sara wrote: "Lucy and George riding the swell of their feelings mirrors the swell of social change that fills out the book...."

Yes Sara, this exactly! I had not even thought of them as the symbols of a new era, the Mr. and Mrs. Baby New Year, if you will. That is dead on! And the book is indeed optimistic about the future. More often than not satire has a sourness to it, but this book is the opposite. It is a declaration of hope. I really love that.

...that just doesn't seem like a solid foundation for a marriage, but what do I know? I'll root for them anyway. Good luck, kids!
I chose my husband for reasons entirely practical and I am divorced. What do I know. Let love rule! Your and E.M. Forster's irrepressible optimism has swayed me. (But it has not swayed me that Miss Lavish is redeemed, despite having inadvertently played Cupid.)

Your comments really shifted the way I see this book, Sara. Thank you! Also, I recommend you go back and watch the movie. I did that and it is still absolutely bloody charming!

I don't have much to add. I only lasted as long as the murder. To borrow from one of Allie's updates, I found it tedious. I enjoyed the movie adaptation much more. The extended male nudity was quite something.

Bonnie G. wrote: "Also, I recommend you go back and watch the movie. I did that and it is still absolutely bloody charming!."

It's definitely on the todo list!

Like Alicia I did find it a bit tedious, but I'm not sure if it was the book itself or the fact I did it by audiobook and it wasn't the great recording (the reader was rather monotone). I was intrigued by some things so perhaps if I had actually read it, I would have enjoyed it more. Also perhaps if I knew more of the back story of Foster and how revolutionary it was for the time. I definitely missed some of the themes mentioned in these comments. I shall have to hunt down the movie.

And I too wish I could be swanning around Italy or the English countryside (or really anywhere).

I loved this! I didn't realise it was so funny - I saw the movie in my teens and don't remember humour.

I can pretty much singlehandedly thank this book for my semester abroad in Florence. For that, I will always be grateful! Fiesole - the site of the picnic - really is stunning and while I was not swept away by a handsome and deep man in a field during my visits, I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

The book is really hard for me to look at with clear eyes even though my 40 something self reacts to it really differently than my 16 year old one did.

Alicia wrote: "I loved this! I didn't realise it was so funny - I saw the movie in my teens and don't remember humour."

It is funny! There was a quiet humor present in the movie, particularly with respect to anything involving Cyril and/or Charlotte.

Has anyone read Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan? It’s a modern retelling. I think I have a soft spot for A Room with a View based on my affection for a Helena Bonham-Carter and her amazing hair.

Alison wrote: "Has anyone read Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan? It’s a modern retelling. I think I have a soft spot for A Room with a View based on my affection for a Helena Bonham-Carter and her amazing hair."

That hair! I also love HBC, but really it is a great film. Though some changes are made to suit the medium it is also i think very true to the book.

I loved Crazy Rich Asians, but found both the succeeding books absolutely unreadable, mostly due to the endless label whoredom. In the first book it seemed tongue in cheek, a statement about Singaporean upper-class life (an accurate statement in my experience of Singapore) as seen through the lens of a person who does not define herself by what people know she owns. The later books just seemed like a celebration of conspicuous consumption. Given that, do you think I would like Sex and Vanity?

CDB wrote: "I can pretty much singlehandedly thank this book for my semester abroad in Florence. For that, I will always be grateful! Fiesole - the site of the picnic - really is stunning and while I was not s..."

What a wonderful thing for the book to have wrought! I say the same thing about On the Road. I read it as an adult and hated it, but when I read it at 15 it changed my life. That book led me to take several long road trips across the country and then take two years after college to travel with no money and no plans (I did it in Asia instead of the US). It was the best thing I ever did for myself. For that reason I love On the Road, regardless of what my present self thinks about the book.

Bonnie G. wrote: "CDB wrote: "I can pretty much singlehandedly thank this book for my semester abroad in Florence. For that, I will always be grateful! Fiesole - the site of the picnic - really is stunning and while..."

My freshman year in college I was quite enamored of Kerouac and On the Road specifically and the Beats generally. Now that I'm in my 50s I know that I don't want to go back and reread OTR or any of the other novels/poems because I'll cringe for my young self!

Lisa wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "CDB wrote: "I can pretty much singlehandedly thank this book for my semester abroad in Florence. For that, I will always be grateful! Fiesole - the site of the picnic - really is ..."

You are very wise! I regret returning.

I have read Sex and Vanity! I enjoyed it in a frothy escapism kind of way, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

I am a sucker for modern adaptations of books I love, and yet rarely think they’re actually very good. (Any exceptions people would recommend?!)

CDB wrote: "I have read Sex and Vanity! I enjoyed it in a frothy escapism kind of way, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

I am a sucker for modern adaptations of books I love, and yet rarely think th..."

I really loved Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice but I know its a controversial opinion.

Bonnie G. wrote: "CDB wrote: "I have read Sex and Vanity! I enjoyed it in a frothy escapism kind of way, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

I am a sucker for modern adaptations of books I love, and yet rar..."

I love this book, too. I'm bummed that they stopped "The Austen Project" series after their most successful adaptation.

I love Bridget Jones's Diary so much. I'm having a hard time thinking of other non-Jane Austen modernizations that I've read.

Alicia wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "CDB wrote: "I have read Sex and Vanity! I enjoyed it in a frothy escapism kind of way, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

I am a sucker for modern adaptations of books I..."

There is The Wide Sargasso Sea which is a modern retelling of Jane Eyre (and which I clearly am not smart enough to appreciate). A Thousand Acres which is King Lear on the Prairie. (Also not for me.) March, which is Geraldine Brooks take on Little Women (didn't love it -- and didn't finish it.) The Hours was a reframing of Mrs. Dalloway (it was okay.) Zadie Smith's On Beauty is an update of Howard's End (that one I liked!) I am sure there are lots more.

Movies, not books, but I adore Clueless (Emma), 10 Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew) and Easy A (The Scarlet Letter.)

I just finished the audiobook and it made me want to go to Florence and meet random travellers but the love story was little stilted in my opinion and I think I will have to see how it translates to the movie!

Bonnie G. wrote: "Alison wrote: "Has anyone read Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan? It’s a modern retelling. I think I have a soft spot for A Room with a View based on my affection for a Helena Bonham-Carter and her amaz..."

There was a lot of mentions of whores in this I think as well. Also I tend to get bored/irritated by 'modern retellings' which aren't that different from the original. (Don't get me started on Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart).

(((heading off to check out Genuine Fraud)))

CDB wrote: "I have read Sex and Vanity! I enjoyed it in a frothy escapism kind of way, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.

I am a sucker for modern adaptations of books I love, and yet rarely think th..."

Written recently but not set now, I loved Longbourn

Bonnie G. wrote: "(((heading off to check out Genuine Fraud)))"

Don't do it to yourself! Just go straight to the Talented Mr Ripley (you can even cheat and watch the cinematic masterpiece of Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow)

Alison wrote: "Bonnie G. wrote: "(((heading off to check out Genuine Fraud)))"

Don't do it to yourself! Just go straight to the Talented Mr Ripley (you can even cheat and watch the cinematic masterpiece of Matt ..."
I have read and seen both of those excellent things. Had no idea there was a remake. Also, has anyone been more beautiful than Goop and Jude Law were in that movie. Dayum!